The Invisible Dimensions of Systems Transformation: Field Notes from Social Field Cultivation in the Law and Justice Sector in India

Highlighting Manish Srivastava’s recent article in the Journal for Awareness Based Systems Change, Vol. 5, Issue 1.

Manish Srivastava writes:

“Several years ago, I was invited to design a rural marketing hub for grassroots women entrepreneurs in India. Fourteen leaders from various businesses and social enterprises/NGOs sat across two round tables. Each table was given a flip chart and asked to build two 3-dimensional models of the hub using Lego blocks, clay, pipe cleaners, and pebbles.The table of business executives quickly collaborated on a single joint model. However, the table of NGO leaders and social entrepreneurs hesitated, then tore the chart paper into eight pieces, each building their own model with limited resources. Concerned they had misunderstood, I offered a fresh sheet and encouraged them to create a joint model. To my surprise, they resisted, insisting their approaches were too different to unify. As I stood between the two tables, they mirrored a deeper systemic challenge: the stark contrast between monolithic business and government institutions that default to centralized power and a fragmented civil society sector struggling to build collective agency. When I shared the story in another cross-sectoral forum, a young district collector readily agreed, “It’s so difficult to bring NGOs together to make any change happen.” My friends from the NGO sector echo this frustration, pointing to deep cracks in the field — competition driven by limited funding, donor-imposed thematic silos, and the relentless pressure on social entrepreneurs to prove their models.

One leading entrepreneur admitted he spends 75% of his time fundraising. Another young woman broke down, confessing she’s been so caught up in this race that she has not visited the community in three years. The result? A sector too consumed by survival to see the whole picture — small wins, but a more significant collective loss, with leaders burning out before systemic change can take hold. All this while the Earth heats up and communities suffer. Significant efforts have been made in the past decade to bring diverse actors together for collective impact, giving rise to a new breed of organizations — Field Catalysts (FCs)(Hussein et al., 2018). These include multi-stakeholder partnerships, social innovator fellowships, funding-driven collaborations, cause-driven compacts, institutional coordination frameworks, and business or policy-led alliances. Over the last 20 years, I have had the opportunity to work with many such organizations and have been inspired by their genuine efforts to convene stakeholders and foster difficult conversations. Some even create deep relational spaces in small groups. Yet, most struggle to build lasting collaborations that sustain long enough to transform entire systems. While there are remarkable examples, the field on the whole remains fragile and fragmented.

An Invisible Dimension: Insights from Social Presencing Theater and Theory U

“Learning Social Presencing Theater (SPT) with Arawana Hayashi gave me a language and practice for exploring this phenomenon (Hayashi, n.d.). SPT is a social art form that integrates mindfulness, movement, contemplative theater, and systems thinking to help us embody and sense the “stuckness” and emerging future of any social system. Through SPT, I experienced two key aspects of a social ecosystem — the Social Body and the Social Field. In any social system, whether a family, a group of teenagers, an organizational team, or a network of stakeholders, the Social Body refers to the visible structure: how we gather, our physical positions, levels, proximity, and directions.

The Social Field, on the other hand, is the invisible, felt-experience of relationships — how members of a social body connect with each other and the space as a whole (Hayashi, 2021). Otto C. Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer explore this theme in their new book, Presencing: 7 Practices For Transforming Self, Society, And Business — “A social field has a visible part aboveground (the tangible part of the system) and an invisible part below the surface: the social soil — that is, the qualities of awareness and relationships that people in a system operate from” (Scharmer & Kaufer, 2025, p. 3). This insight helped me recognize the struggles of many field catalysts, communities of practice (CoPs), and organizations that focus primarily on building visible structures while neglecting the invisible social field. While “structural” efforts like stakeholder engagement, leverage-point identification, data gathering, and policy-building are essential, their sustainable success depends on cultivating an often-overlooked social field — the invisible relational fabric that shapes the quality and impact of collective work.

