It was revealing to search out the dictionary definitions of efficiency.

Oxford concise Science Dictionary: a measure of performance of a machine, engine etc being the ratio of the energy or power it delivers to the energy or power fed to it. In general the efficiency of a machine varies with the conditions under which it operates.

Oxford concise dictionary: state of quality of being efficient: ratio of useful work done to total energy expended or heat taken in; productive of effect (of person) competent, capable; that which makes a thing

The New Elizabethan reference dictionary: causing or producing effects or results; competent, capable; efficient cause: the power or agency producing a thing or event.

Given that efficiency is a foundational value in western societies what is beginning to emerge in this unfolding enquiry is that efficiency has been quietly taken by interest groups and defined in their own specific value based contexts. In economics as in western and now many Eastern societies  it has come to describe material economic growth.

Classical economic theory refers to efficiency as an economic system operating under perfect conditions: perfect information and perfect competition. This has morphed in the 20 th century into the academic theory of efficient market hypothesis that has become a belief system and mantra for many who work in the financial markets, free market think tanks and in politics.  The efficient market theory assumes the market always knows best as it has access to perfect information and therefore knows better than any one individual. This has morphed again into the fashionable theory of the wisdom of crowds with one glaring example of such a “wise crowd” being stock markets.  

I was in one of fmy avourite local bookshops this week and saw the recently published book entitled “Albert Camus -elements of a life” by Robert Zaretsky. Having been deeply drawn to Albert Camus books in my youth I skimmed the book and had to buy it. Camus was to me the French George Orwell – The writings of and about these two giants are worth re visiting on a regular basis. More opens up to me on each reading.

Iris Murdoch wrote “moral improvement is improvement of vision” and this applied to Camus context for life. Camus life was about being this process itself not any end point- always uneasy, “aspiring towards something that transcends the human”, engaging with life despite man’s relationship with the universe creating absurdity and that such absurdity was not an inherent part of the universe itself. Camus said in the Myth of the Sisyphus, ”the absurd depends as much on man as on the world.” He said seeing the absurdity didn’t necessarily result in nihilism- The ability to see the absurdity in this way, requires moral effort. Camus said, “all I can hope to do is to show that generous forms of behavior can be generated without God and that man alone in the universe can create his own values. This is in my opinion the sole problem posed by our era.”

What if we look at efficiency from the Murdoch -Camus perspective: moral improvement which comes from improvement in vision? That can be the first step we human beings can take to become morally and spiritually efficient human beings and therefore create a never endingly efficient evolutionary life creating process. We then understand that the natural relationship to our experience and life is to feel as did Camus, forever uneasy as our main intention is always being interested in improving the vision of the evolving life process itself. We have no sense of the future and yet yearn to be creating the future in very moment. What has struck me from the book on Camus mentioned previously, is that he was awake to the dimension of spirit- initially from his childhood when looking through his window into the night sky. Here in his childhood, he says he discovered two worlds- material poverty (he had a harsh and spare childhood) and spiritual wealth. He was awake to the universe and the man’s relationship to it.

From my experience Andrew Cohen is one of leading edge philosophers and visionary’s of the 21 st century that has provided me with a rational and practical context for making sense of the spiritual dimension and spiritual experiences. His awareness of the deepest reality of self in action (the evolutionary process) and the moral consequences of experiencing that deeper reality of who I am in action (the other face of deepest self being discovered in meditation- self in inaction) provides the context for re defining the concept of everything and in this post, efficiency.

My own conviction is if the human being’s sense of self orientation or centre of gravity moves from a separate material self to a spiritual self that sees itself as the evolutionary process, that would result in not just an efficient human being but consequently an efficient evolutionary process.

Such a human being is evolving in very moment not for themselves( although that is a byproduct) but so that the evolutionary process , the big bang itself , that ultimate source of the YES to life , evolves to higher and higher levels of integration and harmony, forever……

Such a human being is “improving their vision”, at the emotional-psychological, philosophical, spiritual, ethical-moral levels- The Do it yourself steps to evolving more and more as a spiritually efficient human being. The evolutionary economics informed by such a human being becomes unbounded by conditioning, free, exciting, ever new and creative. With such like minded human beings the evolutionary economics emerges co created in real time, forever new and evolving.  

