Total Reset: Realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living

By Greg Campbell

In 1991 the author met Lulu, a widely-respected Aboriginal elder and powerful maban (shaman) in the remote Kimberley region of Australia who asked Greg to work with him and the Goolarabooloo people to write one book. Its purpose was clear: enable people to view reality through the lens of original knowledge and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Total Reset
• Release date: Aug 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645273120

Greg Campbell

Greg Campbell is the 74-year-old author of the ground-breaking work, Total Reset (also available with an author-signed option on its website, totalreset.com.au). If you ask him who is responsible for this inspiring tome, more than three decades in the making, he will tell you he is not an expert on anything, merely a translator of received knowledge. His youthful pursuits included football, reading, surfing, chess, law studies and driving 100-tonne trucks, an unextraordinary life forever changed when the Rainbow Serpent arrived and initiated the 23-year-old into the other-dimensional reality, revealing the hidden fabric of our material world. Thereafter, life unfolded under that influence, initially in the company of Indian sages, followed by public service and subsequent business success. The corporate cultural change consultancy he founded was lauded for its broad innovative approach and highly ethical principles but was merely preparation for what was to come for the Rainbow Serpent's plan for Greg was simple: live with traditional Aboriginal keepers of wisdom and work with them to share with all peoples the original knowledge of the timeless principles for living that enable balanced, enduring societies in which all are respected. Though business was booming, the 38-year-old chose to exit corporate life and in 1991 went to live in the remote Kimberley region of Australia with Lulu, a traditional Aboriginal elder and powerful maban (shaman), and his people. Concerned about the world's well-being and threats to the continuity of all life, Lulu asked Greg to work with him and the Goolarabooloo people on one book. During a 31-year process, Total Reset slowly emerged with knowledge carried unbroken for thousands of generations. It reveals the First Peoples as the holders of holistic principles integral to our species' design and ever capable of application; humanity's original blueprint for living. Total Reset honours Lulu's wish for people to be able to look at our world through different lenses and in that light join together to reset how we are living on Earth, abandoning humanity's 5,000-year trajectory of division and destruction in favour of holistic ways of being and doing. In Greg's words, "At this critical moment in the human saga, what is needed is not a rebranding of globalist rule under the guise of The Great Reset, it is a Total Reset in which we let go of the constructs of domination and division and re-embrace holistic constructs that long enabled the wellbeing of all peoples and our Earth." Greg resides near the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park in southwestern Australia, surrounded by trees, birds and kangaroos, simply being.

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GUIDANCE ABOUT TEXT

1.With respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ cultural values, attention is drawn to the fact that this work contains the names, images and words of people who have passed.

2.The terms ‘First Peoples’ and ‘First Australians’ mean the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia.

3.The words ‘Dreaming’ and ‘Dreamtime’ have similar connotations and are used interchangeably as are ‘Songline’ and ‘Songcycle’ and ‘First Australians’ and ‘First Peoples’.

4.All dialogue between members of the Goolarabooloo community and the author honestly conveys the spirit, tone and substance of our conversations but not all words are as originally spoken.

5.The written form of conversations with the Goolarabooloo people of the West Kimberley and storytelling by them is in their style of spoken English. For example, ‘g’ is invariably dropped from all words ending in ‘ing’. The Glossary includes their spoken words as written.

6.Where ‘country’ is capitalised its meaning encompasses not only the countryside but all material and non-material elements of earth, waters and sky and their cultural implications. In essence, Country is the entire natural world (visible and invisible), often referred to by the First Peoples as ‘living Country’.

7.Instead of using the cumbersome word ‘politico-socio-economic’ or ‘socio-politico-economic’ to reference the political, economic and social structures, systems and ways of a society, the word ‘socio-economic’ is used, the political element considered to be part of the meaning of ‘socio’.

8.The terms ‘non-material reality’, ‘oneness reality’, ‘other-dimensional reality’, ‘other reality’ ‘supra-dimensional reality’ and ‘spiritual reality’ are used interchangeably as pointers to an awareness or consciousness beyond space-time where subject is not separated from object, a state of oneness in which the spirit or aliveness of all forms and phenomena is experienced.

9.The attention of readers for whom words such as ‘spiritual’ may trigger a dismissive response is drawn to what neuroscientist, philosopher and well-known sceptic Sam Harris wrote in his New York Times bestseller, Waking Up:

The feeling that we call I is an illusion. There is no discrete self or ego living like a Minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is – the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself – can be altered or entirely extinguished. Although such experiences of self-transcendence are generally thought about in religious terms, there is nothing, in principle, irrational about them. From both a scientific and a philosophical point of view, they represent a clearer understanding of the way things are. Deepening that understanding, and repeatedly cutting through the illusion of the self, is what is meant by spirituality in the context of this book.¹

10.The question of the legitimacy of non-Indigenous people writing about Indigenous culture was addressed by widely respected Kimberley Aboriginal wisdom keeper and maban man (shaman) Paddy (Lulu) Roe when I asked him about that very matter:

No more dividin’ people, settin’ one against another, makin’ one more big, one more small. Not the proper way. We all gotta come together, work together – blackfella, whitefella, yellafella, every kinda fella. Don’t matter who we are, if we dig below the white soil on top an’ find that black soil inside at the bottom of everythin’, yair, we can see. Then we know – all one under the Dreamin’ – an’ we go that way. Sittin’ on that ground, seein’, you can tell ‘em things – not everythin’, that’s true – but plenty of things you can tell ‘em. Don’t matter who we are, we all got that one. Well, (chuckles) that one got us.²

11.The Goolarabooloo people are keepers of the Northern Tradition Law of the Dampier Peninsula and are the cultural knowledge holders of all sites, names and information about the country of the Lurujarri Heritage Trail. Information considered by them to be of a secret-sacred nature is not revealed in this book.

12.The traditional western numbering system for dating years linked to the Christian tradition (AD and BC) is not followed in Total Reset which uses the widely accepted secular substitute of CE (Current Era) for AD (Anno Domini), and BCE (Before Common Era) for BC (Before Christ). No numeric conversion is involved. To illustrate, instead of 500 AD it is 500 CE, and instead of 500 BC, it is 500 BCE.

