BRAHMA KUMARIS WORLD SPIRITUAL UNIVERSITY
Consciousness and Climate: Confluence of Two Living Systems
Statement for theUnited Nations Climate Change Conference
December 7-18, 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark

Context
As a nongovernmental organization with consultative status with the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations, the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (BKWSU)
contributes to the UN community by reframing issues, such as climate change, and in spiritualterms, by highlighting the inner dimension of the decisions facing the UN member states.
Our premise in this paper is that for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to havereal impact, it cannot confine itself to discussions about emissions and compliance withstandards. What is needed at this time is a profound shift in awareness – a shift in the thinking
that is producing our current crisis. Shifting the conversation to include the inner dimension willtransform the quality of the conversation and the possible agenda for action among stakeholders.
The Earth as a Living System
Any real understanding of the issue of global climate change needs to be placed in the context ofEarth as a living system. Living Systems Theory is a body of work that describes how all living
systems function, how they sustain themselves, and how they develop and change. Livingsystems is a metaphor that represents an animate arrangement of parts and processes that
continually affect one another over time. By definition, living systems are self-organizing. Theygrow. They change. They connect. They are cyclic. They are whole and systemic.
To see living systems and to understand how they work, we have to observe the connections thatmake up the whole system. When we are able to see the interconnections and understand how
they are intricately related, then our view of the world begins to change.
Human Thought as a System
To embrace the full scope of the global climate change crisis, it is necessary to look at anothersystem that is influencing the living system of the Earth: the system of thought at every level ofhuman affairs, which affects our collective efforts to create a tolerable world and civilization.
In a 1990 seminar in Ojai, California, theoretical physicist David Bohm explained the system ofthought that underlies the current crisis. Acknowledging the difficult situation the world is in –ecologically, economically, and so on -- he said: “People have been dealing with this piecemeal– looking at symptoms, saying that we’ve got to solve this problem or that problem or thatproblem. But there is something deeper, which people haven’t been considering, that isconstantly generating these problems. We can use the analogy of a stream, where people arepouring pollution upstream at the same time they are trying to remove it downstream. But asp. 1

