October 1, 1999
Dear Friends:
Warmest greetings. While the memories of our time together at Mt. Abu are still fresh in your mind, we want to follow up with you to lay the foundation for our ongoing conversations together.
As promised, Brian and Judy will begin work immediately on putting a communication architecture in place. It will have three elements:
- A listserve to allow anyone in our group to send e-mail to the group.
- An electronic bulletin board that we will use to circulate postings, updates, announcements, etc.
- A website that will be a living archive for the Mt. Abu Dialogue Project. It will allow you to go back and find previous announcements, contact information, resources, etc.
One of our first undertakings will be to clarify the "DNA" of our work going forward: the defining issues, deepest questions, and most important distinctions that characterize our shared reflections. To begin this, we are asking each of you to write a one thousand word statement about what The Call of the Time is for you. We would also like you to suggest two questions you would like the group to reflect about in the months ahead. Please send the questions to the attention of Gayatri Naraine at 866 U.N. Plaza, Suite 436, New York, NY 10017; or e-mail: bkun@bkwsu.com or fax: (212) 504-2798. We would like to have these thought pieces from you as soon as possible, but we also know that many are still "digesting." So, if you need more time fine, but please have them in by October 31, 1999.
In the months ahead we will begin planning for our next international dialogues at Oxford in early April of 2000 and the other at Mt. Abu in October 2000. To make these events successful, we would like your candid feedback about our recent dialogue in Mt. Abu. Please let us know what you want more of, what you want less of, and what creative thoughts you would like us to consider. We will also be working on the idea of the 'leadership referral network' and will let you have details of this in the near future.
Our three days together provided a wonderful opportunity for us to get to know one another and to begin to discover the intersections in our work and values. Alfredo has suggested that we deepen our thinking together by paying closer attention to our practice and our experience in both our spiritual and our vocational lives. To get us started, he has offered two areas for consideration over the months ahead.
1. Make note of experiences you have had as you have experimented with the new paradigm in your work:
- What happened?
- What worked well?
- What opposition did it create?
- What were the lessons learned?
2.In your experience, what happens when you use the instrumentality of the field of consciousness and spirituality as opposed to the instrumentality of the field of material science? Make note of the spiritual experiences you are having:
- What methods of spiritual practice are you finding helpful?
- What values and aspirations are most important to you at this time?
- How would you assess the progress you are making?
Please note that this concerns the spiritual aspect of your spiritual experience and not a particular religion or dogma.
We can use our notes and reflections in these areas to look more closely at the transformation we are hoping to bring about when we get together in future dialogues and in our electronic conversations between now and then. Attached to this letter you will find the contact list for all of us who participated in the September '99 "Call of the Time Dialogue."
Thanks to everyone for your extraordinary generosity of spirit.
Kind regards,
Peter Senge
B.K. Jayanti
Co-Chairs
The Call of the Time