the Univer-Soul Awakens

From the emergence of life on earth eons ago, to the complex biosphere that we are members of on this blue speck of planetary dust that we call home, to the globalized techno-sphere that we have become in the early twenty-first century, to where do we journey now? On this geo-sphere we currently inhabit, societies are becoming enmeshed into a unified global whole thanks to the growing proliferation of the Internet. With access to unfathomable new levels of information that flow as never before, this technology connects us literally as a worldwide web, raising and reflecting both the commonality of our human experiences and their diverse expressions. The Internet offers us ways to appreciate, share, and enhance universal values while learning to celebrate and honor our differences. It also, without precedent, enables us to come together at moments of great inspiration and joy or of deep sorrow.

Like no other tool we have created before, it reveals what has been, what is, and what may be, for good or otherwise, encouraging and even leaving us no choice but to collectively open our eyes to a world previously unimagined. What we are willing to comprehend, how we choose to respond, and to what degree we’re prepared to participate in being agents of the change that is occurring, with or without us, is entirely at our discretion.

Nearly a century ago, visionaries like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ëdouard Le Roy, and Vladimir Vernadsky, were dreaming great dreams about the future of humanity, envisioning a potential for our increasingly complex, entangled world to evolve toward a unified human and essentially planetary consciousness. The emerging techno-sphere that they likely never envisioned is becoming the dreamed-of path that enables the whole of humanity to see itself from a more integral perspective, forcing each of us to ask the fundamental existential whys and why nots anew, and positioning us within the much wider context of reality itself.

Teilhard, Le Roy, and Vernadsky dreamed of a world which would experience the power of love being victorious over the forces of fear. Teilhard considered that “love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world. . . . Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.”

As the techno-sphere continues to expand our understanding that we are but a small part of one grand cosmic hologram, we begin to approach the fulfillment of Teilhard's dream. At the same time, as we increasingly become aware of the dangers of global breakdown, we must unite as a single human family and act inclusively with justice and compassion toward each other, taking better care for our one and only home on this planet. As we approach the hundredth anniversary of the farsighted vision of Teilhard, Le Roy, and Vernadsky, we must quickly overcome the fear and denial that holds us back and finally cross the approaching critical threshold of our evolution to embrace our awaiting potential.