There Is Such A Thing As Society
Many spiritual teachers emphasise that society begins with individual behaviour and that this inner revolution needs to be the focus. As we start with our individual behaviour so this ripples out into society. The world could be considered to be a school. It's not about making the world perfect, and facing challenges is something that, as consciousness, we have created for our mind and body to get through somehow, as they are essential vehicles for us to achieve strength and express ourselves like forging iron rids it of impurities. These challenges help us become even stronger examples to our society of the life-affirming qualities of consciousness.
The institution of work plays an essential part in all lives, and it's not so much what we do but how we do it that matters. Work itself is a challenge, and we face various issues. It is vital to see it in the broader context of sharing love, truth and beauty and getting needs met. However, what applies to the individual applies to social institutions. For, as even Margaret Thatcher had to admit once, "There is such a thing as society". This is sometimes not emphasised in spiritual teaching, which focuses on the individual often. However, as much as consciousness individualises and creates individual human beings, it makes the social institution and cultural mechanism for these individuals to survive. We cannot talk about the needs of the minds and bodies individually. Needs are social principles that must be considered on a social level. Even the most basic needs require a society to meet them.
Institutions, too, must learn through their aversions; if they do not, then life will present the same problems. War, famine, disease, poverty, social disruption, environmental catastrophe, suppression of creative minorities at the expense of society, suppression of diversity at the expense of society. And, just like individuals, the effects of these aversions to treating the world and people with total respect will continue until the institutions learn how to behave with love and respect and allow their creativity to flourish.
Individual people are likely way ahead of the institutions. Most institutions are full of inertia and focused on their security of existence above all else, even their members who contribute their time, energy and money to sustain them. In otherwords, they are exhibiting the classic signs of existential anxiety. They are "separate-self institutions" based on egoic self-interest reflected in their culture, leadership and direction.
People, particularly the younger generation, are increasingly fed up with institutions that act like dinosaurs only concerned with increasing shareholder value. People want to work in institutions that reflect their values, not trample on them. This is perfectly natural and healthy. Time and again, we see that the longest-lasting businesses in the world are those that do not grow exponentially but remain at a certain size. Time and again, employers who care for their staff and respect their creativity have much greater loyalty than those who do not. Time and again, we see that businesses that respect the environment are preferred to those that do not. Of course, many people across the world still do not have much choice in where they work and are treated like slaves. Unfortunately, this means that those institutions still need to learn the lesson that putting the qualities of love, truth and beauty at the heart of their enterprise creates sustainable wealth. Such institutions fall back on the prevailing culture of separateness and materialism as their default position, arguing this is the way to security and wealth. However, it is not, and life itself will keep on, in one way or another, making it clear to them until they get it.
One of the most fundamental reasons "separate self institutions" exist is because of the mother or all separate self institutions, which is the institution of finance. However, even here, there are signs that reform is afoot, and this institution of institutions is showing signs of waking up to the truth that long-term financial stability, which it is their job to provide, is only achievable by valuing the qualities of life, not the quantities of life.
Inevitably, social institutions, being a combination of individual minds, learn and change slowly, but bringing about change in institutional culture is an essential activity of consciousness. Changing institutional culture is to be done for the same reasons as for an individual, to express the qualities of consciousness naturally. It is not to be carried out from an egoic view of controlling life and seeking happiness in the world, not the nature of what we are. This would be social activism based on fear. It is to be emergent and based on love. However, this is a fine line because what is a sincere act of love can sometimes be made to seem like fear by those who don't like change.
In any given institution, there will be those who focus on maintaining its practical processes and creatively contribute to its exploration into new ways of being. Both people are to be valued. The tendency of practical minds can be to hold back creativity. It's all a matter of balance. The fundamental problem is often not the need for creative expression. The critical issue for institutions is to create a culture where this is encouraged, notwithstanding the need for practical processes that ensure the institution can function. All too often, inertia sets in. This is why the culture of the leaders at the heart of an organisation that is based on consciousness is to take a long, hard, honest look at itself each day and ask the question of whether their institution even needs to exist any longer or is it simply there for its own sake and how it is serving the needs of the community, not itself and whether it is falling into the trap of institutionalism and ossification and stagnation.
Love
Freyja