It is fascinating for me in re reading John Maynard Keynes and Fredrick Hayek and essentially reading them with an improved vision that has come from an re awakening of my from childhood spiritual experiences within the  keenly interested and disciplined engagement with  the teachings of Andrew Cohen.

These two intellectual giants Keynes and Hayek, in the evolution of economics,  are viewed by most as at opposite ends of the economic profession in terms of theory and application. Yet I am getting a sense that they shared foundational values and insights. Both admired the 18 th century political philosopher Edmund Burke and from my perspective both were at heart evolutionary economists. That is they both believed that the human condition is forever set within the context of uncertainty and more rather than less freedom is the condition for humanity to evolve. I would add this is the condition of the universe, of which we are the highest  expression.   In responding in a letter to Hayek on his   essay “On the road to serfdom”, the withering destruction of socialism as a societal structure, Keynes was not only in agreement with its moral and philosophical position “but in deeply moved agreement.”

Hayek’s free evolution , the spirit of individual initiative setting the conditions for manifesting in every moment   a “spontaneous order”  and Keynes  uncertainty principle,  ethical foundation  for  goodness in economic action , economics as a moral endevour  all enquired into from an evolutionary spirit perspective makes for  the evolution of an leading edge spiritually efficient economics.  An economics that has the capacity to create economic development within the context of a spiritually efficient perspective that is founded on the truth of an experienced non material reality of self.

They along with other EU countries have assumed the richer states( and more responsible)  would simply just keep supporting them. With one currency these countries cannot devalue their currencies to engineer a re adjustment in the economy,  the mechanism that is open to independent states with their own currencies.

Germany is now thinking aloud it does not wish to continue to fund the irresponsible weaker states and that maybe such states should leave the EU.  As well, most countries have consistently not met the fiscal  rules of the EU and so in this atmosphere of corroding compromise the political drivers for european integration are being forgotten. With the end of the cold war even these noble political drivers( to prevent wars) may no longer be seen as necessary.

The Germans and Russians have since Chancellor Schroder’s time been moving closer to each other.  His appointment to Gasprom was a harbinger of this re approachment between these two powerful states. Germany’s reliance on Russia for most of its energy makes such an alliance necessary for strategic and national interest objectives. One scenario that is now being played out is a union between Germany and Russia. This has significant geopolitical and economic  consequences for the world. It has potentially terminal consequences for the European union and the euro. Germany and Russia both face demographic changes that  unless government action is taken like immigration, very unlikely rise in birth rates or location of manufacturing( investment) in each others countries, will see a long term decline in economic growth and pressure on the welfare benefits that are a major feature of not just Germany but EU states generally.  Russia benefits in work being provided for its working population and transfer of technology including the German management and work ethic. Russia’s workforce will expand for another generation ( as population falls in absolute terms)  as Germany’s working population declines.

Both Germany and Russia want to get away from under the USA’s influence and who knows what will happen to NATO and  smaller EU states ( like Poland and the Baltic states)  in this scenario.

I read in the National Geographic’s recent special  edition on “Water – our thirsty world” that rivers are efficient as they don’t flow in a straight line- they meander and never flow in a straight line. On page 15-16 see from the great aerial photograph of how the King River snakes its way through the coastal mud flats of the Kimberly’s in Northern Western Australia. In their meandering rivers and their water always find the least resistance way forward- the impulse is always to go forward even if it may not initially appear to be so. It goes around the hard surfaces like granites and that is the reason it never runs in a straight line. In this way the land is provided with a greater volume or  source of water and the fertility of the land is increased. The productivity of the land is  optimised by the creative force within nature itself, which is the same creative force within us human beings.   The straight line value is very much a culturally constructed value. In public places there are paths and there are the “short cuts” across lawns  where we humans act out our value of efficiency- why cant I just get to where I am going in  the fastest way possible.  

