Wednesday, April 28, 2004

I am still reading The Soul of Money. This is an important book, well worth the time and cost. I am apparently in good company with my high opinion. In a recent interview Dr. Depaak Chopra shared these thoughts on The Soul of Money, “The sentiments in this book could change the world if they were read by everyone. Affluence, unboundedness, and abundance are our natural state. We just need to restore the memory of what we already know. Money is life energy that we exchange and use as a result of the service we provide to the universe. And in order to keep it coming to us, we must keep it circulating. Lynne Twist so clearly explains the connection between money and spirituality and then helps us to understand our personal and individual relationship with money so that we can begin to align our decisions about money with our deepest core values and highest commitments. This process will ultimately bring us the most happiness AND make the world a better place.”  The following essay, written in 1999, is reposted from CIIS. 

Ancient Wisdom for a New Millennium

Lynne Twist

There is an ancient and sacred prophecy in South America called the prophecy of the eagle and the condor. This prophecy foretells of a time when the people of the eagle and the people of the condor will fly together-wing to wing-in the same sky, and the world will come into balance.

The people of the eagle are the people of the intellect and aesthetic-the people on earth who will have developed technology to such an extraordinary level that it will have brought them material wealth beyond their wildest dreams. They will also find themselves spiritually impoverished to their peril.

At the same time in history, the people of the condor, people who live from their heart and experience live through their five senses, will have an unparalleled depth of intuition, spirit and wisdom that is an expression of the profound integrity of the natural world. Those people will be spiritually rich beyond their imagination, but materially impoverished to their peril.

The people of the eagle represent those of us living in the modern, technological world. The people of the condor represent the indigenous people of the world living close to the land with the heart and wisdom that come being attuned to the natural world.

Lynne Twist, one of the founding executives of The Hunger Project, vice-chair of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and trustee of Fetzer Institute, is also the co-founder with her husband of The Pachamama Alliance, an organization dedicated to the fulfillment of this prophecy. (Pacha means Earth or nature, and Mama is the nurturing Goddess of wisdom and spirit). The Alliance is dedicated to preserving the Earth's tropical rainforests and its indigenous cultures, and to the creation of a new global vision of sustainability for us all.

Lynne says, "I am privileged to work with indigenous people and modern-world people in the fulfillment of this great prophecy. I believe that new and profound wisdom is available to be heard as never before-wisdom that heals the wounds of the modern world and complements our extraordinary knowledge. In parallel, the nearly unbounded technological knowledge of the modern world is critical to indigenous people in complementing the extraordinary depth of their ancient wisdom. This is a time of great transformation, possibility, and truth. This is the time of the fulfillment of the prophecy. This is the time for the eagle and the condor to fly together in the same sky, wing to wing."

Google Lynne Twist.