Insight on Conversation - Theodore Zeldin

Theodore Zeldin  is an English philosopher, sociologist, historian, writer and public speaker. He represents to me, the best of an almost bygone era, an optimist, rebel, a provocateur with an impish genius, he combines a passion for social and cultural change with an insatiable curiousity about human nature. He founded The Oxford Muse  described as a 'A Foundation to stimulate courage and invention in personal, professional and cultural life’, an aim with which I fully resonate!

The underrated thoroughly channel through which Zeldin pursues his passion for the betterment of humanity, is that of the medium of conversation. He has many insightful stimulating and wise statements on the subject and one of his critical aims is to engage the public together in meaningful discussions and significant dialogue. Through profound topics and questions, which explore themes such as 'What is most important to me?' he has the aim of using conversation to delve beneath much of the superficiality of modern life. He infers that such communication unearths the immense differentiation and universality of human experience, which can be laid bare through authentic and intimate social intercourse.

Below  an almost revelatory quote by Zeldin concerning the state of public discourse and impact of the polarisation caused by debate;

Unfortunately we are so steeped in debate, proving one’s point and challenging others, that alternative possibilities for interaction are often eclipsed from our view. It is interesting to notice that even when we say we want to dialogue we commonly end up in debate. We appear to have a longing to do something different but the vortex of habit confounds us. As a result our options for building mutual respect, deepening understanding among each other, and creating more beneficial outcomes than we experience currently are severely limited.

The ‘vortex of habit confounds’ is an exquisite turn of phrase and leads to this reader, wishing to apprehend and comprehend the beneficial outcomes that he indicates might occur should the conventions of argument and counterargument be set aside.

Should this topic interest you and the allure of creative conversation appeal, please read my blog on the topic here; 'The Forum for Creative Conversation'   or check out the related event on the GlobalNet 21 21st Century Meet Up website

Forum for Creative Conversations - Initial Topic Creative Conversations

GlobalNet 21
 Forum for Creative Conversations - Topic Creative Conversations

This my second attempt to design an intentional space for generative enquiry structured to facilitate getting underneath the surface of complex issues. This conversation forum aims to provide an opportunity for engaged reflection concerning perplexing contemporary issues.  The launch as part of the well established meet up group Globalnet21 will endeavour to ascertain the parameters of what comprises a creative conversation.

Our current life circumstances seem to necessitate the need to participate in a new type forum, one that involves compelling conversation. Global issues appear to demand an increase and development in human capacity for sophisticated and meaningful communication. The current quality of engagement in the public sphere mostly seems to fall short of this goal. Accordingly this forum is designed with the intention to explore the uses and breadth of conversation as a creative art. If we suspend our pre-digested knowledge and allow ourselves to be curious and insightful, this act of improvisation could allow us to be absorbed together into the spontaneous flow of creative conversation and thus experience the possibility that this new form of engagement can transform the way we approach entrenched problems. 



To initiate today's forum as a pilot we have chosen the topic of Conversation, and will feature the author consultant and expert facilitator Sara Rozenthuler with organisational  consultant and executive coach Jonathan Wilson. Should this forum prove successful future forums would arranged on a series of topics that have strong relevance and resonance with the concerns of GlobalNet21.


This event is intended to be a shared enquiry not a lecture, nor a dissemination of information or even an exposition of expert knowledge, it is intended to be an organic free flowing dialogue. It will be framed around intriguing statements related to creative conversation, which are meaningful to the above respondents. Initially there will be an interlude of exploration by the speakers on topics they submit to each other for their immediate comments and insights. After this unprepared passage of conversation the topic will be opened up to whoever shows up in the room on the day.



In a novel initiative to share and shape the enquiry in the collective space, early in the evening participants, will invited to select from a small prepared range of short statements concerning creative conversation. It is hoped that some may resonate strongly with participants and therefore could be offered to connect these to the emerging conversation or instigate a new thread of exploration when the dialogue is opened to the floor.

Venue - Near Dalston Junction a home address that will be disseminated a week before the forum is due to occur.