In the Guardian this week the former Mayor of Bogota  Antanas Mockus who is a leading candidate for President of Colombia  was referred to as” he showed( as mayor) honesty, efficiency and imagination – qualities that progressive politics has been crying out for in Colombia.” Many countries, companies, families , wives, husbands, daughters, sons, lovers, cry out for a similar person.

What does efficiency look like when we are manifesting spirit in action, the evolutionary impulse, that  like water onlywants to go forward , to create the new, to develop- It is when we have become at a gut level, the universe waking up to itself through us as human beings. That is yet to emerge in a sustained manner and so is very exciting as we can then co create that future as expressions of spirit in action.

1. Shingo Nomura’s foundation is called the Center for Global Action and Sustainable Development (CGASD). Its members are over 20 of Japan’s leading specialists in engineering, architecture, ocean research and engineering, agriculture, education  and city planning  join the venture donating their time, expertise and patents. The CGASD will move its head quarters to Tarawa to undertake this project and I will become one of the five directors of the CGASD. As I have said previously, Shingo has said he has devoted the rest of his life to this project- that is commitment to a purpose beyond the self for something higher than the personal self- heroic.   It sounds audacious to be proposing the construction of the world’s first floating nation in Tarawa Kiribati. It is the only option available if the integrity of this small country is to be retained and the traditional sea and blue sky is to remain part of the consciousness of the I-Kiribati peoples. The other options all involve moving to another land based country that will take them. It also offers at the same time the opportunity for the nation to leap into the 21 st century in terms of economic and social and environmental transformation.
2. Over three stages up to 110,000 people could be settled in three separate yet closely located cities of circular wooden design of 10,000 people by 2015, an additional 30,000 by 2020 and an additional 70,000 by 2030 people. Each settlement will be self sufficient in renewable water, energy and food being fruit, vegetables, fish and similar animals’ local people keep now. The cities will be the first in the world to be CO2 neutral generating its energy from hydrogen from sea water, solar, tidal and wind power. All waste will be recycled Each floating city will have a periphery of existing flora (Including palm and coconut trees and mangroves) with a mix of traditional village buildings and mostly honeycomb shaped new living buildings close to but separated from the agriculture areas. They are proposed to be located in the lagoon side of Tarawa where the waters are relatively shallow- the sea side drops to over 550-1000 metres quite quickly. The Kiribati a developing nation operating at basically subsistence level, would take a quantum leap into the future as a developed nation and be exposed to leading edge technology and practices that could bring new future employment opportunities to the young and maintain/increase the traditional employment like fishing and tourism in particular. 60% of the population of Kiribati is under 15 years of age.  The proposal includes a planned transfer of technology and best practices across a wide range of skills to the Kiribati people. CGASD has devised a salt project on one of the islands that is expected to fund over time the USD5 Billion project (including the capital and operating cost of the salt project) together with additional revenues from the Patents owned by members of CGASD. No funds are being requested from the Kiribati government or its people for this re settlement project.  At the end of 30 years (assuming the green light is given in 2010) all the property will be returned to the Kiribati government at no cost. Sounds unusual but technically and hopefully in regards to funding this is all possible. There is some way to go yet to get this approved by the Government, funded completely and then executed. The management of the inevitable cultural change will be an important and crucial part of the project and this will be developed in cooperation with the Government and the people. However we have been told that the people of Kiribati have in their consciousness as part of their traditions the sense they are turtles who live on both land and sea at the same time. I am honoured and joyous that I am involved with this evolutionary and meaningful endeavour.  I am working with a completely Japanese team at this stage. I will keep you informed with regular updates on progress and more detail on the “floating of the world’s first sustainable nation” project! You can be a part of the emergence in real time of the new world order.

