from: Ervin Laszlo's Introduction to Not-Two Is Peace

Every once in a while, a prophetic voice is raised in the midst of crisis and chaos. It cuts through the walls of indifference, neglect, and just plain ignorance and exposes the heart of the issue....

The voice of the World-Friend, Adi Da, which speaks to us through these pages, addresses none other than the issue of our collective survival—the survival of the species that calls itself homo sapiens: homo the knower, homo the wise. We have reached the very edge of our species’ viability on this planet. The problems are becoming every day more evident; I have enumerated them myself in recent writings. Adi Da states them succinctly: “ ...environmental pollution, global warming, climate change, the abuse of power by corporations and governments, the necessity for new technologies and new methods in every area of human life, the scarcity of fuel resources and of natural and human resources altogether, disease, famine, poverty, overpopulation, urbanization, globalization, human migration, territorial disputes, violent crime, the pervasive accumulation (and the sometimes actual use) of excessively (and even catastrophically) destructive weapons, the tendency of nation-states to avoid cooperation and mutual accommodation, the tendency of nation-states (or factions within nation-states) to use war (and, otherwise, unspeakably dark-minded violence) as a method for achieving the goals of national and otherwise culturally idealized policies... ” The list could be continued; it is long and somber. Every scenario of BAU (business-as-usual) leads to a dead end.

Yet our fate is not sealed. Unlike other species that reached a critical point of existence and succumbed, homo sapiens has a chance: it is a unique chance, for his is a unique situation....

The insight the voice expresses in this book is that we are not only threatened; we can also be saved. The threats come from our egoic separateness; and the salvation from the rediscovery of our unity: the unity that is prior to all other facts and considerations. It is there: it is a fact. Unfortunately for us, it is a nearly forgotten fact. But, fortunately, it is a fact that can be, and is now being, recalled and rediscovered. It is recalled by spiritual masters such as Adi Da, and rediscovered by front-line thinkers and scientists among whom I aspire to be included....

The evidence speaks loud and clear. Voices of true reason rise, a new spirituality evolves, a higher frequency of radiation emerges on the planet. The insight to which Adi Da gives voice is the same insight that is dawning on increasing numbers of people: a decade or two ago thousands; now millions.

The transformation of the human species has begun. A new epidemic is spreading among us: more and more people are infected by the recognition of our unity. The fragmentation of human communities, the separation of man and nature, were but an interlude in human history; and that interlude is now coming to a close. We are recovering our unity not by returning to a prior culture and consciousness, but by moving beyond the fragmented, egoic civilization that dominated humankind for the past two centuries—moving toward a cooperative world that could be, and should be, initiated by the worldwide consultation of people representing no interest other than that of the species itself. The establishment of a Global Cooperative Forum for this purpose is at the heart of Adi Da’s calling in this book. As he writes, “rather than playing the global competition-game to its terrible end ... there must be the establishment of a true Global Cooperative Forum, based on the working-presumption and enactment of prior unity—and, thus and thereby, the globally-extended establishment of a no-nonsense, getting-down-to-business disposition and practice in humankind at large. And, in this Global Cooperative Forum ... everyone will—and, indeed, must—focus on the genuine necessary issues that everyone has in common.

It is high time to move on: the hour of decision approaches. If a critical mass among us recovers the lived experience and attains the felt realization of our prior unity we shall take action, and can await the hour of decision with confidence. The spread of messages coming from the deepest intuitions of which our species is capable is both the means of achieving this paramount condition, and an indication that achieving it is not a question of serendipity, but the fulfillment of the destiny of humankind: the destiny of accomplishing the further evolution of the spirit, mind, and consciousness that is both the blessing and privilege of our species, and its ineluctable responsibility to safeguard and evolve for the benefit of all things that inhabit the Earth, our precious home in the universe.

Ervin Laszlo, Founder and President of the Club of Budapest

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