Sarah Rozenthuler is a professional psychologist, organisational consultant and published author. She works with individuals and corporations, providing coaching services, workshops in personal transformation and a variety of trainings in individual and collective development.  She specialises in creating whole-system change through generating dialogue, systems mapping and working with the whole person. In 2009, she joined the faculty of the Dialogos 10-month Leadership for Collective Intelligence programme for senior executives Her first book,Life-Changing Conversations, was published by Watkins in March 2012.


Jonathan Wilson describes his career as being characterised by leading change and services through people in very competitive markets. He has worked closely and learned form corporate leaders such as Richard Branson, Michael Bishop, Jan Carlzon and Freddie Laker. Born in the USA, Jonathan has lived in the UK, Germany, and Sweden, with interesting assignments in Africa, gaining a deep appreciation of diversity and culture. He is an expert facilitator executive coach and an expert in the art of conducting purposeful conversations


Dave Pendle the convenor of this forum is a trainer educator and consultant working within the youth homelessness sector and finds his drive to improve these youth’s circumstance has never diminished in 20 years of work in the field. He recently completed his MA dissertation on the phenomenology of leadership development and is fascinated by how this nebulous topic captivates contemporary thought. An committed evolutionary  Dave has pursued a path of personal development for nearly forty years and has developed a keen interest in the transformative benefits of contemplation and philosophical enquiry

 

Art, Soul and Earth

Richard Long

Artist of the Landscape

Sculpture and Landscape Art have always held a powerful attraction for me. Andy Goldsworthy was the first eco-sculptor I came across and his sculptures and the pictures of his installations enabled me to experience the ephemeral beauty of art created in situ with natural materials, not created for any particular beholder or market simply for the beauty of the piece itself.

Richard Long was if not the original, one of the first contemporary artists to make marks on the landscape and present this as art. His recent exhibition 'Heaven and Earth' at Tate Britain covered the whole panorama of his work over close to fifty years. This show was a phenomenal experience, an elemental tribute to the man his mission and prodigious dedication to his work.

In its totality, as well as in its particulars the exhibition allowed the visitors to sink deeply into the consciousness of an artist whose art is totally integrated into the meteorological, cosmological and planetary rhythms of the natural landscape. My overwhelming impression in experiencing the exhibition was not of Richard Long the person, but more of him as an emblematic archetype of human motion crossing the planets terrain, evoking hundreds thousands years of trekking, migration and movement across the surface of the earth. Long, outstanding in his art because of his total immersion in nature, conveys the primal urges that drive humanity in the timeless quest to explore the landscape of the living planet.

The central motifs or cohesive themes that ties all Longs’ pieces together are his walks, which are mostly solitary quests, walking in straight lines, or exceptional distances daily, framed or envisioned by a simple mathematical or poetic blueprints.

As well as installations of stone, rock, wood or within divergent landscapes Long creates textworks that relate to walks he has undertaken. These are to me, some of his most powerful offerings, a three line textwork to encapsulate a 366 mile 8 day walk a walk to a Lunar Eclipse or a textwork outlining a walk of 173 miles in seven and a half tides. Not given to excess verbiage, Longs textworks are items of sparse simplicity, the tip of the tsunami of his endeavours. Some works purely describe occasional sounds heard on a 700 mile walk or sights seen on Dartmoor, remarkable for their lack of commentary and absence of emotiveness, these austere recordings of elemental nature strip away surface experience to reveal our inner timeless primordial instincts.

The exhibition was deceptive, as the exhibits could been viewed simplistically as just objects on display, isolated from one another and so consequently the show might have had limited impact on the observer. A magnificent mural painted on the Tate’s walls for the exhibition, one with gold coloured clay paint, applied in swirling interwoven shapes across a twenty feet span, which were displayed together with textworks inscribed on the walls and installations of stone of irregular shapes and sizes weights and appearance, arranged and organized into coherent oval circular or oblong shapes. However walking through the hall with intention and deliberation, absorbing and imbibing the art as organically as the artist may have created it, revealed the immensity of Long artisitc vision and the impersonal expression of his soul as a force of nature itself.

This exhibition fully portrayed the ability of art to connect to transcendent spirit and as such is light years ahead of the supercilious products of the celebrity obsessed art establishment.

