The New Paradigm Book of Quotes Like koans, quotes can provide wisdom in short bites. In selecting new paradigm quotes for this section, I have included those that touched me deeply, that provide a collective map of values and visions that can serve as guideposts in our daily life choices and larger life journey's. From this point forward, we must make far wiser choices in order to overcome the momentum of the past errors that have produced the many threats and challenges to humanity's well being and the survival of life on Earth. There are visionary voices here from the past, present and "future-present". I hope you may find them inspiring and empowering catalysts in your personal, community and business life. I imagine it might be possible for someone diving deeply into these quotes and allowing them to penetrate their mind, heart and soul to actually change the course of their life. One never knows what's around the next bend in life particularly if you have prepared the soil of your mind and heart to receive its wisdom. May these quotes lead you in the direction of your highest aspirations and possibilities and may you leave behind all else. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. “BE POSSIBLE,” Change will say when it finds you, “Your permission to yourself is all I require of you.” ~ Tommy Bahler We've all been given the gift of life. What we do with our lives is our gift back. ~ Edo The future is the present unrealized. ~ Ray Kurzweil This is one of the rarest moments in the entire span of human evolution—after tens of thousands of years of separation, we are finally beginning to develop stories of “all of us.” With the old stories breaking down, and new stories not yet in place, the world is uniquely open to discovering “Great Transition Stories.” Our mission is to meet this window of opportunity with inspiring and empowering narratives that are grounded in lived experience. ~ Duane Elgin, Social Visionary The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind-computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBA's who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind-creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people-artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers-will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys. ~ Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind Humans live by stories. But it is the sacred stories that guide us toward how we may live in balance with all other life, and what is most worthy of our respect, care, and cultivation. The modern world lacks a sacred story, which helps explain the economic, social, environmental, and political failings of modern society. Sacred activism begins with, and builds from, a story of a Sacred Earth Community. Grounded in indigenous wisdom, this sacred story reminds us we are embedded in the web of life, and recognizes that our well-being is only as great as that of the living Earth Community we come from, and are sustained by. ~ David Korten, www.davidkorten.org What we're really looking for is a new story -- a story to live in to. Not old stories to live out of. That takes some extraordinary imagination. What do you know and why do you know it? We know with our hearts. We know with our gut. Our body tells us what we know. What some people call intuition, I call a perceptive sense that many of us have lost (nearly) complete connection to. Our mind processes this information and then takes action based on old information. It's time to redevelop our sense of knowing intuition. And feel that anything -- everything -- is possible. It's time to create the story we want to live in to. And become that story ourselves. ~ Peter Buffett Black Elk’s word, ‘The center is everywhere,’ is matched by a statement from a hermetic, early medieval text, The Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers: ‘God is an infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.’ The idea, it seems to me, is in a most appropriate way illustrated in that stunning photograph taken from the moon, and now frequently reproduced, of an earthrise, the earth rising as a radiant celestial orb, strewing light over a lunar landscape. Is the center the earth? Is the center the moon? The center is anywhere you like. Moreover, in that photograph from its own satellite, the rising earth shows none of those divisive territorial lines that on our maps are so conspicuous and important. The chosen center may be anywhere. The Holy Land is no special place. It is every place that has ever been recognized and mythologized by any people as home. ~ Joseph Campbell Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. ~ Neale Donald Walsch You become great by being exactly, and uniquely yourself. This is a call for more eccentrics, more individuals, more creative, unrepentant adventurers. Go where your heart and your instincts lead you. Follow your dream. Instead of following the "normal" highway, blaze a new path and leave a trail for others to follow. ~ Philip E. Humbert, PhD, TIPS for Extraordinary Living! Everything has to do with loving and not loving. ~ Rumi ~ We are moving from a chain of command to a web of connection, from competition to collaboration, from markets to networks and stockholders to stakeholders, and greed to green. This collective rite of passage will unravel our world system based on the love of power and deliver us to one based on the power of love. ~ Anodea Judith, The Global Heart Awakens The emergence of a form of direct-intuitive consciousness would likely instill within each person a sense of the greater cosmic whole; the realization that humanity exists and evolves within a universe of intelligence and meaning - a living universe. This would serve to impart within humanity a more profound, and acknowledged, spiritual impulse. This could then lead to increased intuitive faculties and extrasensory phenomena not only becoming an implicate part of our lives but also opening up access to greater creativity and inventive capacities for participating and designing our way ahead in the world. The rise of these attributes within a small percentage of people, initially, could eventually lead to a critical mass that would tip human consciousness into a new perceptual paradigm and worldview. ~ Kingsley Dennis Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. ~ Pablo Picasso Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups...So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms...And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. ~ Philip K Dick Something from just beyond the horizon Calls us forward, To become who we already are, But do not yet know ~Rilke There are so many activities, networks, plans, visions all in the air - with many people working to realize these catalyzing events. I come into contact regularly with people who are engaged with such 'game-changing' events. It feels as if the 'actualizing energy' is now flowing, allowing many people to connect and put their plans into action. We are now in a phase of 'doing'. People all over the world are expressing their frustration with the 'old energy', with many voicing their frustration publicly in the streets. What this also shows us is that there is a change in human consciousness under way - a shift in our perspectives and how we view things. The 21st century will be the meeting point where the wisdom of ancient traditions can find a synthesis with modern science; as without an inner wisdom and maturity also guiding humanity there will remain an imbalance and many limitations. ~Kingsley Dennis, www.kingsleydennis.com A sane society, like a healthy mind, must put ethics before science if it wishes to prosper. ~ Unknown It is my firm conviction that the only option is a change in the sphere of the spirit, in the sphere of human conscience. We must develop a new understanding of the true purpose of our existence on earth. Only by making such a fundamental shift will we be able to create new models of behavior and a new set of values for the planet. ~ Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic I foresee a world of such joy, abundance, and beauty that I hardly dare to describe it. This world is not a hope, it is an inevitability. I believe I will see it unfolding in earnest in my lifetime. It is my pleasure and my calling to do whatever is in my power to bring this world into being. It is already closer than close, a mere shift of perception away. This is true on both the personal and collective level. We catch glimpses of it, now and then, by the grace of something beyond our ken. It is a world where work and art are reunited, where no one asks, "How can I make a living?" but rather, "What is my gift to the world?"; where humanity is united in allowing the planet to heal; where money is an aid to generosity not competition or accumulation; where a multitude of long-suppressed and barely-imagined technologies, both material and psychological, blossom.