1. I want to thank all those generous people who have taken the time to send me responses to my website and its posts. They have inspired me to do more posts more regularly and to add more of my real life experiences into the posts. I have been overseas on business travelling firstly in January 2010 to my favourite city New York City (NYC) for almost two weeks and then to the Republic of Kiribati 17-23 February 2010.  I stayed on the island of Tarawa where the capital is located.  Kiribati is an Island nation, comprising 33 islands (mainly coral atolls) in the South Pacific Ocean that is tragically through no fault of its own, threatened with destruction by 2030 by rising sea levels. I am blessed and respectful of being born in an age that allows such travel to such places. NYC and Kiribati are two very different cultures, landscapes and climates. What strikes me in this extreme contrast is the determining role of cultural conditioning in determining behaviour in both countries.  I will return to explore the role of all forms of conditioning such as biological, cultural conditioning or even personal history, as inhibitors of evolution or development in future posts. – My aim is to overlay an evolutionary perspective  over all the issues I investigate be they economics, future trends and societal issues generally.  One of the key qualities in an evolutionary context is seen as risk and development. 
2. NYC, which to me is a country that happens to be in the USA, is where the world intersects. Where I expect the unexpected. That is my experience. I am fortunate of course that my energetic and inspiring Cousin Gloria Starr Kins lives in NYC.  It is through her amazing life that I experience the stimulating creative friction first hand that emerges from this intersection of people from around the world. It was at Gloria’s in January this year, that I met an amazing Japanese man, Shingo Nomura. While our level of communication is limited by lack of language on both our parts, from his drawings and translated text I was in awe at the audaciousness of his passion and his project that commenced in 2001 – To save a civilisation that in 30 years will either be uninhabitable or submerged due to predicted rising sea levels by designing and hopefully constructing a floating country – that country being the Republic of Kiribati. This is a wholesome and purposeful project that is being developed in a not for profit context and yet combines its funding with a innovative market project of salt production on one of the 33 islands of Kiribati that will provide it is expected part of the USD5Billion required to make this happen! Sounds audacious alright at one level- however on another level it provides the opportunity for Kiribati to leap into the 21 st century. It would also be an example of a new evolutionary economic development model.  It is very exciting to have been invited to be a part of this project. During the discussions in NYC I was asked by Shingo to attend meetings with the President of Kiribati and his advisors in the capital city Tarawa in February and I instinctively said , “Of course “, not knowing in my mind what this meant but another part of myself was full hearted in responding positively to the invitation. No meeting date had been determined at that stage other than it would be between 14 -23 February.
3. How did this project start and how did over 20 of Japan’s leading specialists in engineering, architecture, ocean research and engineering, agriculture, education  and city planning  join the venture donating their time, expertise and patents. Shingo organised a symposium in Utsunomiya Japan in August 2001 called the Spaceship Earth Junior conference for children around the world to speak about their visions for the world and or their countries. One 12 yr old from Kiribati cried out please save our country, please preserve for us our country in which the blue sky and sea which is who we are. Shingo responded to that from his heart and mind by making this there and then, his mission for the rest of his life and brought together this powerful team to turn his vision into a real project.  He had previously, I was told by Gloria, donated his personal wealth of USD50 M to a reduction of poverty project in Africa. He is now 66 years old. In writing about this amazingman and project, I feel I have become the energy and itelleigence that is the evolutionary impulse or creative impulse that made something come from nothing at the beginning of time and space- the big bang.  That is what I mean when I speak about spirit in the evolutionary context, that is what spirit is as me and this is the same for all human beings. It is the cosmic process of evolution becoming aware of itself through me and all of us if we dare to be aware of it- and it is always there, it is part of us, if we dare to awaken to that part of ourselves more and more as a conscious choice.  I have had many experiences of spirit as self in my childhood and adult life but I had no context for that experience other that what I found  in nature, poetry especially of William Wordsworth, my own poetry and the philosophy of Spinoza. It has been Andrew Cohen, since meeting him in 1999, who has given me the context for a deeper understanding of spirit and moe importantly, who am I, how shall I live and shining the light on the many parts that make up the self and how to enlighten my choosing faculty by making effort to objectively see more and more of my conditioning so that then I can make informed and rational choices – this is true freedom, true liberation. Please refer to Andrew Cohen’s retreats and website www.andrewcohen.org  for more information if you are interested in a 21 st century liberation perspective. In my next post I will go into more detail on the floating nation project and my time in Tarawa with my two Japanese colleagues, Shingo and Hiroke.