13.Quotations from other sources are referenced with either a footnote or with the author’s surname, year of publication and page number in brackets at the end of the relevant quotation. For example, a quote in Chapter 2 from Professor Douglas Fry’s 2007 book Beyond War ends:

The earliest unambiguous evidence of warfare dates from less than 10,000 years ago, and war becomes more common with the rise of the state several millennia later. (Fry, 2007: 67)

Total Reset’s bibliography (in alphabetical order of surnames) provides the details of the relevant publication. In the above case, the bibliography reads:

Fry, Douglas P. 2007. Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace. Oxford, UK: University Press.

14.Total Reset presents many facts across a wide range of subjects. Although the editors and I have done our best to ensure the text is error-free as with many human endeavours, mistakes happen. Our sincere apologies for any, and thank you in advance for bringing it to our attention by emailing:

[e-mail]

¹From Waking Up by Sam Harris published by Bantam Press. Copyright © Sam Harris 2014. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. This extract is from the Kindle edition (pp. 8-9), by Transworld Publishers, London.

²As conveyed to the author by Lulu under his tamarind tree in Dora Street, Broome, Western Australia, 15 September 1991.

FOREWORD

This is written in acknowledgement of the author, Greg Campbell, and his long association and relationship with the Goolarabooloo family since the early 1990s. Total Reset serves as a reminder to the reader that from time immemorial, discovering, understanding and accepting the relationship between country, spirit, lore and its people show the purpose of our very own existence.

Upon Greg’s acquaintance with our father/grandfather/great-grandfather/great-great-grandfather Paddy Roe (deceased and referred to as Lulu for cultural reasons), a long-lasting bond was created between them. His work with Lulu introduced him into the wider Goolarabooloo family which he became part of, along with his daughter Jasmine. Greg subsequently bought a property next to the community where he worked closely with Lulu and the rest of the family. He was able to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of living a community life at Coconut Well with little disruption, allowing him to connect with Country the way we Goolarabooloo always have.

The deep understanding and respect is mutual with all the family members with whom he has associated while working and living within the Goolarabooloo family group. Greg also shared his lifelong experiences with that of other countries and cultures which gave us a sense that he is undoubtedly a man with respect for all peoples and their cultures. His in-depth wisdom and personal life experiences taught us how similarities are shared with other cultures around the world; a dreaming and a connection where time, space, place and occurrence have a beginning and no end.

Culture is a living thing for everybody and remains so for all who wish to experience it. The heart of our culture is Bugarrigarra, the Dreaming, nothing apart from it. As Lulu often said, by digging deeper, going beyond the white soil on top we can find the black soil inside. It’s all there, at the bottom of everything.

Our culture continues to share and pass on age-old traditions and knowledge, still alive in the fabric of modern-day society and what we call ‘progress’. Our world as we know it is rapidly moving in one direction with little patience or regard for the preservation of the past and the importance of maintaining our cultural existence and traditional practices which so strongly support the well-being of Country for the benefit of future generations.

With the friendship and connection developed with Greg, we are very privileged and delighted to have him record our oral history and share it with all people from all backgrounds and nationalities. He has participated in public corroboree with other members of the Broome community arranged by the Goolarabooloo family, a sign of non-Indigenous people embracing traditional aboriginal culture.

Seeing the pride in Greg as he learned about our culture, country, community and family gave him a sense of belonging to our culture in the way we hope to share with those who also wish to experience the feeling we call liyan.

Thanks to Greg, we now know that the true story is being told. It is one that seeks to preserve, maintain and pass on knowledge of how to live with Country proper to the generation of today and those to come.

Daniel Roe

General Manager

Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation, Broome

INTRODUCTION

There are three days that change everything: the day we are born, the day we die and the day when something arrives out of the blue and turns our world upside down. Whether a blessing or a curse, a boon or a tragedy, the out-of-the-blue experience is life-transforming. It can happen to anyone at any time in any way.

For me, a day that started like any other became the pivotal moment of my life. It was when the serpent struck. It all happened so fast, much faster than was logically possible. But there was nothing illogical about the two distinctive reddening fang marks on my bare foot.

The deserted beach was rapidly warming, heading for a full bake under a cloudless sky. With the early morning wind offshore, long, deep Indian Ocean swells creased the aquamarine smoothness, the main break pipelining left 700 meters out. It was a beautiful day to die.

Without warning, the world blackened and disappeared just as when falling asleep. I never made it to the surf, not even at day’s end when the dying was done, for all notions about who I was and the nature of the physical world was blown to smithereens, ever after changing my perception of reality. Seeing things as they are – the oneness reality³ – does that.

The new lenses through which I was looking set me on a continuing journey of discovery and learning about other ways of seeing and understanding, much influenced by a multi-decade relationship with Aboriginal people in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia known as the Goolarabooloo.⁴

After decades of research, contemplations and life experiences, Total Reset emerged with findings about humanity’s present unfortunate trajectory and how to shift it in a life-affirming direction. Much influenced by the perspectives of wisdom keepers from several cultures, Total Reset points to solutions by opening the curtain on a window revealing ways of being, feeling and seeing quite different from prevailing norms. It envisions diverse societies whose settings reflect an awareness of how like the pieces of a jigsaw everything on planet Earth fits together and must be managed accordingly.

This work is not that of a scientist or academic. It does not adhere to prescribed ways of viewing reality or accepted models of enquiry. Neither is it the work of an acclaimed writer, geopolitical commentator or social critic. It is the contribution of an ordinary human being looking at humanity’s predicament through the window of whole-of-life appreciation.

The driver of this work is oneness awareness, not that of the empirical mind of an observer separated from the observed. It represents the best effort that could be made by someone devoid of ideological, political and economic agendas who had the rare opportunity to spend decades with wise elders imbued with reverence for the sanctity of all life. Deeply concerned by the world’s trajectory, they sought a change in direction, calling for people to return to the all-inclusivity of what it means to be truly human.

Never has our Earth been in its present predicament, people of all ages and types expressing growing concern and frustration about what is happening to our planet due to human activity. Many point to reams of data suggesting a grim future. Foremost among concerns is human-generated climate change producing increasingly destructive storms, floods and fires.

