Personal Evolution: A Paradigmatic Solution for Personal and World Problems
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Abstract
: This paper builds on the key ideas advanced in two editions of Creating Life Before Death (2020 and 2024) as well as eight articles published during and since that period. Its focus is on answering two questions. Exactly how can anyone move away from a lifetime of personal conformity to a bureaucratic life with its focus on hierarchy so as to fulfill one’s incredible intellectual, emotional and problem-solving potentials? And how is it possible for contemporary societies to avoid the worldwide catastrophes of nuclear war, climate disasters, or other worldwide problems, and proceed to reach for the stars? The paper begins with an INTRODUCTION, centering on the basic problem of the human race, as discussed by the Buddha 2500 years ago: the deep frustration linked to the gap between what people want and actually are able to get. Following the analysis of the senior author and a co-author in The Invisible Crisis of Contemporary Society, that gap is continuing to increase as the result of our continuing technological revolutions. Yet the good news is that each of us can develop a Vision of our own continuing development or evolution. That, in turn, can yield the basis for actions which will work, over time, toward addressing our double crisis. As for the first crisis, in a second section, ACHIEVING PERSONAL EVOLUTION, we center on ten procedures anyone can use to reward or reinforce oneself, thus moving toward an increasingly confident self -image. This achievement, when coupled with an evolutionary vision , yields the basis for continuing personal development. A third section, SOLVING WORLD PROBLEMS, addresses our second crisis. As personal evolution spreads throughout societies, it yields increasing productivity and greater ability to solve world problems. These solutions are possible because they move us away from the narrow specialization with little integration of knowledge with respect to human behavior that is characteristic of our bureaucratic way of life. Instead, they move us toward a powerful and interdisciplinary science of human behavior. To our knowledge, these solutions to personal and world problems have never been advanced previously. We follow Confucius: “It is man that can make the Way great; and not the Way that can make man great .