Barbara Marx Hubbard; Conscious Evolution

Broadcast 4/18/2015 at 9:58 AM EDT (37 Listens, 43 Downloads, 2389 Itunes)
The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show Podcast

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Barbara Marx Hubbard
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Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard is a prolific educator and author of seven books, including a revised and updated edition of her seminal work Conscious Evolution awakening the power of our social potential. She is an evolutionary thinker who believes that global change happens when we work collectively and selflessly for the greater good. Her website is http://barbaramarxhubbard.com.

Rough Interview Notes

Rob: The first question is: What is conscious evolution?

it is evolution by choice not chance. We are the very generation to know that we are living in an evolving universe. We can see we are affecting evolution by everything we do" we're species to realize that we might make ourselves extinct. There were five major extincttions before we got here. Nature extincts species all the time.

This is not an enemy. This is the behavior pattern of the human species.

Awakening to the possibility of contributing to an evolving world.

Rob: in your book you talk about about Human potential vs. Social potential

Maslow studied wellness rather than sickness. he studied who is happy, joyful, beneficent and found that it was about chosen work-- self rewarding work. I started looking for self rewarding work. A self actualizing society is the next step after the self-actualizing person. Today we have news of everything that isn't working but very little news of what IS working--

Rob: You refer to the illusion of separation, and you've said, "we are evolving into a consciousness that experiences itself as connected to the whole." I've come to believe that connection consciousness is a key element of empathy, and of our bottom-up natures. Can you talk about this illusion of separation and what happens to it with Conscious evolution?

the fundamental flaw of human history is an exaggerated illusion of human separateness" there is an innate tendency of wholeness and oneness but that is destroyed by the" system. Even getting masters and Ph.D. you get more specialized and separated. The astronauts saw the earth as a living organism. When you see that you start feeling empathy for the social body.

Rob: How do we deal with sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists-- people who are predators?

there's illness on the physical and psychological level. The first thing you have to say is that's illness. How to handle the predator--

I think the key here is the people who are basically kind and working towerd the common good need to be connected together, communicating with each other.

Identify traits of whats working and then create a way of training and teaching.

I offer a wheel of co-creation--

Co-creation is creating WITH-- with the creative impulse inside you. That is something that you did not make up. It is communicating the spiritual force that is within you-- and when you say yes to it, you become a co-creator with that within you. The second part is how do you co-create with other humans-- it's like combining your creative essence with another person's creative essence.

Rob: You refer repeatedly to "what is working." Please talk more about it.

solar energy is really working"

alternative health methods-- exercise, right diet, not over-eating, same is true of education-- top down educational systems are not working

Rob: What are your criteria for assessing that something is working?

the direction of positive evolution-- keeps moving to higher consciousness, greater freedom of action and more cooperative order-- becoming an interactive organism. The tendency is to have greater freedom, more cooperative order and higher consciousness to survive

Rob: What's the Triple bottom- line

People, planet, profit

Change the source code of success. What is success?

making a profit, caring for people and caring for the environment

Rob: And you've also talked about revenge, and said, "I believe we are in the process of either de-evolution through the total misuse of power, or we are in evolution and transformation." Can you also talk about de-evolution and revenge?

if we have all these new capacities to produce in abundance-- in our cell phones,-- it's astonishing that we're right at the threshold of amazing capacity. What we don't have is a sociopolitical leadership to mobilize in that direction. And we don't have funding-- the money is in the other side-- corporate--

The devolution is in the value systems in the part of society that are causing the problems-- and they have all the money.

Rob: Is there a place for extreme wealth, for wealth inequality and billionaires in this vision of conscious evolution?

I think so. Well motivated billionaires have the power to evolve society like George Soros setting democratic institutions after the war.

Rob: Do they need to be billionaires and extremely wealthy to do so though?

I'm reaching hundreds of thousands of people, but I'm not reaching millions.

Rob: You've written: "We live in a unique time, perhaps as significant as when

the first humans arose in self-consciousness in an animal world. Millions of us are rising in a more universal, holistic, or cosmic consciousness in a still largely self-centered world. We are being called forth in every field and discipline to fulfill our potential through joining together in creative action." Where do you get the stats on millions of us rising?

IF you look at what Paul Ray did in the 50"s with cultural creatives, 35-50% were changing their values and attitudes-- and recently it's up to 60 or 70% of people are changing their values. But they are not yet in power. I think the most exciting thing is to use our mass media, our nervous system-- to mobilize for identifying what's working and connecting int the world

Rob: What is the "New Story" that Conscious Evolution is based on? And how does story fit into the consciousness aspect of conscious evolution.

It's the universal evolutionary story. The new story is that the universe has been, is now and will be evolving-- in a direction of greater freedom, consciousness and order. We are now in an evolving universe.

Rob: you've talked about crisis and how it is driving conscious evolution.

Crisis drives " Stress creates evolution. We don't know the ending of this story.

Rob: You talk about co-creators who are outside of the current top-down pyramidal system. What are you meaning by that?

Rob: You have a chapter on the NewNews-- and refer to Voices of Hope-- I've interviewed the director of that organization and I'll be attending their annual conference this summer.