they remove it, they may be adding more pollution of a different kind. What is the source of all
this trouble? The source is basically in thought” (p 2, Bohm).
“… one of the obvious things wrong with thought is fragmentation. Thought is breaking things
up into bits which should not be broken up” (pp. 2-3, Bohm). Thought, Bohm explains,establishes boundaries to separate nations, religions, and professional groups. Thoughtfragments knowledge, and so our system of thought allows us to separate causes from effects, tomiss the interconnections between what is happening upstream and the effect of that action
downstream.
Bohm goes on to explain another problem with thought – that thought is participatory – that itaffects the world, all the while claiming that it is only commenting on the world: “Thought isalways doing a great deal, but it tends to say that it hasn’t done anything, that it is just telling you
the way things are. But thought affects everything. Even the South Pole has been affected
because of the destruction of the ozone layer, which is basically due to thought. People thoughtthat they wanted to have refrigerant – a nice safe refrigerant – and they built that all up bythinking more and more about it. And now we have the ozone layer being destroyed” (p. 5,Bohm).
Bohm argues passionately that thought has produced tremendous outward effects, and perhaps
more important, tremendous inward effects in each of us. “The general tacit assumption inthought is that it’s just telling you the way things are and that it is not doing anything – that ‘you’are inside there, deciding what to do with the information … but you don’t decide what to dowith the information. The information takes over and runs you” (p 5, Bohm).
The deteriorating conditions of the natural world are the result of a failure to see relationships
between the various parts and processes of the living system. Our inability to see these
relationships is the result of fragmentation in our inner system of thought. What can we do tointervene in the vicious cycle of increasing fragmentation and blindness? What will allow us todismantle the artificial boundaries we have constructed and to see the unified system of which
we are a part and for which we are the trustees?
A Change in Awareness: Seeing with Systemic Vision
The key to intervening in the unfolding events of the outer biological system is to create achange in the inner system of thoughts. First, we must make thought aware of its role in creating
the world – or to put it another way – we must make the thinkers of thoughts aware that we are
not neutral observers of a sequence of events: our inner beliefs affect our process of observing
and the choices we make as a result, affecting the very world we are observing.
Second, we must have an epiphany, an experience that breaks through our inner system ofthought with a new and paradigm-shattering awareness. It is experience that changes ourawareness. We need an epiphany on a global scale. To change our inner system of thinking, weneed a collective “aha” moment on the scale of those of the astronauts and cosmonauts who saw
Earth from space for the first time:
They say if you have experiments to run, stay away from the window. For me,preoccupied with the Drop Dynamics Module, it wasn’t until the last day of
our flight that I even had a chance to look out. But when I did, I was truly
overwhelmed.
p. 2A Chinese tale tells of some men sent to harm a young girl who, upon seeing
her beauty, become her protectors rather than her violators. That’s how I felt
seeing the Earth for the first time. I could not help but love and cherish her (p.
60, Kelley).
– Taylor Wang, China/ USA
From space I saw Earth – indescribably beautiful with the scars of nationalboundaries gone (p. 77, Kelley).
– Muhannad Ahmad Faris, Syria
After an orange cloud – formed as a result of a dust storm over the Sahara andcaught up by air currents – reached the Philippines and settled there with rain,I understood that we are all sailing in the same boat (p 77, Kelley).
– Vladimir Kovalyonok, USSR
Astronauts and cosmonauts are members in an exclusive club – those who have witnessed theEarth from a platform in space. This experience inspired them all. And this is the kind ofexperience we need – a collective change in consciousness that stirs our hearts, causing us to
examine the inner system of thought running inside of us. This change of awareness won’t
happen by citing statistics to one another. It will happen when we are deeply moved and becomeaware of what we need to conserve.
Cultivating Systemic Vision: A Vision of Love
When we look with a vision of love, our vision expands. Chilean cognitive biologist andsystems theorist Humberto Maturana defines love as the domain of relationship when the otherarises in front of us as a legitimate other. Maturana said, “Systemic seeing occurs only when you
are seeing with love. The systemic seeing of love occurs only when there are no interfering
emotions that make your purposes or desires guide what you do. As love becomes theunconscious guide of your doings, you see the systemic relational-operational matrix of which
you are a part and in which you are immersed. You immediately know how to move in it.
Seeing with love is not seeing with goodness, or kindness, or goodwill, or generosity – it is justsystemic seeing” (p. 64, Rodgers and Naraine).
Maturana says that when we see with love, seeing the other (in this case the Earth and the humanfamily) as legitimate, our vision expands and we see the whole delicate system. However, when
we see from a place of self-interest, we are blinded by our own desires. We lose our systemicvision and see with a limited linear vision: “Persistent linear thinking through any conviction,
whether it is religious, philosophical, political, or scientific, whether it comes from a desire toadvance high ideals or private gain, negates love. And when our thinking negates love, it
negates systemic vision” (p 98, Rodgers and Naraine).
The Opportunity for the UN Climate Change Initiative
The UN is rare in its ability to convene the world’s member nations on behalf of the interests of
the whole of the world. The urgency of the Climate Change initiative requires our mostprofound vision and most unselfish action agenda. The shapers of policy in most cases areenmeshed in a paradigm of development and wealth. We believe that this conference, andsuccessive conferences on this crucial issue, must intervene in the numbing cycle of citing
statistics on carbon emissions and mediating among the special interests of nation states.

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We believe the UN must elevate its mandate to convening member states and inspire them tocreate a new level of global awareness. Anything less is a squandering of the UN’s uniqueconvening power. Anything less is a lost opportunity. The world’s decision makers don’t need
to be scolded or cajoled, they need to be awakened to the beauty of the Earth as a delicate living
system and inspired to take on the elevated task of being the Earth’s trustees.
Dadi Janki, Chief of the Brahma Kumaris, understands the role of inspiration in helping us findthe courage and strength to do what we need to do:
When your intent is pure, it has a vibrant impact on others. When you aretouched by a good quality – inspired by a virtue or value – and act in anelevated way, your action has the potential to inspire others. It is a natural
law that souls respond to the quality of intention they experience in others.
When we speak about inspiration, this is what we are speaking about. Manythings cannot be done without inspiration. If you have inspiration, you find thecourage and strength you need, and nothing can stop you (p.79, Rodgers andNaraine).
– Dadi Janki

Bibliography
Bohm, David. Thought as a System. London, Routledge, 1994, 2, 3, 5.
Kelley, Kevin. The Home Planet. Reading, MA., 1988, 60, 77.
Rodgers, Judy and Naraine, Gayatri. Something Beyond Greatness: Conversations with a Man of Science and aWoman of God. Deerfield Beach, FL, HCI Communications, Inc., 2009, 64, 79, 98.
Sweeney, Linda Booth. Connected Wisdom: Living Stories About Living Systems. Schlumberger Excellence in
Educational Development, 2008.

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Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University
The BKWSU is a non-governmental organization in general consultative status with the United Nations
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and in consultative status with UNICEF.
The University was founded in India in 1937 and has branches in over 100 countries worldwide.
It has been affiliated to the United Nations Department of Public Information since 1980.
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