Duane Elgin
In late 70s, Duane Elgin had a tranformative awakening where he "saw, and directly experienced, that everything, including 'empty space,' is visibly alive". It changed his life forever. He first burst into the public eye in 1981 with his now-classic book Voluntary Simplicity, a book that helped to identify a new movement toward more simple and balanced ways of living. For the last 25 years, he has been exploring the broad sweep of human evolution and working towards a sustainable and soulful future.
Today, as a renowned author, speaker, and activist, Duane has an approach that might "best be described as carrot and stick, encouraging individuals and institutions to begin to honestly reflect on both the extraordinary opportunities and the sobering dangers of our moment in history. And while he sees the spiritual journey as crucial in coming to terms with the issues we face, for Elgin, that journey must, now more than ever, be both individual and collective."
Background
Duane was formerly a senior social scientist at the Stanford Research
Institute (now SRI International) in California, where he co-authored
numerous studies on the long-range future.
During the 1980s, Duane founded and directed the non-partisan
and non-profit organization, Choosing Our Future that worked to
revitalize citizen participation in the San Francisco Bay Area
through the development, for example, of a pioneering "electronic
town meeting" process with the ABC-TV station. Duane has an MBA
from the Wharton Business School (1968) and an MA in economic
history from the University of Pennsylvania (1969).
Champion for the idea of a "living universe", Duane most recent book is titled The Promise Ahead. "Science has traditionally regarded the universe as nonliving at its foundations, but it's extraordinary that now, at the frontiers of science, we're beginning to find out that the universe itself is functioning as if it were a living system. [...] This is an amazing miracle, and as we discover this, I think that it is going to begin to shift who we think we are and what we think our life-journey is about. It's transformative."
Random Quotes
Jung defines schizophrenia as mistaking the dream for reality. We
have been so inundated with the televised-generated version of the
American Dream (each person watching roughly 25,000 commercials a
year) that we have mistaken it for reality. We're literally going
crazy--on the one hand knowing we need to learn to live with less,
and on the other hand being continuously encouraged to consume ever
more. We are being divided against ourselves. Something has to give.
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Simplicity of living means meeting life face to face. It means
confronting life clearly, without unnecessary distractions. It
means being direct and honest in relationships of all kinds. It
means taking life as it is--straight and unadulterated.
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For the next several hours I stood virtually rooted in one place,
physically stunned and mentally shocked to the deepest core of my
being. Everywhere I looked, I saw an infusing radiance of immense
intelligence, creativity, and love. I saw, and directly experienced,
that everything, including 'empty space,' is visibly alive. Space
was not simply the absence of form but the formless expression of
infinite possibility.
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We can describe "voluntary simplicity" as a manner of living that
is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being
in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct
and conscious contact with living. This way of life is not a static
condition to be achieved, but an ever changing balance that must be
continuously and consciously made real. Simplicity in this sense
is not simple. To maintain a skillful balance between the inner
and outer aspects of our lives is an enormously challenging and
continuously changing process. The objective is not to dogmatically
live with less, but is a more demanding intention of living with
balance in order to find a life of greater purpose, fulfillment
and satisfaction.
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More:
Awakening Earth: Duane Elgin's Official Website
WIE: Interview With Duane Elgin