We need a media that understands that we are living t through a new story, through a cosmic drama-- tolstoy would not write war and peace he would write devolution and destruction or evolutions

Rob: where do you see it?

on the internet. But it's not organized.

Rob; Websites like gives me hope.

good news

Rob: What kind of new educational system does Conscious Evolution call for? Talk about the memetic code and the need for memes.

a meme is an idea if enough people hold it changes the culture. We've had some terrible memes-- like nazism that Jews were not human and should be destroyed. Communism was a terrible meme and it destroyed millions of people in gulags and prisons. Now we have the meme of capitalism and success and getting ahead" and that can destroy people too.

Look for breakthroughs in creativity, kindness,

Look for books by Peter Diamandis like Bold and Abundance. We're right at the threshold of having a world that works.

Rob-- and the educational system.

That every child has within them a unique creative expression of life--

It has to do with the honoring of the child's potential and that whatever they truly love is what is needed.

Rob: How about higher education?

It's remarkable that we now have, with the internet, the ability for everyone to get the highest knowledge. The part that is missing what each person is called to do within it. if you don't have a sense of direction in your own life, if you don't have an idea what your life purpose is, it's pretty hard to know what to do. I'm very much in favor of small scale entrepreneurship"

Rob: What does the world look like if the world

Homo-universalis-- let's say we're becoming a new species. Homo sapiens was a new species in the neanderthal world-- self reflective consciousness led to our arts,"

If we take ability express love empathetically add new hi technologies-- a new species will be able to restore the earth and will be able to set about exploring human inner potential.

Rob: You've written, "From one stage of evolution, the next stage tends to look like a miracle. How would a bird look to a single cell? How does universal humanity with its godlike powers look to us?"

So, I ask you, How about artificial intelligence and the merging of humans and technology. What are your thoughts on that? Stephen Hawking and others have basically said that the idea scares the hell out of them. Me too, especially since there's a good chance that a conscious, self-improving artificial intelligence will have the switch flicked on, probably by a corporation run by a billionaire, within the next 25 or 30 years.

I think you better hold your hats, because you're not going to stop them.

Let's say that humans are building a cosmic species that's not for this earth" Let's say mother earth who gave birth to rocks, cells, animals, ecologies-- mother earth is giving birth to a co-creative human-- a species that makes the earth livable for all humans. The sun will explode in 5 billion years," so earth is evolving a galactic new species. I think it's a birth.

Rob: Wikipedia reports that In April 2014, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a rebuke to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents the majority of U.S. nuns, for its promulgation of conscious evolution.

He said, --The fundamental theses of conscious evolution are opposed to Christian Revelation and, when taken unreflectively, lead almost necessarily to fundamental errors regarding the omnipotence of God, the Incarnation of Christ, the reality of Original Sin, the necessity of salvation and the definitive nature of the salvific action of Christ in the Paschal Mystery."[1]

Were you in on this conversation?

I was the culprit. I was invited to give a keynote on the future of humanity. I give what I thought was a really good speech quoting from many Catholic theologians. I said we were entering an era of conscious evolution" I made the analogy that the birth of Christ, and the birth of us, when he said you will do the works that I do-- that Jesus was an evolutionary-- so, saying all that I was very well received and spoke at different monasteries-- and I have the love Jesus and I'm writing a book the evolutionary testament" I'm not a catholic but I am an evolutionary spiritual person.

I think Muller saw a threat to the authority of the church. The authority of the church depends upon original sin-- you depend on the church to save you"

Rob: You write that "our awareness incorporates both the eternal and evolving aspects of god" Evolving aspects of god?

Wouldn't you think from the origin creation 13.8 billion years ago, with the source being God. What has god been doing all those years. There are two aspects of god-- god the eternal and god the evolving.

Rob: And you also write that many people are now experiencing the deeper reality that Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. experienced. Who needs organized religion when you have a direct connection?

Rob: You use the analogy of a child being born-- for the new conscious evolution of humanity-- a new baby can't walk, talk, even crawl-- and needs intense parental and community caring to simply survive. Who is doing that for this new consciously evolving babe of humanity?

I am and others like me by the thousands are.

Rob and what is that new role?

to give people hope, to tell everyone what is needed, what is working.

Rob: What current aspects of our world and culture do you see disappearing as the state of conscious evolution manifests and unfolds. You've spoken of profit driven corporations and WMDs not lasting, for example.

This is a kind of big idea. I see that the military industrial couplex will shift its purpose " to restore the earth, free people from deficiencies and explore the universe". I think the military has great people in it. They need a great mission.

Rob: You've written about how while some scientists see evolution as driven by random mutation, selection and accident, you see it as "evolution an expression of implicate order becoming explicate, an Impulse of Creation, a divine intent, a process of coherence, a consciousness force, a universal intelligence infusing the universe with ever more complex and intelligent life. For such scientists and evolutionaries Consciousness is causal, not an epiphenomenon of matter."

scientists who only see a material universe doesn't explain the genius of evolution that got to where we are

Rob: What can listeners and readers do

Stop, look within, see what desire to create, to participate to attract is moving you. First, say yes, I'm going to explore that. Then reach out and connect with others.

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