A Brief Introduction to Adi Da’s Book
Not-Two Is Peace
The "old ways" are no longer applicable. "Tribal" associations — whether religious, national, or racial — no longer have relevance in the now-interconnected state of humankind." - Adi Da, Not-Two Is Peace
Everyone understands, at some level, that there is a global crisis. Many have addressed different aspects of it, including Al Gore, Paul Hawken, George Soros, Ervin Laszlo, Pema Chodron and others.
Adi Da’s book Not-Two Is Peace, on the other hand, presents a uniquely comprehensive address to the global crisis. He points out that we not only face an unprecedented threat to the survival of life on this planet, but our current methods for addressing global crises simply won’t work. The system is broken, and the remedial tools at hand are obsolete.
For example, our attempts at resolving global
conflict, along with a host of inter-related
environmental and resource issues, are hamstrung
by an outmoded global structure of “tribalism”,
where all “solutions” lie in the hands of separate
states and interest groups, which – when not
actively engaged in creating these very same
problems – come together primarily to advance
their own agendas rather than work for the good
of humanity as a whole.
To take us beyond tribalism and the forces
that feed it, Adi Da identifies a number of develop-
ments that need to occur, three of which we’ll
introduce here. None of the three is easy to achieve.
But, taken together, they enable and reinforce each other.
By addressing the root source of our current problems,
they constitute our best option for survival.
The three developments are:
The creation of a Global Cooperative Forum that, unlike the United Nations, consists of a body of representatives each of whom represents NOT a state, region, or faction but ONLY the interests of humanity as a whole. The Forum will build the practical communication structures and organizational mechanisms to give collective voice to the people of the world and would approach global matters as one living process, rather than as a multiplicity of competing issues. It will also engage in a wide array of humanitarian, educational, diplomatic, and organizational functions, often in collaboration with other organizations.
The mobilization of Everybody-All-At-Once to insist that world leaders actually make the changes formulated by the Global Cooperative Forum for the benefit of humanity. Using our existing network of global communications, this mobilization will allow individuals worldwide to take a proactive role in addressing issues, rather than settling for the traditional politics of reactivity, where a parental government proposes and its citizens merely respond, either positively or negatively.
A shift in consciousness that takes us beyond conventional notions of the oneness of humanity. This is in fact the central concept of Not-Two Is Peace – and perhaps the most challenging. It points to a unity that is non-material, but which is the “root-context of existence,” the structure of reality itself, as ancient seers have declared and modern physics has demonstrated. Adi Da calls it “prior” unity to indicate a unity that is, first of all, already the case. And, secondly, that it is realized in our actions only by presuming it to be already the case, rather than seeking for it.
Human beings must accept, with humility, that their rightful position (and that of every one) in the naturally indivisible world-family of Earthkind (including humankind) is not the "ego-place" of prior dis-unity (and, thus, of separateness, separativeness, domination, and control), but the "heart-place" of prior unity (and, thus, of ego-transcending cooperation and tolerance).
The more people awaken to prior unity, the more they will demand the rightening of the world by their governments, in association with the Global Cooperative Forum. This shift in the minds of vast numbers of people is, in fact, the only way that enduring world change will happen.
Is it naïve to expect changes of such magnitude? Adi Da points out that it “is not naïve to suggest and expect a profound change in the conducting of global human affairs when those who could make the demand for change number in the billions. Nor is it folly to try to re-orient humankind when the only alternative is universal slavery and the culture of death.”
We should also bear in mind that:
- Major revolutions have occurred in the past. While they took more time to develop than we have at our disposal, none happened in an age of instant global communications such as ours, where everything happens faster and on a broader scale.
- While the process is still developing, even relatively small numbers of influential people on the world stage, awake to the tacit reality of humanity’s prior unity, can produce profoundly positive changes.
- Systems are inherently self-rightening. The earth, local ecologies, and even our own bodies are fundamentally self-rightening if we remove the obstacles, the “staves in the wheels,” that we ourselves have introduced.
- Already there is a growing awareness of both the magnitude and the urgency of the problems we face, as well as a recognition by many that we need to find new ways to address them.
We have focused in this note on only three of the elements of change called for in Not-Two Is Peace. Others, including the need for what Adi Da calls “Zero-Point Education” and “Intimate Cooperative Community,” are discussed at length in the book, which has chapters covering a variety of topics such as the necessity to give institutional form to the principle of prior unity, establishing rules of participation for a global cooperative order, and the time-tested politics of unity versus the anti-civilization politics of individuation.
The complete book is available to be read at http://www.da-peace.org.
Copies can be ordered at http://www.dawnhorsepress.com.
The Global Cooperation Project is dedicated to promoting the concepts of Not-Two Is Peace.
To find out more, go to: http://www.globalcooperationproject.org or call Lisa Kellogg, GCP Board Secretary, at 866-669-1003 (USA)