A Crisis of Perception
Transcending the illusion of separateness to discern the unity, the unbroken wholeness, from which emerge the diverse forms of existence
The scale of human enterprise has become so large that it is now threatening to seriously degrade or destroy the life-support systems that sustain it (see www.worldwatch.org). Humanity is driving changes in a number of very complex systems (ecological and economic, for example) that are interacting in complex and often unpredictable ways with potentially disastrous consequences. “Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it” (Bohm 1982). In many parts of the world these problems have become crises, and many are convinced that the decisions we make as a society at this critical point will have a major impact on the quality (or possibility) of life for future generations.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the major problems facing humanity — overpopulation, poverty, inequity, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, ethnic conflicts, environmental degradation, crime, and social decay — are interconnected and interdependent. They are systemic problems that are impossible to address in isolation; they require an integration and transcendence of existing boundaries of knowledge (Costanza et al. 1997; Capra 1996; 1982; Bohm 1982). Physicist Fritjof Capra observes that “ultimately these problems must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most of us, and especially our large social institutions, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world” (1996, 4). The pervasive Cartesian worldview of scientific materialism, which views the cosmos as a vast machine composed of independent, externally related pieces (Capra 1982), promotes fragmentation in our thinking and perception.
Physicist David Bohm asserts that the root cause of this crisis of perception lies in our habit of seeing and experiencing ourselves and our world as constituted of separately existent fragments. “The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.” This fragmentation is “continually being brought about by the almost universal habit of taking the content of our thought for a description of the world as it is” (Bohm 1982, 2). The differences and distinctions that pervade our thinking are taken to be real divisions of an external world, so that the world is experienced as actually broken up into fragments.
Alfred North Whitehead describes the effect of this “error of misplaced concreteness” on the development of the discipline of economics, observing that “it riveted on men a certain set of abstractions which were disastrous in their effect on modern mentality” (1925, 200). Herman Daly and John Cobb (1989) describe a number of these misleading abstractions in detail, including the conceptualizations of nature as “land,” humans as “homo economicus,” social dynamics as “market,” and social welfare as “GNP.” The field of ecological economics is dedicated to addressing these errors by assuming a “broad, ecological, interdisciplinary, and holistic view of the problem of studying and managing our world” (Costanza 1989; emphasis added).
This divisive, compartmentalized thinking creates alienation and selffocused behavior. Albert Einstein explains that a human being is part of the whole called by us “universe.” A part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires, and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion, to embrace all living creatures in the whole of nature and its beauty. (quoted in Goldstein [1976] 1987)
This widening of our “circle of understanding and compassion” requires a new mode of perception that transcends the illusion of separateness to discern the unity, the unbroken wholeness, from which emerge the diverse forms of existence. This awakened perception gives rise to a more integrative, holistic, and ecological perception of the cosmos. Capra asserts that this emerging holistic worldview, which he calls “deep ecological awareness,” “recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies, we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical processes of nature” (1996, 6). Although this vision can be elaborated through science, its principal grounding is in spiritual experience. It will require an integrated epistemology that embraces both the rational knowledge of scientific empiricism and the inner knowledge of spiritual experience.
“Ultimately, deep ecological awareness is spiritual or religious awareness. When the concept of the human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels a sense of belonging, of connectedness, to the cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest essence.
It is not surprising that the emerging new vision of reality based on deep ecological awareness is consistent with the so-called Perennial Philosophy of spiritual traditions, whether we talk about the spirituality of Christian mystics, that of Buddhists, or the philosophy and cosmology underlying the Native American traditions.” (Capra 1996, 7)
This “deep ecological awareness” fosters a vision of the cosmos as fundamentally sacred. The Science of Illumination describes the contributions of both modern science and contemplative spirituality to this ecological vision, coming to the conclusion that spiritual awakening promotes a profound sense of earth stewardship that can form the foundation of a new ecological ethic.
References
See separate References blog post.