Tropical forests are disappearing at the alarming rate of 76,000 hectares every day.⁵ Chemicals and other toxic substances continue to poison the air, waters and soils.⁶ The great oceans are slowly turning acidic as well as becoming nanoplastic carriers of death.⁷ And of the six mass extinction events in our planet’s history, the devastating one underway – the Holocene (or Anthropocene) extinction – is the first caused by humans.⁸

Environmental concerns aside there is profound disquiet about various technological developments such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering and how they are reshaping human society and what it means to be human.

The future at our doorstep increasingly looks like one of total surveillance of microchip-implanted humanoids, the very many controlled by very few in a world of total dependency, people’s freedoms extinguished, digital controls absolute, the flame of the unfettered spirit of life sputtering toward extinction.

On the economic front, a dramatic gap has opened between the haves and have-nots, economic and social inequality rampant, poverty widespread. Then there are the soaring rates of suicide and mental illness, of deadly diseases such as cancer and the prospect of ever more devastating pandemics with accompanying suffering and economic chaos. Though the trends are disturbing and many agree the world is in dire straits a sense of powerlessness and even hopelessness tends to prevail when addressing the big question: what to do about it?

Though there is a plethora of information highlighting the many issues, there is little in the way of systemic solutions, the focus generally on the nature of the latest crack in the dam wall and how to fix it.

The root cause – the dam’s existence in the form of the prevailing political, economic and social constructs and ways – remains unaddressed. As a result, the only change in humanity’s multi-century trajectory towards the precipice is the speed at which we are travelling which appears to have gone exponential.

The purpose of Total Reset is not to dwell on the problems but to paint a picture of enduring ways for humanity to live. Based on the constructs and ways of our world’s oldest continuous cultures such as those of the First Australians, it presents a holistic⁹ societal model that points to default settings that appear to have accompanied our species’ design from the first days; a holistic blueprint for living.

That blueprint, the operating parameters for our species, is not an issue to be addressed by refined intellects developing grand new philosophies or ideologies. As with the laws of physics, it already exists.

Its recognition – whether in the form presented or, more likely, as subsequently articulated through a participatory process involving many people – has the power to shift the current dangerous trajectory, enabling humanity to return to balance, Earth’s well-being restored.

Part 1, Our Past is Present for Our Future, provides a summation of the world’s present predicament starting when our species’ traditional unity mindset transitioned to that of a divided one.

It tracks the appearance of the first nation-states and empires in Mesopotamia and the steady rise of the ruler-ruled syndrome with its ideologies, military machines, monetary systems and exploitative ways, culminating in the present-day rule of a global oligarchy.

The new kind of societies that emerged during the transition process, referred to as dichotomous societies in Total Reset, is shown to be characterised by division, people separated from one another, the natural world and non-material reality. Socio-economic frameworks are characterised by notions of dominance and the exploitation of what is divided.

Such societies incentivise the exploitation of human and natural resources for worldly gain, engage in wars of conquest and control and promote economic growth and technological advancement. Mindsets are characterised by dualistic perspectives, subject separated from object. Sapiens¹⁰ is positioned as the most important element in the system with rights that exceed all others.

These dominator societies are contrasted with those that operated on Earth for 94 per cent of sapiens’ history when small, self-sufficient, autonomous communities were the norm, people grounded in oneness awareness, appreciating the rightful place and purpose of all elements of the whole.

They were holistic societies. Custodial care of healthy, toxic-free ecosystems was demonstrated, non-financial values prevailed and notions of self and kinship were extended beyond the limited range of linkages prevailing today to embrace all. Their integrated socio-economic structures and systems and egalitarian cooperative ways not only enabled people to live meaningful, empowered lives of dignity and freedom, free of wars of conquest and control, but they also ensured an equally enriching future for the generations to come.

Interwoven through the chapters are stories from my life (Lifelines) illustrating how opening to the oneness reality can positively impact the individual and their society, and shift the content of material reality.

The stories begin with an encounter as a three-year-old with an Aboriginal elder of high degree. Two decades later, after an Australian middle-class upbringing and incomplete law degree, there was a wholly unexpected initiation into the oneness reality by the serpent power of Wardandi country in the southwest of Western Australia.

That was soon followed by monastic life in a traditional Indian jungle ashram (one focused on Kundalini, the serpent power) before returning to the world where internationally recognised endeavours in the field of cultural change led an ordinary bloke and family man to comfortably ‘retire’ at 38-years-old.

Concurrent with retirement arose a keenness to learn about Aboriginal culture which led to a lifelong relationship with the Goolarabooloo people of the West Kimberley. Lifeline chapters in Part 2, Living Light, tell of the years with them and their apical ancestor, nationally honoured Aboriginal Law keeper and maban man Paddy (Lulu) Roe. Living Light reveals much of their traditional ways, perspectives and vision for the future, the authenticity of the account confirmed in their foreword:

With the friendship and connection developed with Greg, we are very privileged and delighted to have him record our oral history and to share it with all people from all backgrounds and nationalities. Thanks to Greg, we now know that the true story is being told. It is one that seeks to preserve, maintain and pass on knowledge of how to live with Country proper to the generation of today and those still to come.

That knowledge is contained in Part 2’s interwoven Lifeline and non-Lifeline chapters, the latter providing insights into traditional socio-economic constructs and ways of many different societies of the First Australians.

Much research coupled with decades of accumulated knowledge passed on by Lulu and other West Kimberley wisdom keepers enabled the identification of pointers to commonalities of the First Peoples’ political, economic and social constructs.

The findings are elucidated in five chapters (20, 22, 24, 26 and 28), each concluding with a composite principle of the commonalities in the relevant subject area, for example, social organisation. The five composite principles point to a generic or illustrative holistic blueprint for humanity (consolidated in Chapter 32).

Some principles may seem a little complex because part of the brilliance of the ways of the First Australians is the sophistication not only of their spiritual and creative traditions but of their social organisation. The nature and extent of linkages between individuals, families, clan groups, tribal communities, the natural world and entities of the non-material domain are extraordinary.