Glorious 39

Film Review

Stephen Poliakoff’s film the Glorious 39 is a suspenseful study of identity, class and paranoia set in the immediate period before the start of the Second World War. Romola Garai plays the adopted but eldest daughter of an aristocratic family whose life unravels as she progressively uncovers their complicity in a plot to dissociate Great Britain from the battle against Nazism unfolding in mainland Europe.

Avoiding the pitfall of presenting a far fetched action thriller, the director underplays the murder and espionage elements of the film to subtly study the deterioration of once secure familial relationships, as well as the suffocation and patronage of the highly cultured and excessively mannered pre war British nobility. Using classic suspenseful cinematic touches, the director heightens the viewer’s sense of the main protagonist’s immediate danger, her escalating isolation and deteriorating mental health, so much so that seemingly innocuous occurrences evoke irrational apprehension and a sense of extreme peril in the audience.

The accidental discovery of an intriguing gramophone recording that she stumbles on in the family’s barn, triggers the disappearance then murder of friends and close associates eventually revealing the full extent of her adoptive family’s involvement in a plot to undermine the war effort. These events are portrayed against the backdrop of palatial family homes the idyllic surrounding countryside and the misleading calm cleverly contrasts the insular life of the privileged rich with the gathering storm poised to engulf Europe.

The beloved daughters increasing alarm is frequently assuaged by her father, played by Bill Nighy a brilliant paragon of calm assurance and unctuous duplicity. Even at her worst moment when his actual evil intent is starkly exposed, he speaks to his daughter in such caring fatherly tones that it is possible to believe that he still harbours genuine concern for her. The erosion of her position as a cherished and beloved daughter culminates in the alienating revelation and discovery of her Romany heritage and the rising tension of her estrangement both grips and horrifies. Her outsider status is manipulated so comprehensively that her sanity becomes unhinged, isolated, desperate and times drugged, her captors undermine and fragment her tenuous hold on reality.

This enthralling film emphasizes the vulnerability of women in the pre war age, their dependence on social status for security and protection, without family and deprived of social connection whilst living in permanent anxiety with mental instability an inevitable outcome.

Shaykh Fadhlala Haeri

A post on the Enlightennext UK blog co-written with Carole Raphael to describe a summer evening spent in the company of a revered Muslim mystic.

We were honored to host Shaykh Fadhlala Haeri, his wife Aliya Haeri,, a Sufi master in her own right, and many of Shaykh Fadhlala’s devoted students at our London EnlightenNext Centre recently. It was an evening of rare spiritual camaraderie and joy.

Shaykh Fadhlala is a Sufi sheikh who comes from a long line of respected teachers of Islam. Born in the holy city of Karbala in Iraq, he was educated in Europe and the US and pursued a successful career as a businessman before becoming a religious teacher more than twenty years ago. Shaykh Fadhlala is the founder of the Academy of Self Knowledge, the author of many books on Islam, and spiritual guide to students living across the globe. Currently, living in the Republic of South Africa Shaykh Fadlalah is a progressive mystic and is as deeply informed by the global context and his scientific education as much as his spiritual heritage.

The evening began with an intimate dinner with the Shaykh, a few of his closet students, and EnlightenNext’s Managing Director, Finance Manager and Head of Operations. Following the meal Shaykh Fadhlala gave a talk in which he gave a brief overview of the Sufi Path, which he described as the spiritual heart of Islam.

His main theme was how to pursue an authentic life. With great warmth humour and clarity the Shaykh explained that authenticity, or the condition of being truly ourSelves, with a capital “S”, is the goal of the spiritual life. And by authenticity the Shaykh meant living from that part of ourselves which is highest—the divine within us, the light of God, the soul, or higher consciousness…whatever you want to call it, he said. That higher part is already in us, he said, and it is already enlightened.

Any virtuous attribute carried within in it an expression of divine essence, when drawn to express these qualities we become a vehicle for the infinite to express itself in the world. It is our work to turn away from that which is lower so that higher consciousness can be known and embraced.

The Shaykh sprinkled his talk with a number of metaphors. These imparted an intangible poetic quality, I thought, to what he was conveying as well as served as a tool for envisaging the breadth and absolute dimension of what he was speaking about. For example, he spoke about the “map of creation” as a way to express that life is a process and one with a definite goal. And the process, or path, has a direction, he stressed, one towards higher consciousness. “The issue is arrival,” he repeated in various ways.

