Evolutionary Activism and the Mutation of Consciousness- An interactive presentation
By Alan Sasha Lithman
All Tuesday evening events
at RVML are free admission!
Presentation Description:
Can our scientific and religious traditions address the unprecedented nature and complexity of crises we presently face? Or might these crises be the evolutionary catalysts challenging us to find a new way of knowing and being, to become the first terrestrial species to consciously collaborate in its own evolution? In which case, we need a new perception and approach to the problem -- a new, more integral form of activism.
An Evolutionary Agenda for the Third Millennium, authored by Alan Sasha Lithman, has been described by Matthew Fox as "a radical book, a compassionate book, and an altogether needed book calling all of us to 'evolutionary activism' ". What is Evolutionary Activism? And how can we collaborate more effectively and creatively in our personal/collective transformation? The author will explore these question in an interactive discussion/community-building exercise, encouraging participants to begin visioning practical strategies and action-agendas to sustain us through the intense transitions ahead.
Presentation includes 12 min. video: "Peacetrees-India, 1988"
Presenter's Biography:
Cultured in the activist milieu of the 1960s, Alan Sasha Lithman migrated to San Francisco to pursue more inner-directed disciplines following his graduation from the University of Florida in 1967. In the course of his explorations, he met Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri, founder of the California Institute of Integral Studies, opening the door to the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
At the close of the sixties, he hitchhiked from London to India to meet the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Following that meeting with her (from whom he received the name "Savitra"), he entered the pioneering global community experiment of Auroville located in coastal South India. He spent the next 21 years (1969-1990) there, apprenticing "applied spirituality", community-building and environmental restoration. He helped jumpstart Auroville's first schools, organizational and communications systems, as well as the afforestation program which eventually planted over two million trees, reviving a barren plateau back into lush tropical forests. In the course of his community liaison work, he established working relations with anthropologist Margaret Mead, environmentalist David Brower and futurists such as Michael Murphy, Hazel Henderson and others pressing the evolutionary envelope.
Returning to the States in 1990, his first American book, The Savitri Legend (Sigo Press with Foreword by Robert Johnson), was published in 1999. Considering himself an "evolutionary activist", his latest work, An Evolutionary Agenda for the Third Millennium, was published by White Cloud Press (www.whitecloudpress.com) with support from the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Interviewed on New Dimensions Radio by Michael Toms, his new book has led to collaborations with Barbara Marx Hubbard, workshop presentations at IONS 30th anniversary conference, and most recently, an invitation by Matthew Fox to lecture at his University of Creation Spirituality on March 24, 2004.
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