Though there is much in the literature to support the broad shape of a generic holistic blueprint for living followed by the First Australians I make no claim it is definitive. Others more qualified than me such as Indigenous wisdom keepers and knowledge holders may express the principles differently. However, what any recognised generic holistic blueprint for living enables, as Walking the Dreaming (chapters 33-37) clearly illustrates, is their potential to power a total reset of humanity’s condition and that of the natural world. It is a very different path from that of the oligarchic elite acclaimed by them as The Great Reset.

Unlike so-called experts, my research approach was not guided by any analytical sociological model. Because of a mindset resulting from some unique life experiences, including living with Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people for an extended period, the challenge was approached creatively.

Their accumulated knowledge and ways of seeing provided a solid foundation for exploring the workings of many societies by looking at available information with whole-of-life appreciation. Everything was viewed through holistic lenses instead of the narrower window of a subject specialist claiming to be objective.

Occasionally, I wondered why I was studying something but had faith every piece had its place in the puzzle even if it remained a mystery at that point. In some cases, it was two decades or more before I understood. Ultimately it led to a big-picture appreciation and some extraordinary realisations such as why humanity’s sustainable future calls for the 195 nation-states and 46 dependencies on our planet to be transformed into millions of autonomous societies. Governance must return to the ground where people live.

Such a radical shift may seem excessively idealistic but when we are addressing something as fundamental as the future of the human race and all who live on planet Earth no option can be excluded, particularly those with proven efficacy in the long timespan of sapiens’ existence.

Part 3, Walking the Dreaming, begins with a story exemplifying the tragedy that has been happening worldwide for centuries and shows no signs of abating – the unsustainable destruction of the natural environment and the corruption of life-affirming values for the sake of material gain. Protecting the sanctity of all life (Chapter 30) and Walmadany: the clash of two Dreamings (Chapter 31) tells the story of the Goolarabooloo people’s 2005-2013 battle to protect the sacred domain of a songline from industrialisation by four of the world’s largest global corporations.

It vividly illustrates how dichotomous societies work to divide and conquer, pursuing short-term gains that undermine the foundation for sustainable futures and steering humanity away from adherence to our timeless principles for living.

Those principles provide a framework for envisioning strategies and options to shift the world’s trajectory in directions that sustain the well-being of all. Working with that framework, Walking the Dreaming outlines a range of initiatives from the global to the individual level to return our world to balance.

Lulu and other Aboriginal wisdom keepers were uncompromising in the belief that humanity’s holistic blueprint for living – known by them as the Law of the Dreaming – is a system that operated from when our species first appeared on Earth. They told me people were universally aware of what governed their raison d’être and that every society had its Law of the Dreaming which provided faultless guidance for respectful balanced ways of living together enabling enduring societies.

They said it was widely understood every form and phenomenon has laws governing its purpose and place in the larger picture, nature neither wasteful nor mindless. They maintained that no matter the time or place, the distinctive holistic parameters of each society – its beliefs and values, systems and structures, laws and customs – enabled people to function in harmony with the whole.

Logically, as we are part of an ecosystem called planet Earth within a larger system known as our solar system within a still larger one called our galaxy and so on, operating within the parameters of our species’ design, our blueprint for living, is likely to be vital to humanity’s continuance. No complex self-organising system operates in a vacuum. None including human societies are free to do as they wish. The broader context of a system’s existence always matters.

In 2020, University of Bologna astrophysicist Franco Vazza and University of Verona neurosurgeon Alberto Feletti reported on the similarities between two of the most challenging and complex systems in Nature: the network of neuronal cells in the human brain, and the cosmic network of galaxies.¹¹

They found a tantalising degree of similarity which suggested, the self-organization of both complex systems is likely being shaped by similar principles of network dynamics, despite the radically different scales and processes at play.¹²

It is posited that the First Australians understood these network dynamics as they apply to human society. Despite widespread diversity of cultural forms, the commonalities apparent in their different socio-economic constructs and ways of living point to a universal set of laws for our species, a blueprint. As with a computer’s GPOS (General Purpose Operating System), the potential exists for many applications to operate within its parameters.

Humanity’s blueprint is no ordinary one for it does not prescribe a set plan, precise and fixed as in an architect’s drawings. Rather, it can be considered a cosmic pattern showing all elements of the system and how they are connected, communities able to interpret and apply that knowledge in accord with their history and circumstances.

Though the societies of the First Australians were distinctive all operated in a manner where every element of their world – animate and inanimate, kin and community, material and non-material – was recognised as an integral part of a single system. Awareness of that oneness reality, the Dreaming, was the bedrock of their culture.

Appreciation of all elements of the whole as equally sacred, each with its purpose and place, none more important than any other, is the key governing principle of holistic communities. It is the centre of coherence, the glue binding everything together. Rather than focusing on short-term gain, people in holistic societies gear towards creative continuity. Ever aware of their inherent oneness with all life, their society’s workings fully reflect that appreciation. It is why they are referred to in Total Reset as ‘holistic’ or ‘relational’ societies.

As the blueprint for our species appears to contain default settings for the formation of such societies it is not surprising their fruit is so delicious, representing a laudable threefold vision for humanity:

◆Non-engagement in wars of conquest and control.

◆A non-disruptive balanced relationship with the natural world.

◆People empowered to lead autonomous, dignified and meaningful lives co-creatively working with the energies of the oneness reality.

No matter how dire or depressing the current trajectory may seem, the commitment to functioning in alignment with our species’ natural way of being provides a sure solution to what is happening on Earth. It is something humanity embraced for hundreds of thousands of years until entranced by the lure of the new we turned away and headed in another direction.

Is it too late to acknowledge our tragic error and correct our course? Can the Titanic be turned around by extracting and creatively applying the accumulated knowledge and learning from our ancient ancestors whose holistic societies enabled people’s basic needs to be met while leading, as we will see, meaningful purposeful lives? Why are those natural ways of being so vehemently obfuscated and opposed? Why are ever viable, profoundly rewarding ways of living on Earth so blatantly violated when the principles for living respectfully on our planet appear obvious, capable of creative, diverse application in any time or place?

At this critical time in the human saga, what is needed is not a further expansion of globalist rule under the guise of The Great Reset currently promoted by the elite, it is a genuine reset of how we are living on Earth. The cultural norms underpinning dichotomous societies and their associated systems and structures must be reshaped in ways that propel the re-emergence of respectful balanced societies.