The use of the word efficiency is starting to appear everywhere. This week I came across three examples: Harvard University Professor Marc Hauser writing for The American Scientist in its September 2009 special issue on ‘Understanding origins’ referred in his article on ‘The origins of the mind’ to human beings as “exchanging information in a primitive and inefficient  …manner”.  In The Guardian Weekly (09/10/09) Margaret Talbot concluded a two page article titled, “Can popping pills make you smarter?” by saying, “Neuroenhancers don’t offer freedom. Rather they facilitate a pinched, unromantic, grindingly efficient form of productivity.” In that article she also referred to an “efficiency obsessed blackberry equipped office culture where work never really ends.” Further on in this same issue of the Guardian weekly in a review of David Owen’s  book “Green metropolis” the reviewer, Jonathan Yardley , stated “The environmental model that Manhattan offers – live smaller, live closer, drive less – is an invaluable template for efficiently arranging a growing global population in a time of shrinking access to a broad range of natural resources..”

In all these cases efficiency is presented as a private and public economic good.  Yet we have three different contexts none of which appear to have a moral or spiritual aspect to them except maybe in the latter case, although even in this case efficiency is framed as merely responding to a shortage of natural resources.  One could reasonably assume if there was no shortage there would be no motive to change.

Let’s do a ‘what if’ scenario – What if we apply a moral or spiritual imperative to efficiency in each case?  What is the right thing to do in each case so that consciousness itself and therefore culture evolves?  To do this we have to transcend our personal and cultural conditioning and become a liberated vehicle for the evolution of consciousness.  That is to see oneself as a spiritual being in a material form. A liberated human being in this context would express the following qualities:  authenticity, integrity, transparency, simplicity, creativity, and an absence of personal self interest as the primary motive for decision making.  Acting in the world and expressing these qualities would bring into emergence a deeper care for life itself.  In the three cases above human actions of exchanging information, performing cognitive tasks, and designing human population settlement patterns and forms would lead to potentially radically different outcomes.

 In the first case, what if we strove to be authentic and transparent in all our communications and exchanges?   This would reduce, at the least, the time we spend on issues related to personal self image, being a victim and would free us up to be more trusting and more fully available to create something new together.  Relationships with people would dramatically change – we would start dealing authentically with what is really motivating us at the most fundamental level to act.  In this way we would stop wasting time and in the process grow as human beings.  A spirit base efficiency in communications would begin to emerge between people and could be continuously developed. This efficiency has no end.  In this regard we would have included the materialist qualities of efficiency and also at the same time seamlessly transcended them to a higher level of human development and purpose for being.

It is very interesting that in the second case economic efficiency is seen as being the opposite of freedom.  In traditional or evolutionary spiritual teachings, and in the poetry of William Wordsworth, this has always been the case.  From my own direct experience of spirit as self, in meditation or engagement with like-minded people committed to spiritual evolution, freedom is both a position you take in relationship to all experience, and a quality of the experience of the deepest part of the self.

In the third case efficiency is defined as a public good through which population settlement patterns are changed to minimise the use of natural resources that are in increasingly short supply. However Manhattan’s settlement pattern was not consciously created or motivated by any concern for future natural resource shortages. Today it stands as a model settlement when judged in this context. A settlement pattern informed by a spritual efficiency would be guided by what is required in the built form to nourish the infinite evolution of consciousness and therefore culture itself. 

