Chapter 5

If we think of ourselves only as separate, competitive individuals, it’s easy to believe there isn’t much we can do in the face of a large-scale, multi-facetted global crisis. Fortunately, we live at a time when spiritual traditions and contemporary science converge in challenging this limited view of who we are, opening us to the discovery of deeper levels of our identity. The first discovery is a shift in consciousness, as we learn to experience our profound rootedness in larger systems of life. Chapter Five, A Wider Sense of Self, describes this shift as one of the most exciting developments of our time, it being a spiritual process that is also fully in accord with the modern scientific framework of systems thinking and Gaia Theory. This deepening of self leads to the shifts in thinking and perception explored in the next three chapters.