It is not political or economic ideologies that hold the key to our future, or more advanced material technologies or new planetary adventures. The crux of what is needed to power the impulse to live in ways that sustain the balance of all life is a deep appreciation of the reality of our oneness.

It is the key that opens the door to recognising our species’ blueprint for living and readapting for an enduring future.

By joining with others to co-creatively work with the primal power and intelligence cradling our world we can pop the distorted bubble of the modern cultural paradigm and free ourselves to live as autonomous beings in all-inclusive societies designed to sustain the well-being of one another and the Earth.

Realigning communities with humanity’s timeless principles for living is an inspirational, creative challenge inviting everyone’s participation. Embarking on that journey together is the revolutionary shift needed if we are to fulfil our human purpose, safeguard the well-being of our planet and rediscover the joys and riches of humans simply being.

In the final episode of BBC One’s 2000 production State of the Planet, Sir David Attenborough says, The future of life on Earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success can only come if there’s a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics.¹³

The change needed is not of the tinkering variety nor something spun as The Great Reset, it is the real deal – authentic, full-spectrum transformation, a Total Reset.

³Before that first experience of the oneness reality (see Chapter 7) I would have been amused by anyone suggesting the sense of being an individual separated from all else is the illusory construct of an embodied self and mind. But the truth that all is one has long been recognised and is at the heart of many Indigenous cultures and world religions. For example, the Chinese sage Laozi (also known as Lao Tzu or Lao-Tze), knowing the experience of oneness (the Tao or Dao) to be our natural state of being, wrote (Hua Hu Ching, #22):

How can the divine Oneness be seen?

In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders, awe-inspiring miracles?

The Tao is not obliged to present itself this way.

It is always present and always available.

When speech is exhausted and mind dissolved, it presents itself.

When clarity and purity are cultivated, it reveals itself.

When sincerity is unconditional, it unveils itself.

If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere, even in the most ordinary things.

⁴Goolarabooloo (Goolara, west coast/sundown/seaside; booloo, people/place) is both a generic name for saltwater societies of the West Kimberley region of Western Australia and the name of the community whose apical ancestors are Paddy Roe and his wife Mary Pikalili. The spelling ‘Goolarabooloo’ is in current general use by its members and the broader society. In his 1940s work, archaeologist-anthropologist, Norman Tindale, referred to the Goolarabooloo as the Kularapulu. Daisy Bates in her 1899-1902 fieldwork called them the Koolarrbulloo and the Koolarabooloo. A 1983 book attributed to Paddy Roe (Stephen Muecke editor) is titled Gularabulu. The Goolarabooloo people are renowned for opening an 80-kilometre section of a songcycle traversing 450 kilometres, all peoples invited to walk with them along the coast, camping together and experiencing living Country and traditional culture. Operating since 1987, the Lurujarri Heritage Trail has gained international recognition. For location see maps at Appendix 1 and for more information see http://www.goolarabooloo.org.au/lurujarri.html

⁵www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/forests-and-deserts/rate-of-deforestation/story

⁶www.globalresearch.ca/they-profit-we-die-toxic-agriculture-and-the-poisoning-of-soils-human-health-and-the-environment/5483932

⁷www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/ipbes-un-biodiversity-report-warns-one-million-species-at-risk

⁸https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

⁹A holistic system is one of interdependent elements, each autonomous yet working together to maintain the balance and well-being of the totality of the system that enables their existence.

¹⁰For cultural and literary purposes, our species is referred to throughout this work as sapiens rather than the biological classification Homo sapiens. The reasoning is explained in Chapter 2.

¹¹F. Vazza and A. Feletti, ‘The Quantitative Comparison Between the Neuronal Network and the Cosmic Web.’ Front. Phys., 16 November 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2020.525731 CC Attribution 4.0 International License

¹²Ibid.

¹³https://davidattenborough.fandom.com/wiki/David_Attenborough#Environmental_causes CC Attribution 3.0 Unported License

PART 1

Our Past is Present for Our Future

The key to humanity’s viable future is to be found in our deep past, not by returning to it but by recognising our species’ natural laws or ways of being and in that light, reconstructing how we live on Earth personally and collectively, humanity again functioning as an integral part of a balanced whole.

No more dividin’ people, settin’ one against another, makin’ one more big, one more small. Not the proper way. We all gotta come together, work together; blackfella, whitefella, yellafella, every kinda fella. Don’t matter who we are, if we dig below the white soil on top an’ find the black soil inside at the bottom of everythin’, yair, we can see. Then we know – all one under the Dreamin’ – an’ we go that way.

Lulu

CHAPTER 1

Lifelines: Inside the cultural bubble

Mummy, I called excitedly, Mister Jones is coming.

Very good, darling, she responded from the laundry. Can you ask if he has any Granny Smith apples?

Mister Jones was part of a cast of down-to-earth characters who, in the early 1950s, populated the outer suburbs of Perth, the far-flung capital of Western Australia. After the Monday delivery to the nunnery, the greengrocer’s cart continued slowly along the dirt road called Lalor Street, Mister Jones making clucking sounds to encourage his horse while ringing the cart bell signalling his weekly passage. It was a happy light tinkle, different from the much deeper sounding school bell Sister Catherine rang calling kids to class at the Catholic primary school over the road next to the St John of God nunnery.

Back then life was simple. There were no computers, mobile phones or social media, no supermarkets, credit cards or traffic lights. Twice a week the baker on his horse-drawn cart brought us warm bread from the wood-fired oven of his bakery on Scarborough Beach Road leaving two loaves in the breadbox attached to the patio wall next to our front door.

The milkman’s deliveries happened every morning, two one-pint glass bottles deposited neatly at the front door. We all admired his big draught horse as it plodded slowly down the street pulling the milk cart unguided by any human hand while its master ran from cart to door with full bottles of milk and from door to cart with empty bottles from the previous day.

There were others too who came with their services or wares. Dad always gave the ever-dependable postman and the garbageman half a dozen bottles of beer each for Christmas.

As in the rural towns, the larger suburbs had their own baker, butcher, grocer and milkman. They also had their own doctor, policeman, banker and tailor. Everyone knew everyone. You had to be smart to keep secrets.

