Individual Integration and Universal Synergy 

​

The world is as we dream it; our thoughts, intentions, and actions affect our experience of reality and the world at large. Our level of consciousness therefore plays a vital role in determining our dreams and creations. As within, so without. Either we create unconsciously by chance or consciously by choice. The question then is: What is the level of our consciousness? And what are we choosing to dream and create?

​

The purpose of The Massachusetts Republic is to create The Better World We Know In Our Hearts Is Possible; a free, peaceful, healthy, just, collaborative, sustainable/regenerative world where we all thrive. The Massachusetts Republic is creating a new society, The Better World We Know In Our Hearts Is Possible, based on an understanding of the problems of our existing society and a vision of a new society based on the ideals of Rudolf Steiner's Threefold Social Order, addressed on the Threefolding page, and the ideals of Integration addressed here.

​

The purpose of individual integration and universal synergy is to presence and foster conscious, integrated, intentional, and synergistic conduct and actions.

 

Integration is based on an understanding that our state of being; our consciousness, our awareness of the world within us and around us - is primary, and gives rise to conscious, integrated, intentional, and synergistic conduct and actions.

​

Ideally, individuals and community members know how to integrate themselves, especially when experiencing fragmentation, which includes:

- With the individual, the individual is aware of any competing drives within, namely one’s sub-selves, and brings them into consensus

   through eliciting and listening, the task of the “Transcendental I”.

- Within the community, the community brings individual community members into consensus through eliciting and listening.

- Transcending egoic patterns 

- Being “whole and complete” 

- Trusting and aligning with inner/higher guidance

- Aligning with a higher purpose, vision, and mission

​

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” - Albert Einstein

"If our inner work is great, our outer work will be great." - Meister Eckhart

​

To foster integration, we espouse the following Understandings, Protocols, and Practices:

​

• The Gap

• The Golden Rule; All is One

• Communication Protocols

• General Practices

 

The Gap

 

The Gap represents the cognitive space between the percept (an object of perception) and the concept. It is the “choice point” between an event or reality that we experience (an event or reality, which is ultimately unknowable, that we observe and perceive through our senses and even memory), and our interpretation/understanding of and response to what we experience, which affects who we are, what we choose, and therefore what we create.

 

​We are responsible for our interpretations as creators. Understanding the Gap helps us take responsibility for our choices. It helps us choose our interpretations of our experience of reality and our responses to our interpretations (vs. allow ourselves to be dictated by our interpretations). 

 

This could include choosing to foster harmonious relations as we open up and listen to one another without undue bias. It could also include choosing our individual authority, our individual sovereignty (vs. accepting others’ authority and thereby not taking responsibility for our choices).

 

In taking pause in the Gap, we can be present, and intentional with our choices (vs. at the effect of our circumstances). 

In resting in the Gap, we can be in "presence” as a state of being, allowing for an “evolutionary impulse” to inspire (in spirit) us into “awakened doing” (vs. "efforting"). (Eckhart Tolle) 

​

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” - Viktor E. Frankl 

​

“What others do may be a stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.” - Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD.

​

“You get to choose how you focus. Therefore, you get to choose how you feel.” - Abraham-Hicks

​

“Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." - Rumi

​

“In the creation of our experience, controlled thought is everything …It is the highest form of prayer…Therefore, see only perfection, express only gratefulness, and imagine only what manifestation of perfection we choose next…In this formula is found tranquility, in this process, peace, in this awareness, joy.” - Neale Donald Walsch

 

Resources:

The Gap https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ph0iMCcUsaRHFmt52Srb9GqC5bBGnVE41_MnXz9phlE/edit​

The Work, by Byron Katie https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/

 

The Golden Rule; All is One

 

- The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated; “Do unto others as you

  would have them do unto you.”

​

- The Golden Rule may be said to include the following characteristics:

  - The Common Law, which is generally recognized as: Do no harm, or Cause no harm, injury, nor loss.

  - Common courtesy, respect, and kindness

​  - Honoring the similarities that unite us as well as the differences that individuate us

  - Appreciating one another for each other’s gifts

  - Genuinely recognizing and respecting the differences - which is a practical expression of justice; is relational, involves

    acknowledging others, the Gap, humility, awareness that we don't know what we don't know, accounting for well-reasoned

    arguments and objections, respecting valid boundaries, appreciating others’ beliefs and approaches, cultures, etc.;

    acknowledging that we are never one thing, agreeing to disagree, practicing NVC (non-violent communication) and active

    listening. (Note: Respect is distinct from allow.) Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_in_diversity​

  - Having an appreciation for our profound interconnectedness; All is One (We are thy neighbor. Ubuntu: "I am

    because we are."; “I am because you are. You are because I am.”)

    The individual affects the community and the community affects the individual.

