With practice, conflict and resistance can be helpmates that renew the integrity of love. Conflict itself comes to be seen as positive, and my internal state of resistance an opportunity to become more conscious, more open to objective truth, more genuinely accepting of different points of view, more forgiving, and more willing to find my place within the totality of life. Each time I do this, I grow, and, through me, our species and the life-system evolves. On a planet with six billion or more separate human frames of reference, a planet where the web of life is fraying, practicing this discipline is the response demanded of each of us if the human species is to realize its evolutionary potential. Each individual is responsible for his or her own growth.
Personal change is the foundation of collective change.
Back to the top of this page 5. Our biggest job is to change our whole way of thinking to a larger perspective, to recognize ourselves as a body of humanity embedded in, and with much to learn from, our living parent planet, which is all we have to sustain us. The place to work out conflict, resistance, and separation from each other and the living system is in the life of the group. People yearn for community. We treasure those extreme conditions where a blizzard or power failure break us out of our habitual isolation from each other and bring us together in cooperation.