Thrifty ways abounded. Though the holes in our socks were regularly darned by mum in the armchair near our fireplace, we never felt hard done by. While accepting the traditional 1950s role of housebound wife and mother, mum also had a creative spirit and a healthy curiosity about the wonders and mysteries of life.

Her father ‘Pop’ Bowler taught her the value of imagination and creative endeavour. He could make anything from nothing and often did. Resourcefulness was a useful quality in the newly developing suburb of Scarborough, carved out of the bush, nine miles west of the city centre.

Returned war servicemen such as dad bought their quarter-acre bush blocks for 100 pounds (the equivalent of 200 dollars) and with a cheap war service loan of 2,000 pounds at a low rate of interest fixed for 30 years raised their new families in two or three-bedroom red brick and tile homes.

Dad was proud of our carpeted lounge room with its cosy fireplace and cabinet-size radio. Mum was pleased with the wood-fired Metters oven and the big wood-fired copper tub in the laundry. There was no refrigerator, washing machine or television set.

However, the toilet was a big advance. Instead of an isolated outhouse at the bottom of the garden, our chain-operated single-flush toilet formed part of the unenclosed rear verandah. Only the occasional northwest storm soaked us on the way to the toilet. Mostly, bad weather came from the southwest.

Our two-bedroom home was comfortable enough when I was born. However, a few years later when the first of my two sisters arrived, dad shifted the vegetable patch closer to the chook pen at the rear of the backyard so he could add a bedroom.

It meant my own bedroom shrank by half. I could have been unhappy with my loss except mum and dad were always so thrilled we were fortunate enough to own our own home often reminding us how lucky we were to have a roof over our heads. I always felt blessed even if the bedroom shrank.

Mum and I collected eggs from our backyard hens most days, any excess given to our neighbours or to the nuns. When others had too many lemons or oranges on their trees or had caught more fish than they could eat we would enjoy their generous offerings. Most people tried to keep the balance.

It was shameful to be in debt, whether social or financial. Mum and dad avoided it like the plague. The cheap 30-year mortgage was different, seen more as a gift for services rendered.

If one of the mums became sick, the others were always there to help. Neighbours quickly became lifelong friends. It was Uncle Oz and Aunty Beryl, not Mr and Mrs Kelly. Their children were my playmates. We celebrated birthday parties together with exotic cakes our mums slaved over, sometimes for days. The paddleboat cake in water was Aunty Beryl’s opus.

Mum and dad lived in ways that demonstrated hearts were more important than wallets. As it was only a few years since the end of the Second World War and with the Great Depression still fresh in peoples’ minds few had forgotten how important it was to help neighbours and mates, to think of other’s needs as well as your own. If you wanted to be well-regarded in the community genuine respect and concern for others had to be demonstrated.

Whether it was the banker or baker, a close friend or stranger, relationships mattered. Respect was paramount. On any bus ride anywhere if a lady or the elderly boarded a full bus, as a young male you automatically gave up your seat and stood in the aisle.

Of necessity, there was much sharing and exchanging. Until dad built a trailer with parts scavenged from the local rubbish dump, he used Uncle Fred’s trailer for transporting waste. Repairs to the family car were made with tools borrowed from Syd Anderson’s garage.

Despite its tough reputation, Scarborough people were usually kind and caring, devoted to their queen, church, and country and close to their families and neighbours. Though people retained a strong sense of community, single-family residences on quarter-acre blocks meant much could go on behind closed doors no one else ever saw or heard. If alcohol was involved, it could become abusive and often did. Not everything was as it seemed.

Nevertheless, there was a shared view that when it came to personal issues, no matter how dire, it was better to get on with life rather than work to resolve them. Conversely, whenever dad’s car had a mechanical problem, instead of ignoring it, he refused to drive the car until it was fixed.

We were all proud of dad. He was handsome, capable and had a lot of common sense. He would have made a good lawyer if he had not been compelled to leave school at 14 years old to help support his struggling parents. At least that is what Uncle Arch often said at annual Christmas gatherings of the Campbell clan.

The youngest of seven children, dad was raised in East Perth, then a poor working-class neighbourhood. He excelled at sports, a star centre-half-forward for the East Perth football team and a century-scoring first-grade cricketer. Dad was determined to teach me the Australian way.

Scarborough was bush paradise. North of our street was mostly original country: towering, gnarled red gums, magpies and ravens, wild parrots and cockatoos, the occasional herd of brumbies, frog-filled swamps, pure white sand dunes and snakes. They were highly venomous. Most are in Western Australia.

A ten-minute walk away over the pristine dune system lay Scarborough Beach, as white and wide as a great desert, or so it seemed at three years of age. We often walked there to swim and bask on the Indian Ocean’s edge. One afternoon dad sat me on his shoulders saying, Look son, nothing between us and Africa.

It was certainly a vast emptiness, only the clear blue sky and long, slow aquamarine swells rolling in from Africa squatting on the horizon.

Is it a long way to Africa, daddy?

Yes, son. Must be 5,000 miles, maybe more.

It was hard to imagine.

Fascinated, I gazed out to sea and noticed something.

Look daddy, next to Africa, a big ship.

He squinted and laughed, "Yes, son but that’s not Africa that’s Rottnest, our holiday island,¹⁴ about 10 miles out. After that, nothing till you get to Africa."

Putting me back on the sand dad remarked, Some people reckon we are the most remote city in the world which reminds me the lawn is going brown again. We’ll need to water it this evening.

Living inside a cultural bubble floating in a vast space could make you feel isolated and afraid or awe-inspired and free. I loved the freedom, the feeling of the unknown, of unimagined possibilities.

¹⁴It was not until the 1980s that long-suppressed information about the island’s dark secret emerged. Many people’s favourite holiday destination, known as Wadjemup by the Whadjuk Nyungar people, for millennia an important ceremonial and meeting place, was used by its British usurpers as a notorious prison and forced labour camp for nearly 100 years (1838-1931). Thousands of Aboriginal people were confined there, hundreds dying, including by execution. It could be fatal to be on your tribal country in the desert 2,000 kilometres away and spear a whitefella’s bullock. https://rottnestisland.com/the-island/about-the-island/our-history/aboriginal-history

CHAPTER 2

Unlocking the door to freedom

It is not technology, science or ideology that holds the key to our future, it is awareness of a reality that unites us all, oneness appreciation the essence of what is needed to power the impulse to live in ways that sustain the balance of all life with respect for the rightful place and purpose of every element of the whole.

