A new paradigm is emerging today that will transform the historical separation between business and spirituality.  What has operated as the free-market or capitalist economy, with its orientation toward personal enterprise and reward, and its foundation in competition with others, will give way to a new ethic.  This new ethic has to do with shared resources, with cooperative ventures, and with the strong value held that the Earth’s resources belong to all and must be shared with all.

This is clearly not the primary ethical consideration of most businesses today, even though there are already those marching toward a visionary future. The struggle for survival prompting each to pursue their own self-interest at the expense of others, the sense of territoriality that has involved self-protection and protection of one’s personal wealth without sufficient regard for the consequences,  and the fear of loss that comes from the belief that there is not enough of resources or wealth to go around – all of these are  based on the state of separation of human consciousness from the knowing of Divine reality supporting and infusing embodied life experience. 

All too often, human beings have felt alone and unprotected, and out of this fear have turned toward fulfillment of their own needs at the expense of others, This separation in consciousness from being capable of holding the needs of all is coming to an end.  The new ethic is based on the understanding that all needs must be considered, and that within the state of sacred unity, all needs can be met. 

Central to this understanding of sacred reality is the abandonment of the idea of the ‘other’, and its replacement by a felt sense of the oneness of all.  What will replace competition and the willingness to hoard wealth is the penetrating awareness that there is no ‘other’ – that there is only one collective being that we call ‘humanity’, within which all individual lives are held.  This revelation of the collective unity is on its way.  It will radically change the way in which business is conducted both in its process and in its goals, and the way in which life is conducted.

In its process, the incorporation of sacred reality into the business structure will create a new paradigm in which Divine guidance, Divine purpose, and the specific soul-purpose that infuses every group enterprise, no matter how ordinary it may seem, will be considered as central aspects of the organizational functioning.   Divine guidance will be sought through the connection of each human embodied self with its higher counterpart, while the group that comprises the business structure will also seek the higher counterpart of the collective whole which is the soul of the group.  Divine purpose will be pursued with the understanding that each decision that must be made can be made from the lower self or the higher.  Within this choice lies the ability to harmonize the highest purpose of a business or group with the higher purposes of all other businesses or groups.  In this way, and at this level of higher purpose, there is no conflict.  For all higher purposes converge and are congruent within the Divine flow that infuses them and defines their relationship.  Out of this learning will come the understanding that as a business or organization serves the needs of all, it also expands and flourishes within its own frame of reference.   Serving Divine purpose incorporates this harmonization of all goals.  It makes possible the non-exclusive pursuit of a direction not in competition with others, but in a shared engagement in which what serves others serves the self, and visa versa.

Similarly, the infusion of sacred reality into the workplace will create a longing to locate and embody the soul-purpose of the business, with the business structure being viewed as an entity in its own right with a mission of its own.  Each business, therefore, though composed of individuals, will be seen as a living organism, an aspect of the Divine plan coming into manifestation in order to serve the wellbeing of all.

Group process within a sacred organization or business unfolds as sacred relationships are held on the soul level between participants, rather than on the personality level.  For this to happen, alignment with one’s higher self or soul must be sought, and spiritual practice brought from the sanctity of the home or place of worship into the place of work which becomes infused by soul awareness.  As this happens, relationships between colleagues no longer are just ‘business relationships’ or ‘work relationships’, but become part of the overall fabric of a life that is unified in its expression of Divine purpose.  Such purpose infuses all actions, all motivations, and all expressions of relationship, both in the workplace and elsewhere.

Prayer and meditation also begin to have a role in the workplace that incorporates sacred reality.  Neither prayer nor meditation are defined according to a particular religious outlook, but rather by the way in which each individual being seeks to locate its spiritual center of gravity and to exist in its deepest truth in relation to others.  This seeking of the depth of being is not a religion.  Rather, it is the practice of alignment, par excellence, that is at the foundation of all religions.

The merging of sacred reality with the new ethic of the workplace will take place to the extent that consciousness is ready to open to the new reality.  All of life is moving in this direction even now, and those who are stepping forward in this very important area are serving to bring both the new vibration and the new structures that can hold it, to the Earth at this time, in service to all of life.

Article Section -  A New Consciousness