Arawana Hayashi further adds that “awareness” is what weaves the social body and social field together. In the Indian spiritual context, this may be referred to as our collective consciousness or how we collectively become aware of the visible and invisible dimensions of the social phenomenon. As our quality of awareness shifts from viewing others as competition or resources for our ego-driven agendas to recognizing each other as integral parts of the whole, the social field also transforms from being fragmented or transactional to becoming caring and transformational.”

Inspiration (What Keeps Us Going)

Manish writes: “Over the last seven years, we have embarked on immersive year-long journeys with six cohorts, each culminating in collective gatherings (reunions) that nourish the field. Today, we are a closely-knit community of over 100 changemakers — committed to each other’s successes, rapidly sharing ideas, and showing up for one another through personal and professional challenges. This deep trust and selfless spirit to serve the sector’s transformation are contagious, shaping our gatherings in ways we could never have imagined. We continue to show up as ecosystem stewards at large community learning forums like the Agami Summit and Mela, strengthening our collective impact.

It’s heartening to see how participants join Agamishaala as seeds or trees and, over the long journey, transform into thriving forests. Many of them find a newfound assurance in sharing that: I am not just a small player; I can see my role in shaping and serving the whole ecosystem, and I can also appreciate others’ contributions. Some participants have also undergone profound shifts in their roles, moving from enterprise leaders to ecosystem conveners.

For instance, Akshay Roongta, a startup founder, discovered how he could expand his role to help social impact networks convene better. The journey inspired him to co-initiate the Alliance for Conserving Freshwater Ecosystems to bring focus, collective effort, and action to protect and conserve inland water ecosystems in India. Numerous bilateral collaborations and partnerships have emerged along the way where members support or join others to expand their ecosystem impact. One such example is Rohit Sharma, who co-founded Awaaz Leadership Labs with support from Anshul Tiwari and fellow Agamishaala members to build an ecosystem where law students can bring fresh ideas to transform the field of law and justice. Agamishaala has played a pivotal role in catalyzing multi-stakeholder collaborative innovations, unlocking collective agency.

One such initiative, PUCAR (Public Collective for Avoidance and Resolution of Disputes), is transforming the dispute resolution experience of every Indian through many innovations, including Indian’s first 24x7 ON Court in Kochi (PUCAR, n.d.). PUCAR initiative emerged from the social field cultivated by Agamishaala to address the unparalleled crisis that India’s judicial system faces with over 58.4 million cases pending nationwide, as reported by The Hindu (The Hindu Bureau, 2024).

Social Presencing Theater and Parts of a Whole

Manish introduces Social Presencing Theater, or SPT, as a practice that allows participants to sense and embody the larger system: “Social Presencing Theater… allows participants to see, sense, and embody the whole system deeply. Through practices like 4D Mapping, individuals step into the roles of various stakeholders — not just observing but feeling their struggles, aspirations, and interconnectedness.” This awareness expands perspective and can foster agency:

“Seeing and sensing the whole ecosystem works at multiple levels. One, the participants become aware of their role and responsibility in shaping the whole. This activates their personal agency. They also start appreciating how others are contributing to the journey, and this creates the basis for collaboration. Finally, they can rest in this awareness that they are not alone in transforming the ecosystem and this creates a sense of collective well-being.”

Manish writes that one participant shared: “Noticing myself as a part of a social body has become a central part of my work… Social body awareness has helped me stay calm and avoid frustration or agitation when things don’t go according to plan. I feel much more at ease.” (Dialogue Interview, April 18, 2024).

Srivastava writes:

“Members not only sense their role in the ecosystem; they become the ecosystem. This shifts identity from isolated actors to a collective social body — a forest of solidarity.”

Ecosystem Consciousness and Collective Agency

Embodied practices can shift identity and leadership roles. One participant describes how the Stuck and Seed Dance practices redefined his path:

“The Stuck exercise had a direct impact on my work as a leader. I started delegating more and letting go. The Stepping into the Future (Seed Dance) helped me clarify my role as a connector between various domains and organizations. It inspired me to renegotiate my role from being a facilitator of a project to becoming a partner and weaver.” (Dialogue Interview, April 15, 2024).