Our view of reality is shaped by the cultural paradigm

In all places and times, every culture has supplied its answers to such timeless questions as What is the purpose of being human? What is the nature of reality? Who am I? What happens when I die? There are no known exceptions. The answers form critical elements of each society’s worldview, a framework of ideas and beliefs through which people observe, interpret and interact with the world.

That cultural paradigm acts as an invisible prism, silently and continuously filtering perceptions, colouring and shaping feelings, thoughts and actions automatically with no conscious effort on our part. Ceaselessly vibrating in the individual psyche, it acts as a filter through which the moment-by-moment experience of reality flows. Another way of understanding it is an interpretative lens through which the world is seen.

To illustrate, if part of our culture’s worldview is the belief that time moves in a straight line, decisions and actions are automatically shaped by that presumption. We set goals, make plans, allocate timeframes and act accordingly. But what if we live in a society where people regard past and future as present? As in traditional Indigenous societies, intuitive sensibilities arising from their holistic worldview or oneness awareness are more likely to shape decisions and actions, not linear time. Accordingly, there may be little interest in setting goals and locking in timeframes.

Another illustration of the pervasive power of cultural paradigms is the widely shared supposition in modern societies that human beings are the most evolved species on Earth. Kangaroos may disagree with that assessment, pointing to the fact they do not engage in environmentally destructive behaviours, do not seek to dominate other species, nor attempt to kill or enslave their own. It seems the lens through which they look at the world does not envision such possibilities. Does it mean they are less evolved because they live in their environment peacefully, sustainably and respectfully?

In traditional Indigenous societies, people view the world as an interconnected whole, every element with its place and purpose, none more important than any other. Decisions and actions automatically operate within those parameters. Before the Neolithic Age arrived, all human beings were Indigenous and looked at the world through those holistic lenses. As a result, relationships with the natural world were characterised by respectful behaviours, such as custodial care and treating all with respect for their place and purpose. It yielded very different outcomes to those emanating from dominator, win-lose mindsets.

When any society is dysfunctional, inequitable or destructive we can be sure at its root is a flawed worldview from which flows disruptive structures, systems and behaviours. The changes needed to get back on track relate to that. Unfortunately, during the past few thousand years the worldview of many societies has resulted in disruptive structures and systems generating a steady stream of unwise choices and harmful actions.

The reason? Connectivity with the whole was severed. People became psychologically disconnected from the natural world and its context, non-material (spiritual) reality, and established modes of living together that run counter to sapiens’ place and purpose on the planet.

The cataclysmic paradigm shift

Though biologically modern human beings have lived on Earth for at least 300,000 years it is only during the past 12,000 years (from the dawn of the Neolithic Age) that the notion of ruling over others and attaching a numerical value to things has appeared. Until that cataclysmic paradigm shift, there was no sign of any right to rule (R2R) sensibilities¹⁵ or monetary mindsets.

Local communities were autonomous interdependent entities designed to function as relational societies, their members’ ways an expression of the feeling of connectedness with the totality of material and non-material reality. Social structures and systems empowered people to lead meaningful, dignified lives with self-governance the rule, the value of things determined by respect-based, relational, whole-of-life perspectives. People were grounded in holistic sensibilities.

However, the adoption of sedentary lifestyles and trade-for-profit followed by the appearance of the first nation-states around 5,000 years ago was accompanied by new cultural mindsets characterised by presumptions of superiority. The ethos of a right to dominate the natural world and others emerged, essential ingredients for wars of conquest and exploitation.

Entanglement in its twisted roots drove the forceful insistence, however rationalised, that others abandon their false beliefs and outmoded or ignorant ways and surrender to the more civilised, progressive and superior culture.

Curiously, during my time on Earth I have never met any who believe our species’ purpose is to generate wars of conquest and possession, engage in environmental pillaging and destruction or experience a life stripped of autonomy and freedom. During the past few thousand years, however, resigned acceptance of the inevitability of such outcomes has become commonplace.

Now we find in governments, corporations and organisations, people in positions of power determining the fate of others without their direct participation or consent, driven by considerations far removed from the realm of respect, empathy, wisdom and the feeling of deep connectedness. As a result, resources and peoples have been commoditised, the Earth turned into a vast marketplace of transactions for profit, the true value of our relationships with one another and the natural world stripped of their enriching capabilities, numerics turning gold into base metal. This is the new normal.

Convinced they are specially equipped to lead, the ruling elite and their coterie of experts know what is best. The outcomes often reveal it is otherwise. As political philosopher and writer Thomas Paine observed nearly 250 years ago:

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government, are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions. (1776: 26)

While contemporary rulers in hierarchically structured societies carry on executing their power and control agendas, it does not take much forethought to guess the likely outcome of a poll asking whether people favour societies that do not engage in wars of conquest and control, that sustain the well-being and abundance of the natural environment and whose members lead dignified, meaningful lives with much fun and leisure.

Oneness reality appreciation: the nucleus of the holistic paradigm

As Total Reset shows, there is abundant evidence that these were characteristic outcomes when people lived in holistic societies and were intimately connected with the natural world, not only for survival but as part of an intrinsic understanding of purpose.

Crucially, awareness of purpose embraced the non-material dimension of reality, spiritual reality. Somehow over time, that experience has been discredited as a less evolved form of human development compared with rational material ways. But what if it is integral to our continuing existence as a species?

Concomitant with the spread of the R2R virus was the steady erosion and suppression of ways of enabling and supporting people’s direct experience of the oneness reality, one lethal substitute being religious ideology unaccompanied by experiential proof.

As well, hierarchical governance attempted to derogate from the stark reality that as humans we share an inherent understanding of what actions accord with the truth of things. We instinctively feel it throughout each moment of every day. It is the bedrock of our capacity for making wise choices.

But unless the self is experienced as an inclusive part of the whole such feelings are suppressed. Then the individual stands apart from the world, a disconnected physical entity contending with other disconnected entities in a battle for survival or dominance. It is this cultural conditioning we must question, the root of the feeling of separation, of a self apart from all others including the forms and phenomena of the natural world.