Another reference to efficiency encountered this week was the efficient market theory that purports that prices in the market are true or right in that they reflect perfect information and knowledge for and by all market participants.  This is the basis on which anything that emerges in the market, like asset price explosions, is treated as sacred by the most powerful private and public institutions. This is why the US Federal Reserve refused to act to impede the asset (housing) bubble and financial derivatives mania over the years from 2004 to 2007. Academic theory provides three levels for this theory:  strong (market always right), moderate (market mostly right) or weak (market sometimes right).  What happens to the belief that markets are efficient when we investigate it from the perspective of spirit?

The three big wave forces are in order of importance and influence:

1. Beliefs and values: Liberal democratic market capitalism. This orthodoxy has spread Iike a virus throughout the world to such an extent that a leading commentator, Fukuyama, wrote a book some years ago very prematurely pronouncing the end of history due to this orthodoxy having swept the world leaving no other competitors. Given Islamic orthodoxy and the emergence of China it can be said that the global orthodoxy is‘market capitalism’.  . China an emerging economic and social giant is still a developing country, a communist state embedded in a very old Confucian value system which is experimenting with a State run market system. China is a country with a fascinating and historically unusual mix of attributes that provides fertile ground for future surprises at all levels – economic, social, political and environmental.  China has the potential to transform the world through its unprecedented scale of production, distribution and consumption.  I am optimistic about China as it has the potential to develop not just as most commentators focus on, a new economic but a social system informed by spirit.  The Australian Government’s recent strategic defence policy paper that identified China as a future threat was not a positive and mature contribution to creating an environment for an intelligent cooperative relationship with China.  Historically China has not shown any external aggression even during its world dominance from around the 7^th to 15^th centuries.  Its dominance of the seas  did not result in the all too often arrogant, brutal, greedy and short sighted colonisation of new lands “discovered” by, for example, various European nations and Britain.
2. Demography: The scale and growth of global population, its age and global distribution. This has historically been the key determinate of economic, political, social and environmental outcomes and will continue to be so in the future for the human species.  The explosion in world population over the last 100m years from 1 billion to close to 7 billion and 9 billion by 2050, is the determinant of the explosion and exponential growth in almost every other economic, social and environmental aspect of human society over that period. Yet we generally tend to arrogantly  dismiss or don’t even consider that we are all dependent on each other and that, for example, the rise in the value of our houses is almost totally due to the increase in population – what can be called the impersonal kindness of strangers. Governments place various fees on property transactions like stamp duty with no other motivation other than raising revenue. In a way that most people will not notice or care- that is with no integrity or transparency.  Much like banks impose their range of fees on bank transactions and services.  These sneaky actions bring in funds for their budgets and these funds disappear into the overall revenues or shareholder didvidends and are spent by Governments as they see fit through a government appointed bureaucracy. In terms of transparency and  integrity an evolutionary structure is required. Governments must ( or community advocates)  must explain the reasons why at the most fundamental level property prices rise to the community and allow the community to determine a certain percentage of the annual rise in their property value to be provided to a community fund they set and manage.  This community fund would distribute these funds based on annual priorities set by the people who contribute to the fund. This would be voluntary and if necessary initially mandatory. In this way people start to be directly involved in taking real action and taking responsibility for their actions.  
3. Efficiency: In economics efficiency is a value that underpins market capitalism. The objective of efficiency is the minimisation of costs, and the maximisation of revenues and profits.  This value has  become an subconscious societal virtue and is the driver behind the  secondary trends of competition (or lack of it as a result of the global financial crisis), globalization, cost cutting and  productivity that has a myriad of tertiary trends emerging from it like R&D, technology, organisational structure, capital investment to mention a few. It is ubiquitous – it is everywhere and it has entered into the regular vocabularies of most societies to cover and justify a multitude of activities. The concept of efficiency is mainly and commonly applied in an individual or company context. That is very small, limited, bounded and personal context. Rarely does efficiency extend into nation or world centric contexts and never into a consciuosness or spirit centric context. In the consciousness centric context humans primarily engage with that part of themselves that is the intelligence and energy inherent in Big Bang. This sense of self is beginnging to emerge in culture.  