Manish describes other participants distinguishing between performance and embodiment:

“One of the most powerful takeaways for me was the insight that embodying is different from enacting. I have learned to embody my profession as a lawyer and researcher, to embody the theory. I am able to perceive and go several levels deeper” (Dialogue Interview, April 18, 2024).

Manish names this central shift:

“A social field becomes truly regenerative when it taps into a deep source of collective renewal and unlocks its collective agency. Over the years with Agami, I feel that the regenerative source of a social field lies in its connection with the collective heart.”

The Collective Heart

Manish describes that the heartfulness of Agamishaala is visible in how participants collectively face histories of injustice. Srivastava recalls the Agami Mela in Bhopal, convened on the 40th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy:

“A spontaneous and intense dialogue emerged, confronting unresolved questions about the gross injustice caused by the tragedy — surfacing deep anger, naming unspoken truths, exposing the failures of capitalist institutions, the State, and development organizations, while recognizing the vital yet often overlooked role of movement-based groups in demanding accountability.”

Rather than dividing into sides, participants committed to staying with one another in the discomfort:

“We did not dismiss anything others said. We did not make it about us versus them. We were all collectively committed to listening to each other in the face of confrontation and creating a new kind of field” (Dialogue Interview, March 20, 2025).

Manish describes this as the wisdom of the “third being:”

“In such a friendship, there is the wisdom of the third. Apart from you and me, there is a third being or the field itself… We are able to settle in silence with this awareness of the third being. The quality of relationships that we cultivate is the game changer for cultivating the social field.”

Cultivating a Regenerative Ecosystem

Manish outlines three practices for ecosystem stewardship:

1. Create spaces for cross-pollination and innovation through community events like Agamishaala United, coaching circles, and informal gatherings.
2. Allow for emergence, resisting the urge to control outcomes or pursue scale.
3. He writes: “True regeneration happens when we step back and allow it to unfold organically. This requires us to let go of outcomes, anxieties, and expectations.”

“Systems change is not about speed but depth. Just as a forest takes time to regenerate, cultivating a social field requires patience. Much like the mycelial networks beneath a thriving forest, most of our work — nearly 80% — remains unseen. The deep cultivation of the social field happens out of sight, yet we live in a world driven by fundable, tangible actions.”

Manish’s highlights the invisible labor, time, and humility required for authentic transformation.

“We must remember that we are in service of a wild, self-sustaining forest — not a carefully manicured garden in a private valley.”

Manish emphasizes the importance of “layered containers” that hold this work — facilitation teams, returning participants, the larger Agami community, funders, and wider partners. Each layer strengthens the collective field. This approach, he writes, brings “tremendous humility….it brings deep reverence for the Earth and all the beings who are creating this experience. I realise that I am only a small player in the larger ecosystem. Yet I’m significant and the choices I make have an impact.”

The seed opened its heart,
Held me gently in his palms
And said, “We have all we need —
The soft soil and the warm sun —
Will nurture our soul
You and I make each other whole
Let us trust the longing to be free
And serve the world
By being the plant
We were born to be”
— Manish Srivastava, Midnight Journey of a Seed: Pathways to Resilience in the Face of a Crisis

The full text, “The Invisible Dimensions of Systems Transformation,” appears in Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, Volume 5, Issue 1, and is best encountered in Manish’s own voice. Read more here.

See more insights on observations on how a social field shifts… link… article

• Video introducing Agamishala (2021)- https://youtu.be/8gdwz-1eIRo?si=NmJDc1Yhq-Gb3VIL
• Video capturing the experiences and inner shifts of participants from 2023 cohort- https://youtu.be/nxPXlNbPxVY?si=T12EA4DU0k9rpDj_
• Tuning Into the Collective Heart: Reflections on Agami Mela gathering of 700+ justicemakers https://sacredwell.in/2024/12/25/tuning-into-the-collective-heart/

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