    “A healthy social life is found only when, in the mirror of each soul, the whole community finds its reflection, and

    when, in the whole community, the virtue of each one is living.” - Rudolf Steiner

​

Resources for learning about and understanding ourselves and others to help become integrated and foster harmonious relations:

• The Enneagram https://www.enneagraminstitute.com

• Myers Briggs https://www.myersbriggs.org

• Kingdomality https://kingdomality.com and https://www.nd.gov/dhs/dvr/individual/modules/M7-Handout-Kingdomality-Types.pdf

 

Communication Protocols

 

Beginning with understanding the Gap (see above), and including the practices “non-violent communication” and “dynamic governance”, people learn to foster harmonious relations and effective decision-making.

 

The following are valuable communication tools and resources:

• Compassionate/Non-violent communication (NVC)

       Resources:

       https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com,

       https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/learn-nonviolent-communication/4-part-nvc/

       https://www.cnvc.org

       Compassionate/Non-violent Communication (NVC) - Overview 

       https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e7s3BZG10kxEpPgEuSyTbo6l9urINBhTkBWlI58_nZE/edit#  

       "When we hear the other person’s feelings and needs, we recognize our common humanity.” - Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD.

• Dynamic Governance/Sociocracy (based on sharing in the round, equivalence, and consent)                                         Resources: https://www.sociocracy.info and https://www.Sociocracyforall.org     

• Emphasize eliciting vs. asserting.

• Use “I” statements (i.e., I feel, I see, I perceive, I interpret, I believe, etc.)

• Honor valid interrupts; (Not proceeding until each member is able to continue following the communication thread.)

 

General Practices

 

We believe integration includes:

 

Living in connection, balance, and harmony with all life, all our relations, including the natural world, through "right relations" and "right livelihood".

 

The Hopi Elders' Prophecy of June 8, 2000, "We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For", communicated the following: 

 

“You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

 

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

 

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

 

The time of the lonely wolf is over.

Gather yourselves!

​

…All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

​

​...We are the ones we’ve been waiting for."

 

​- Examples of additional practices:

 

  - An understanding of and connection to our “higher self”, the “Transcendental I”

 

  - An awareness/experience of our Oneness/Interconnectedness

 

  - Remembering we are love, and it is love that will set us free. Love unites. (Fear separates.)

 

  - Meditation to center ourselves and practice present moment awareness.

 

  - Individual and Collective “Presencing” which can inspire “awakened doing”. 

    Resources: 

    Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth https://shop.eckharttolle.com/products/a-new-earth-awakening-to-your-lifes-purpose/

    Collective Presencing https://www.collectivepresencing.org/collective-presencing-the-new-paradigm-3-of-4/

 

  - Abiding in the Awakened and Loving Heart

    Resources:

    Brahma Viharas https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/the-four-faces-of-love-the-brahma-viharas/

    Heartmath https://www.heartmath.com/about/

    Insight Seminars https://www.insightseminars.org

​

  - Affirmations (Resource: https://www.louisehay.com/affirmations/) and Practicing Gratitude; (What we appreciate appreciates.)

 

  - Indigenous practices/Earth-centered spirituality (council process, medicine wheel, shamanic journeying, soul

    retrieval, sweat lodge, etc.), honoring traditions and protocols. 

​

  - A primarily whole foods plant-based diet for the purpose of one’s health and well-being and the sustainability of the

    environment. 

​

  - Holistic healing modalities

 

***

 

Conclusion:

 

Problems are evolutionary drivers. With consciousness and conscious choice, we as a humanity could render obsolete the negative orientation of our institutions and society by being part of and investing in collaborative solutions that have enduring value.

 

We envision integrated individuals within synergistic communities in the form of Common Good Communities and Jeffersonian Ward Republics:

- providing and performing the functions of governance to and for each other; governance of, by, and for the people;

- deciding together what would be good and of value for the community; and

- issuing money (the primary tool of the sovereign) to fund it. 

As individuals, we receive the money we need to live as our right to the equitable distribution of the wealth we all create together. And we have a right to the capital our capacities warrant so that we may:

- pursue our transcendent purpose

- bring our service and contribution to expression

- make a meaningful difference in our communities and the world

- create the conditions in which we want to live; The Better World We Know In Our Hearts Is Possible; a free, peaceful, healthy, just, collaborative, sustainable/regenerative world where we all thrive. 

 

This all requires a shift in consciousness, awareness, and understanding as well as the will to act in service to a high purpose and all that is possible in co-creating a new cultural paradigm, The Better World We Know In Our Hearts Is Possible! The world is as we dream it! Let’s dream a better dream!

​

“The dream is everything. The way we live is determined by the way we dream.” – Maria Quischpe, from John Perkins’ The World Is As You Dream It

 

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi 

 

“Small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” 

- Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” 

- Margaret Mead

 

“When you dream alone, it is only a dream. When you dream together, it is the beginning of reality.” - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

​

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

"We are here to be creators; We are here to infiltrate space with ideas and mansions of thought; We are here to make something of this life.” – Ramtha

 

“In my dream, the angel shrugged and said if we fail this time it will be a failure of imagination and then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.” - Brian Andreas

​

The following are valuable resources: 

Ten Syllables https://www.tensyllables.org

Sociocracy https://www.sociocracy.info and https://www.sociocracyforall.org 

Inner Bonding https://www.innerbonding.com/show-page/347/the-6-steps.html