Time to Wake up - Open Evening Report

Schumacher College and Transition Town Totnes jointly offered this lecture by Peter Russell on January 18th. Peter was tutoring on Schumacher College’s ‘Science and Spirituality’ course that week. The lecture was attended by about 300 people.

Peter spoke of the momentous changes that are happening in the world – in the dissatisfaction with our current acquisitive mind-set, with constant wars, and with climate change which threatens all parts of the planet. Many people in ‘Totnes Transition’ are presently working towards a simpler way of living as a community of people, which is consistent with the thrust of Peter’s lecture. He quoted Gandhi’s saying ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’. Such a change would be asking questions about why we conduct wars, destroy rainforests, act against all the evidence that we are doing harm to our own home.

He went on to say that our present way of perception assumes that the answer to human dissatisfaction in the individual lies in the outside world – a belief which leads to ever deeper hunger and greed and a kind of trance. Whereas all the greatest humans the world has ever seen understand that deep happiness lies within ourselves and who we are, and inner stability and trust. In the 1960s, there was a creative flash when many of us understood this anew, and this has led to a growth in spirituality (which Peter sees as very different from organised religion) in the West, partly related to Eastern insights.

At the same time, new technologies are proliferating and lead all the time to unexpected results. At every level in the world in the 21st century, we can expect ‘storms, hurricanes of change’, and need to learn to stand securely in the ground, as individuals and as communities, ‘like trees in a forest’.

This lecture, by a well-known scientist and world-class speaker, led to a very lively question and answer session. One person said that maybe the human species is at the kind of break-through situation which our remote ancestors experienced when they first emerged from the sea to walk on land. Others spoke of the distrust of many people in our present governments. For all, it was interesting to see how the theory from the College and the action within in Totnes were so consistent. A very good evening.

By Jean Hardy, Jan 07

Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and as a charity (company no. 1485560, charity no. 279756). Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL, UK.