He also acknowledged that we have to be aware that we are conditioned beings that our consciousness is conditioned no matter who we are and, at the same time, we are always changing. But that doesn’t mean we can’t also experience the ever-present boundless dimension of consciousness. He explained that by accepting boundaries and our limitations, we will be able to transcend the lower attributes of the self. When the ego’s will is subservient to God’s will, or the authentic self, we are able to rise to higher dimensions. In a particularly beautiful turn of phrase, he said “we are already colonized… by [our] soul.”

With expert precision he identified the many pitfalls and delusions of ignorance, which shield us from progressively uncovering our sublime true nature. He also counselled us to avoid attachment, especially in spiritual matters, and to remain humble.

Thanks to the Shaykh’s spiritual transmission an extraordinary evening was conducted at the EnlightenNext Centre in an atmosphere of considerable mutual respect and warmth. A soul sharing between two dissimilar groups dedicated to the second face of God, connected and bonded by the mutual recognition of spirit being higher, through the auspices and grace of two visionary contemporary teachers. What occurred throughout the evening forged a template for an interfaith communion conducted at the deepest possible level and thereby opening up a potential for ecstatic unity to be spread amongst the diverse faith communities of the planet

I Am a Serious Man -New Film

This new and totally absorbing film by the Coen brothers is replete with their customary stylistic idiosyncrasies, gentle yet farcical humour and off beat quirky characters through which they stunningly pull off an incisive and culturally accurate film. Based on elements of their own upbringing, set in a mid west Jewish American middle class suburb in the late sixties, the narrative of the film throws up a series of unpredictable yet believable circumstances, as it depicts a tsunami of familial and personal crises that engulf its main protagonist.

The unerring precision with which the Coen’s portray this passage of history, its claustrophobic banality and simmering unspoken emotional tension, induces in the viewer a state of suspended horror even nausea, at the grating awkwardness of everything it portrays.

The area where the film scores its greatest successes lies in the riveting portrayal of a huge variety of Jewish characters played, by an assumedly all Jewish cast. These actors vividly bring to life the tensions of the time through not expressing them. This is conveyed magnificently and simply through the acutely precise body language through which each actor imparts the alienation and mute isolation of the times as well as the characters from one another. As a subtle contrast to this stifling tone, the film refers at times obliquely and at others more directly to the countercultural seismic shifts occurring outside the perimeters of this enclosed world.

Ultimately bleak, the film traces the travails of Larry Gopnick, Physics Professor as he is sideswiped by a completely unexpected separation and possible divorce, blackmailed out of the family home and cringingly patronised by his wife’s intended new husband and bribed and blackmailed by a student potentially undermining an impending offer of tenure. Understandably he descends into a state of anguish, from which not one single acquaintance is able to assuage his deepening gloom. In desperation he seeks out two of three local Rabbis only to be offered glib platitudes or meaningless obscurantism.

The film within its own parameters is a triumph of convincing pathos, humour and whilst not nostalgic, an affectionate backward look at a very a specific time and place of a cultural rite of passage.

However stepping outside the Coen brothers’ milieu and seeing through, the artistic oeuvre that they inhabit, it is possible to discern certain cultural assumptions upon which the film is based. These presuppositions pervade the fabric of the film and render the overall message and content of the film a portrayal of a lost and nihilistically bereft humanity.

Whilst perfectly capturing the emptiness and isolation of modernity, the knowing almost sneering, poking of fun at human eccentricity, the nonexistence of any sense of underlying meaning or purpose in the lives of those portrayed, guarantee this movie carries the Coen’s typical filmic emotional undertow –their pervasive signature note of human futility and purposelessness. Whilst this film is not as much overt homage to the death drive as ‘No Country for Old Men’, ‘A Serious Man’ its ultimate longer term affect is to reduce art to smug irony.

On the initiation of the EnlightenNext Discovery Cycle in Tuscany July 25-August 16 2009

Seven weeks ago Andrew Cohen initiated the Discovery Cycle on the Being and Becoming retreat held amidst the outstanding beauty of the Tuscan hills.

