Reflect on Self: What would you give your life for?

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Self Challenge

Do not seek pleasure or security first. Be willing to suffer, even to give up everything, in the service of something greater than yourself. Give until it hurts.



"If you want to help, share something of yourself – not from your abundance – but until it hurts. Give what costs you—make a sacrifice—do without something you like, so you may share what you have saved thus with those who do not even have what they need. Then your giving will be true giving--loving until it hurts.” Mother Teresa

 

Self Action: Become a Visionary Citizen

 

Reflect on Society: What are the principles of modern society?

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Society Challenge

What our civilization needs today. . .is the cultivation of an exquisite sensitivity and an incomparable tenderness…Unnamable horrors have paraded before us and worse evils threaten because we have been unable to wipe the blank stare of indifference from our stony tearless faces. (Lewis Mumford)



“Our victories have come to resemble defeats. In spite of our triumphs, we have fallen victims to the work of our hands; it is as if the forces we had conquered have conquered us.” Abraham Heschel

What is success?

 

Society Action: Create Visionary Society

 

Reflect on Understanding: What problem are you unable to solve?

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Understanding Challenge

When you reach the shore, keep going. Press onwards through unknown seas. Hunker down in the wild and forage in the deeps. Don’t disembark at the first truth. It is a truth, but only one pinnacle of truth, a single prominence rising up when the tide recedes. Premature understanding falsifies and slays the truth. Wait a while longer and more islets appear, and finally the base, from which all ascend. Dwelling there, cradling opposites, the primal elements become luminous and speak for themselves: the fruit of the wilds: healing embrace, unknowing of ignorance.



"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand."
– Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.” Thich Nhat Hanh.

 

Understanding Action: Undertake your own Learning Journey.

 

Reflect on Culture: How do you participate in culture?

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Culture Challenge

See through the illusion of outer beauty. Support culture that lifts and inspires, informs and transforms. Put the fair and good into your mind. Find out what is explosive creativity.



How do we measure culture? “By how much spiritual substance there is in its everyday existence…We gauge culture by the extent to which a whole people, not only individuals, live in accordance with the dictates of an eternal doctrine or strive for spiritual integrity; the extent to which inwardness, compassion, justice and holiness are to be found in the daily life of the masses.” Abraham Heschel

 

Culture Action: Support culture that lifts and inspires, informs and transforms.

 

Reflect on Money: "Aren't you ashamed that you give your attention to getting as much money as possible?"

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Money Challenge

Just doing your job is wretched (Public action)
Limit your dependence on money.
Reduce the time and energy you spend earning money.
Establish a maximum level of income.
Work for the good.



"This ingenious instrument of material exchange, money, has turned into the only means or the principal means of human communication…Money is the present-day name for the world of the human ego. Money dictates how we deal with everything – material, intellectual, and emotional things." Jacob Needleman
“There is not wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, and joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.” John Ruskin

 

Money Action: Businesses should work for the good. Just doing your job is wretched.

 

Reflect on Politics: What political issue do you care about?

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Politics Challenge

Do not believe what you are told by the government or media.
Do not condemn the other side unthinkingly.
Do not appeal to or blame leaders or authorities.
Reconstruct any hopeless political issue and make it Visionary.



“At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other people, but in what we agree with them; and the moment we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good, (and who but fools couldn’t?) then do it; push at it together.” John Ruskin

 

Politics Action: Turn a political dilemma into a Quest.

 

Reflect on Relationship: What is the closest thing to love you have ever experienced?

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Relationship Challenge

Look for the higher nature in anyone, the grandeur of any living being.
Do not mislead or take advantage of others for your own benefit.
Never give up on anyone.
Find one or two profound qualities in every person you meet.
Learn to see those who are invisible. For example, older people or those in poverty.
Focus on how you agree with others, not on how you differ.
Instead of fighting those causing harm, try help them.
Look upon harm-doers with the eyes of a mother.
Ask for depth in every relationship, at least a little.



"Most of us are lonely, and the older we get, the more lonely. We discover our emptiness, what it means to be lonely, to have no friend at all because you have led a superficial life and invested your thought, your feelings in another. Can you see all this and learn from it? Learn what it means to be lonely and not escape from it; look at it, live with it, see what is implied so that psychologically you depend on nobody. Then only will you know what it means to love."
Jiddu Krishnamurti

“What is important is to find out if you’re one of those with whom love wishes to dwell.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

Relationship Action: New Valentine's Day and Visionary Friendship Pledge

 

Reflect on Peace: What share do you have in the world’s confusion and wickedness?

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Peace Challenge

Put an end to war in yourself
Understand your own role in conflict and aggression.
Admit your need for power, prestige, money.
Recognize your own brutality.
Atone as far as possible for the wrongs you inflict on others.
Don't participate in violent cultural activities.
Reduce indirect complicity in harm, such as overconsumption and greed.
Respect the sanctity of human life and all life.



“War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life, is it not? War is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities.”
"Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination of craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms.”
– J. Krishnamurti

 

Peace Action: Form a Peace Brigade for any conflict.

 

Reflect on Spirituality: What was the most sacred experience in your life?

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Spirituality Challenge

Stake your life on the existence of a transcendent reality. Decide to become capable of spirituality, freedom, love, good.
Begin with humility. Assume that you are ignorant, that every one of your assumptions are incorrect. That everything constructed by society is false. Begin by admitting that you are bewitched, seduced by whatever you are most fond of. Fight the idea that the greatest thing in life is to satisfy your interests or needs.



“By foregoing beauty for goodness, power for love, grief for gratitude, by entreating the Lord for help to understand our hopes, for strength to resist our fears, we may receive a gentle sense of the holiness permeating the air."
Abraham Heschel

 

Spirituality Action: Spiritual community for the modern world

 

Reflect on Culture:

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Culture Challenge

 

Culture Action: