‘We’-thinkers maintain their hard-won intellectual and emotional freedoms while connecting with the greater whole. Tijn Touber’s column.
My friend Jaap has written a book about the transition that we, world citizens, are now facing: the transition to thinking in terms of ‘we’. In other words, inclusive thinking, or transcending contrasts such as white/black, Muslim/Hindu, man/woman, North/South, etc. This is no easy matter and links up perfectly with my recent adventures in the world of the Zero Point Field (see Ode, November 2003) where everything is linked to everything else and there is little room for contradiction. It was time to go for a walk on the beach.
On the beach Jaap explained that ‘we thinkers’ have transcended the individualistic age without returning to the herd mentality on which religions and totalitarian systems have taken out a patent. ‘We thinkers’ preserve their acquired intellectual and emotional freedom while at the same time opting for a commitment to care for the whole.
When this quantum leap in thinking takes place, East and West merge as one resulting in true cosmopolitanism. The Eastern herd instinct – with gurus, ayatollahs and priests who tell us how to live – is transcended by a powerful dose of Western individual consciousness. While Western individualistic thinking, from which the elements of trust and surrender have disappeared, is modified with a large dose of Eastern enlightenment.
Does this mean we have found our balance? Yes, but only if we include all the aspects of humanity: thinking (West), feeling (South), doing (North) and transcending (East). Jaap told me that he had met (Eastern) enlightened masters who sometimes behaved like spoiled children. Recently a book was published on Japanese Zen masters who had called the Jews inferior during the Second World War and had gladly supported the German war machine. Is it possible to be spiritually enlightened whilst mentally trapped in a dark tunnel? In my life I had also come across intellectuals who refuse to feel, emotional people who won’t think logically and doers who have no spiritual or moral intention whatsoever.
However, if we are to achieve ‘we’, then we will have to strike a balance between IQ, (intelligence quotient), EQ (emotional intelligence), SQ (spiritual intelligence) and the new CQ (collective intelligence).
How long will it take for us to reach the ‘we age’? How long will it take before believers no longer leap into the river simply because their guru tells them to? How much water will have to flow through the Thames before Europeans stop minding ‘their own bloody business’? How much higher will sea levels rise before we stop committing murder in the name of God? How long before we are really we?
It all depends on how soon we reach equilibrium and develop collective intelligence. We can achieve this by learning to attune ourselves to the collective field of all wisdom and experience – the Zero Point Field. This will help us integrate old experiences and evolve to the next level, where ‘I’ and ‘them’ become ‘we’.