The 'Being' part of the event was held over the first ten days where Cohen propelled participants into the perfect timeless ground of enlightenment. Using passages of his earliest work ‘Enlightenment is a Secret’ Cohen guided the most veteran meditators and the newest initiate deeper and even deeper into that nameless place where nothing ever happened and from which a problem never arose. After a day or two those attending felt an enormous magnetic field developing compelling them into letting go into the freefall of that weightless place. The field made the act of meditation increasingly natural and easeful allowing retreatants to shed layers and possibly lifetimes of habitual unconscious tension. With immense care and forensic precision in answering questions Cohen facilitated 120 delegates to encounter the mysterious wonder of enlightenment and allow it to fully permeate their experience. After ten days of total silence and immersed in that matchless perfection participants were radiating a rare quality of inner peace and stillness

Midway through the retreat it shifted gears into the 'Becoming' section, a handful of meditators left and 150 plus others arrived to take the retreat forward into hitherto uncharted waters. With his prodigious talent for creatively illustrating the dimensions of the self Cohen spoke for up to three hours at a time revealing the many subtleties and complexities inherent in the challenging task of conscious evolution. His consistent focus throughout the retreat was on the four essential elements of human experience, contrasting the authentic self the absolute positivity of the big bang in motion, with the sublime emptiness and indifference of the ground of being and then comparing these absolute dimensions with the relative and conditioned nature of the cultural as well as the personal psychological self.

Cohen’s consistently metamorphosing teaching style produced striking elucidations of both new and familiar principles. He defined ego as both best friend and worst enemy, the worst being that part of the self which is inert and violently resistant to change, the best being aligned with the culturally conditioned self that has developed over time and that which is capable of encompassing greater and greater degrees of evolutionary complexity. The core tenets of the teaching were described not as a guidance that if applied would create an improved person but kosmic laws that pulsated with their own radiant vertical enlightening energy.

In addition to these radical and illuminating discourses Cohen arranged the 250 plus people into groups of around 20-25 to meet daily and share their reflections insight and experiences on specific topics outlined by Cohen that he had raised in that morning’s talk. Each group was carefully arranged to compose of individuals with similar levels of knowledge understanding and familiarity with these Evolutionary Enlightenment teachings and were facilitated by two of Cohen’s most senior and closest students. Three or four groups were composed of individuals with little or next to no understanding and experience of evolutionary enlightenment the eleventh comprised of those with 11 -23 years, so a whole gradation of experience was represented within all the groups.

The morning teaching was followed by a group discussion in the afternoon and subsequently in the evening, all of the groups lead facilitators reported on the progress and some qualities of each group. During which Cohen took any questions offered by group members on the discussion content or group process. Remarkably every single day each group progressed step by step into deeper understanding of enlightenment and the process of intersubjective conscious development, irrespective of existing understanding or knowledge of the principles being taught. By the end of the retreat every participant was in an altered state, inspired enlivened and ecstatic and acutely conscious of the immense potential for the good of humanity and its future that this impersonal emergence represented.

In addition a small group of volunteers who had signed up for The EnlightenNext Discovery Cycle Higher Development Research Project before the retreat and were assessed at the beginning and end of the retreat on a range inventories, scans and profiling instruments to gauge the impact of the retreat on these individuals. As the study will be longitudinal these scientific tests will evaluate the participants responses and conscious evolution over a significant period of time and eventually scientifically evidence and demonstrate the effectiveness of these teaching methods.

Overall, Cohen's initiation of the EnlightenNext Discovery Cycle clearly demonstrated that a new utterly positive wholesome human culture can be created and/which is well within the grasp of anyone at a post modern stage of development, With little preparation or training 250 sincere individuals recognised that the future was in their hands and their creative power to affect the course of evolution was imminently achievable. It was also clear that this developmental milestone would be scaled up and made available to even larger numbers over time and as one former Buddhist observed that the retreat catalysed the turning the 'Fourth turning of the wheel'. A revolution in consciousness in culture is occurring and waiting for you to sign up!!