Newly emerging force

1. Expanding human consciousness: This is an emerging trend that has the potential to create a new belief and value system. The Evolutionary economist website is a part of this emergence. We have visionary philosophers and spiritual thinkers like Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilbur, Deepak Chopra and many others pushing the leading edge of this new emerging wave of consciousness towards a higher level of culture that expresses a deeper moral and ethical way of how we all treat and get along with each other.  How we see and conduct economics is an integral part of our culture.    

We have seen that Adam Smith the father of economics gave the concept of efficiency a meaning in the context of economics through his identification of the power of the division of labour in a production process( pin production)  However this is efficiency in a one dimensional context. We will see as we explore the life and writings of Adam Smith, concepts like efficiency and all human behaviour must be viewed and discerned within a bigger moral context. This today has been almost completely forgotten.

Efficiency is commonly defined as minimising costs and maximising revenues and profits all within what is generally a personal or company context. Look at this month’s “Current and Future trends blog” to see where I have identified efficiency as one of four driving forces in the world today. It has taken on viral qualities in the way it has spread.

Efficiency as a value can evolve when we become aware of the range of contexts it can exist within.  The defining importance of context as the vehicle of meaning is something to regularily contemplate in itself.

We as a species have evolved as we have seen ourselves as a part of a bigger and bigger context for human development.  Concepts and values such as efficiency should be seen within this continuum of evolution. We as a human species have as general trend over time, made the leap from seeing ourselves as a part of a tribe, to seeing ourselves as a part of a city , then nation and today many of us educated postmodern people have no problem in seeing ourselves as citizens of the world, the planet earth.  The next leap for us is to see ourselves as an integral part of the evolving consciousness or spirit,  much along the lines as expressed by Edgar Mitchell, the sixth  astronaut who walked on the moon.   In such a context our primary interest is in what is best for the sake of the whole and not for a specific individual, company, tribe, nation or even planet earth.  

What would efficiency look like in this mind blowing context – what would our internal sense of self look like? Efficiency in this spiritual context results in the one dimensional materialist economic definition of efficiency being viewed within what is an overarching moral context as consciousness has a forward directionality and an inherent moral quality.  In simple terms that moral quality can be experinced as conscience.  Efficiency is not what is best for me personally but what is best for consciousness itself- the consciousness that Edgar Mitchell experienced and that many have experienced. A deeper care for life emerges as a quality of this consciousness that Edgar Mitchell speaks about.  

In my “Think about this blog” this month, Edgar Mitchell, the sixth astronaut to walk on the moon, speaks about the universe as having intelligence and that, that same intelligence or level of consciousness or awareness, that is non material in nature, is who we are at the deepest level of ourselves. What happens to efficiency in such a context? It is experienced as  a moral imperative , a deeper care for life itself. It no longer is simply a one dimesional materialist concept which now includes this part of itself and also transcends that part of itself.  That is what evolutionary economics is about.

To let in this possibility that efficiency does exist in this infinite spirit context is for the mind a difficult and mysterious contemplation.  How do we make sense of such a context? From my experience and contemplation primarily informed by the teachings of Andrew Cohen, I have discovered a part of myself that is pure consciousness or awareness or spirit which is the source from which everything manifest arises. Poets such as William Wordsworth have written so beautifully about this and there is such a poem on my website.

Is this too much to grasp, or are you as I am, compelled to reach into this liberating yet unknown enquiry?   The implications of holding this infinite perspective or context are radical and result in us transcending the current structures within which we are used to understanding values like efficiency.

It is at this higher level of consciousness or spirit that we can transcend our separate sense of self or ego to bring a truly liberated collective approach to efficiency.  Einstein said that the problems we face today can only be solved from a higher level of awareness than the one that created the problems.This egoless context is such a higher level of consciousness from which our problems can be solved.

