From Deep Green to Second-Tier: a case study

Attached is an article that describes a case study of the Permaforest Trust - an integrally informed sustainability education facility working towards becoming a dedicated Integral Sustainability education and practice centre in Australia. This case study tells the story of its inception, growth and ongoing maturity in an integral context, and it outlines the particular challenges faced by the project and its founder, in the process of introducing integral ideas and practices.

I read this article with great interest and believe that the specific descriptions of the terrain the Permaforest Trust have coverred on its journey towards integrality has a lot of relevance and parralels with Auroville. I beieve it could offer some insights and points for further exploration in our meetings. I would be grateful to read others impressions.

kathy

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commented by Arul Dev on Jan 30, 2009

Hi Kathy
 
Read the article with great interest. Thanks for sharing this. Personally i feel i can learn a lot from this. The parallels for auroville and my company etc.
 
I have few comments that i am listing down:
  • I think every organizations path from green to yellow would be different. The more i am spending time at Auroville the more i fell that it is such a beautiful complex organization. What Auroville needs to do could be lot more different i think. We can draw parallels and learn from Permaforest. But i think we have to move ourselves internally and externally from green to yellow individually and together. Thats when i think we are going to make this beautiful transformation
  • I also am of the opition that green to yellow is marked by end of fear. This is not coming through clearly in Permaforest. If we can interview this gentleman for UHU we may be able to probe further into this
  • One of the distinct beautiful things i am seeing in Auroville is the number of people who have a direct contact with Divine. In fact i think the beginning para of the book "The Mother" talks about the same. I think our cognitive, emotional transformation along with this deepening contact with Divine is what is going to take us into the yellow in a whole new way.
Few more points from Pierre Teilhard De Chardin Book i am reading now called "The Divine Milieu.":
 
He talks about how Detachment and Attachment can be harmonized and so complement one another.

So from Auroville’s angle – Going inward and contacting the divine AND manifesting the divine in the external world through higher unfolding stages of development is what i think needs to happen..

I am curious to understand how Permaforest is living this divinity both inward and outward.

I am curious to see how at Auroville we can deepen this non-dual divine expression in our living experience.

 

Again Teilhard goes, “Since everything in the world follows the road to unification, the spiritual success of the universe is bound up with the correct functioning of every zone of that universe and particularly with the release of every possible energy in it. "

As is written in the foreword of Telihard’s book – In Telihard’s own self the integration of life has been achieved; if he loved God, it was through the world, and if he loved the world it was a function of God, the animator of all things. “The joy and strength of my life”, Teilhard wrote a month before his death,”will have lain in the realization that when the two ingredients – God and the world – were brought together they set up an endless mutual reaction, producing a sudden blaze of such intense brilliance that all the depths of the world were lit up for me.”

 

I think that I is a good example of an integral individual. This is what i think is required for more and more of us to live.

 

It would be great to do some more research into Permaforest and other organizations

 

Regards

 

Arul Dev