On the initiation of the EnlightenNext Discovery Cycle in Tuscany July 25-August 16 2009

Seven weeks ago Andrew Cohen initiated the Discovery Cycle on the Being and Becoming retreat held amidst the outstanding beauty of the Tuscan hills.

The 'Being' part of the event was held over the first ten days where Cohen propelled participants into the perfect timeless ground of enlightenment. Using passages of his earliest work ‘Enlightenment is a Secret’ Cohen guided the most veteran meditators and the newest initiate deeper and even deeper into that nameless place where nothing ever happened and from which a problem never arose. After a day or two those attending felt an enormous magnetic field developing compelling them into letting go into the freefall of that weightless place. The field made the act of meditation increasingly natural and easeful allowing retreatants to shed layers and possibly lifetimes of habitual unconscious tension. With immense care and forensic precision in answering questions Cohen facilitated 120 delegates to encounter the mysterious wonder of enlightenment and allow it to fully permeate their experience. After ten days of total silence and immersed in that matchless perfection participants were radiating a rare quality of inner peace and stillness

Midway through the retreat it shifted gears into the 'Becoming' section, a handful of meditators left and 150 plus others arrived to take the retreat forward into hitherto uncharted waters. With his prodigious talent for creatively illustrating the dimensions of the self Cohen spoke for up to three hours at a time revealing the many subtleties and complexities inherent in the challenging task of conscious evolution. His consistent focus throughout the retreat was on the four essential elements of human experience, contrasting the authentic self the absolute positivity of the big bang in motion, with the sublime emptiness and indifference of the ground of being and then comparing these absolute dimensions with the relative and conditioned nature of the cultural as well as the personal psychological self.

Cohen’s consistently metamorphosing teaching style produced striking elucidations of both new and familiar principles. He defined ego as both best friend and worst enemy, the worst being that part of the self which is inert and violently resistant to change, the best being aligned with the culturally conditioned self that has developed over time and that which is capable of encompassing greater and greater degrees of evolutionary complexity. The core tenets of the teaching were described not as a guidance that if applied would create an improved person but kosmic laws that pulsated with their own radiant vertical enlightening energy.

In addition to these radical and illuminating discourses Cohen arranged the 250 plus people into groups of around 20-25 to meet daily and share their reflections insight and experiences on specific topics outlined by Cohen that he had raised in that morning’s talk. Each group was carefully arranged to compose of individuals with similar levels of knowledge understanding and familiarity with these Evolutionary Enlightenment teachings and were facilitated by two of Cohen’s most senior and closest students. Three or four groups were composed of individuals with little or next to no understanding and experience of evolutionary enlightenment the eleventh comprised of those with 11 -23 years, so a whole gradation of experience was represented within all the groups.

The morning teaching was followed by a group discussion in the afternoon and subsequently in the evening, all of the groups lead facilitators reported on the progress and some qualities of each group. During which Cohen took any questions offered by group members on the discussion content or group process. Remarkably every single day each group progressed step by step into deeper understanding of enlightenment and the process of intersubjective conscious development, irrespective of existing understanding or knowledge of the principles being taught. By the end of the retreat every participant was in an altered state, inspired enlivened and ecstatic and acutely conscious of the immense potential for the good of humanity and its future that this impersonal emergence represented.

In addition a small group of volunteers who had signed up for The EnlightenNext Discovery Cycle Higher Development Research Project before the retreat and were assessed at the beginning and end of the retreat on a range inventories, scans and profiling instruments to gauge the impact of the retreat on these individuals. As the study will be longitudinal these scientific tests will evaluate the participants responses and conscious evolution over a significant period of time and eventually scientifically evidence and demonstrate the effectiveness of these teaching methods.

Overall, Cohen's initiation of the EnlightenNext Discovery Cycle clearly demonstrated that a new utterly positive wholesome human culture can be created and/which is well within the grasp of anyone at a post modern stage of development, With little preparation or training 250 sincere individuals recognised that the future was in their hands and their creative power to affect the course of evolution was imminently achievable. It was also clear that this developmental milestone would be scaled up and made available to even larger numbers over time and as one former Buddhist observed that the retreat catalysed the turning the 'Fourth turning of the wheel'. A revolution in consciousness in culture is occurring and waiting for you to sign up!!