Today the one dimensional efficiency is practiced via institutions, in some cases well intentioned, that are continually exposed to be guilty of wasteful and inefficient practices:  like many Government agencies worldwide, many financial and other companies all over the world, NGO’s and United Nations organisations. We have seen in the past, and we still see today the inefficiency and dysfunctionality that results from decisions made by passionate nation centric politicians who are influenced by tribal centric and company centric groups not to mention egocentric people.   From the higher level of consciousness or spirit which is beyond even a world centric context, the meaning of efficiency is experienced as an urge to create conditions fit for the further evolution of consciousness  or spirit as embodied in human beings. The meaning of efficiency then takes on a moral quality that is rooted in the deepest sense of self which is consciousness or spirit, striving for the good of the whole – striving to develop itself through all of us working together in a new and thoroughly positive way. This positivity is informed by the strong experience of there being no existential doubt in life itself or why one is here. When we see this in others this confidence grows as does the desire to be creative and act in the world for change.

Edgar Mitchell was the sixth astronaut to walk on the moon and founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. What was Mitchell’s experience that provided him with a deep insight into the nature of consciousness?  It was the view he had of Earth from outer space:

“In one moment I realised that this universe is intelligent. It is proceeding in a direction and we have something to do with that direction. And that creative spirit, the creative intent that has been the history of this planet, comes from within us, and it is out there – it is all the same….

Consciousness itself is what is fundamental and energy – matter is the product of consciousness… If we change our heads about who we are – and can see ourselves as creative , eternal beings creating physical experience, joined at that level of existence we call consciousness- then we start to see and create this world that we live in quite differently.”

(For more on Mitchell’s insights go to the Winter 1992 issue of Noetic Science Review #24.)

Mitchell’s view, that we are material manifestations of the divine is  echoed by physicists Peter Russell and Amit Goswami and evolutionary spirituality visionaries such as Andrew Cohen.  These thinkers offer a view that the universe is at its most fundamental level consciousness itself, that it is self aware, and that humans are the first material forms that are aware of being aware. The practice of meditation can provide us with a direct experience of this self as consciousness.  Andrew Cohen takes this further by bringing an evolutionary context to this revelation.  Consciousness is here whether we are sitting in meditation or having a discussion with other people so what we do in the world shapes the future of the world. The context for everything we do is consciousness itself.  In this process consciousness or awareness or spirit, which is the intelligence of the universe Mitchell experienced above, evolves itself, through material form and we humans are at present the highest stage of this material development and we see that we maybe, the first material form, to have the self awareness of having the capacity for co creation – this is where life becomes very creative, exciting and we as the human species become very responsible for our actions as we see our place in this evolutionary spiritual process.

Life & Leisure Sophisticated Traveller Magazine

Travel companies claim to have created a new niche market segment – responding to a new and growing travel demographic that wants ‘authentic’ personal experiences. These tourists want to interact with local people, participate in activities and not just be observers. Many are seeking a spiritual dimension to their travel. This trend is set out in the Australian Financial Times Sophisticated Traveler supplement (Issue 21 Winter 2009), where it was surprising to read that the “faith based” travel industry is said to be worth a very large US18 billion a year. Faith based travel encompasses destinations like Lourdes, Assisi, convents, monasteries, Buddhist temples in Asia and isolated luxury destinations like the 360 degree Leti in the middle of the Himalayas. This group includes, besides traditional pilgrims, tourists who are experienced travelers with the inclusion of some back packers.

Is this an emerging ripple, signally the early beginnings of a movement in developed countries, amongst the relatively well off, to seek a deeper connection with spirit? Are they searching for an experience of depth in their lives they don’t get in their day to day lives? Could there be a yearning for something deeper that transcends and at the same time includes material wants and desires? Even if it is only an extension of consumer mentality of consuming experience without any sustained transformation at a behavioral and soul level, it may be the beginning of a trend of dissatisfaction with the economic system in developed countries. Joseph Schumpeter, a Harvard Economics professor born in Austria, forecast in his writings in the early 20th century such a movement within the educated classes that will have leisure time on their hands. They would be the catalysts for a movement to change capitalism.