Though the sensibility of separateness is an actuality for many it is not so for those Indigenous people who remain immersed in the traditional knowledge and ways of their holistic cultures nor for others whose lives have led them to awareness of the oneness reality.

There were many ways in many cultures for people to transcend the normativity of experiencing the self as a subjective entity standing apart from the world. Until then the boundaries are clearly defined: I am not what I am looking at, it is different from me. In that belief many are supported in these times; it is a widely shared experience. However, when for whatever reason the day arrives when the awareness ‘I am not that’ dissolves in the awareness ‘I am that’,¹⁶ the feeling of separation between subject and object is no more and we are wholly present in the moment, one with what is.

This is the direct experience of the actual nature of reality, of the foundational aspect of the totality of existence and how its non-material essence pervades everything, indeed is everything. In the words of my Aboriginal teacher Lulu, All is the Dreaming. Or as my Indian teacher Baba often reminded people, All is the play of consciousness.

Today, we celebrate science as the key to our future and applaud emergent technologies as progress. The existence of spiritual reality is increasingly viewed as mumbo-jumbo, many lives unfolding in denial of it, typified by the widespread belief that when the physical body dies, we cease to exist, a fear driving technologies of immortality such as cryogenics. In polite company, the discussion of death is sidestepped as is any suggestion wars of conquest are an avoidable part of human nature or that absence of rulers would not lead to anarchy. Once upon a time, a tenet of our worldview was the belief the Earth was flat, preventing us from sailing beyond the sight of land.

Functioning in the domain of the unconscious, shared cultural beliefs are our unarguable truths, truths we rarely think about, locking us into ways of seeing and understanding reality that may not be aligned with the way it is. When the outcomes of a society’s ways are destructive it is the cultural paradigm that needs to shift.

That calls for the intentional cultivation of oneness awareness founded on direct experience. It is the bedrock of lasting solutions, the home of wisdom.

Just as our world’s existence depends on an exquisite balance of opposing forces, so does the manifestation of human wisdom. Powerful universal dualities such as subject and object, positive and negative, light and dark, attraction and repulsion must be held in balance to experience what transcends them – wisdom, the effulgence of oneness awareness or unity consciousness.

The cosmological models of many cultures have long posited our universe’s existence is made possible by an exquisite balance of opposing forces. For the Maori peoples of New Zealand, the source of all things are the two supreme creator beings, Rangi (Father Sky) and Papa (Mother Earth).¹⁷ In the traditional Hawaiian world Ao is the male principle of the universe linked with the sky, day and light while Po is the feminine principle, correlated with the earth, night, and darkness.¹⁸ For the Yoruba peoples of West Africa, the universe is held together by a bipartite primal force called àse, a spiritual essence pervading everything.¹⁹ In the Daoist (or Taoist) system of China, the unity of opposites is referred to as Yin-Yang, Yin the female principle, Yang the male. Indian yogic philosophies view the entire universe as the expression of an unlimited creative consciousness referred to as Shakti, the universal feminine.

However, ‘She’ cannot exist without a context, the Shiva capability, pure being. ‘He’ is stillness, the non-material source of form and movement, his silence the origin of sound. ‘She’ is manifested reality, including sound with the capability of becoming any number of universes. Shiva and Shakti, being and becoming, passive and active, subject and object are merely two sides of the same coin, polarities inseparably part of one whole.²⁰

Though Chinese nomenclature puts the female principle first as opposed to the Indian system which has the male principle first, neither system regards one principle as superior to or more potent than the other. They are ever joined, expressions of the union of opposites, of perfect balance – male and female, subject and object, light and dark, positive and negative – a single whole; oneness.

Unfortunately, recognition of that balance is not reflected in western science, evident in the biological classification of our species derived from the Latin words homo (man) and sapiens (capable of discerning). Thus, homo sapiens, the discerning or wise man. Improperly excluded from our species’ name is femina, woman.

Instead of defining our genus and species with the gendered homo, it may be preferable to consider a new descriptive highlighting the most critical non-biological characteristic of all humans – wisdom. Thus, for literary purposes (as in this work) the descriptive used is sapiens, a term uniting us all by characterising a critical trait we share whether actualised or potentiated, the capacity for wise choices.²¹

Wisdom is humanity’s indispensable guide, beyond gender, race, ideology, science and technology. As wisdom does not take root in unbalanced soils it is incumbent on every society intent on seeking a genuinely sustainable future to ensure that femina is on an equal footing with homo.

Affording the universal creative power a lesser status in the workings of society can only lead to suffering. It is in the rich soil of oneness reality that wisdom flowers not the impoverished ground of inequality and division.

For the First Australians, the existence of the oneness reality is expressed in their statement, All is the Dreaming.²² The equivalent in the Vedic tradition (also known as Hinduism, or more correctly the Sanātana Dharma, the Eternal Law), All is Brahma.²³ These are not mere statements. Their respective ceremonies, rituals and practices enable members to validate them, entering into a state where subject is no longer separated from object.

In the arts and sports, it is often referred to as ‘being in the zone’. There are widely reported experiences of an elevated space of effortless effort where the doer, doing and done are one, a state of spontaneous, natural flow, beyond the fluctuations of mind and ego. That zone is nothing other than the substratum of all that exists, the ever-vibrating, wholly connected universal energy field manifesting as what is.

There are many labels for it: the Dreaming, the Brahman, the Great Spirit, Allāh, God, Yahweh, the Quantum Vacuum, the Void, the Supreme, the One, the Formless Nameless Essence and so on. It sounds like ‘religion’ which is what it has become for many since the cataclysmic paradigm shift. But it is beyond religion, beyond labels, beyond the grasp of those who seek to define and use it for power or profit.

It is the very breath of life, the seat of awareness, the ever-flowing current of consciousness, the matrix of all that moves. Though apparently invisible and beyond our reach, it is at the very core of our being, no further away than our breath.

By knowing how to access it and co-create with its energies we can pop the distorted bubble of the modern cultural paradigm and blow a flawlessly shaped one. It is the surest way of regaining the freedom to live as autonomous beings in egalitarian societies that uphold the well-being of self, others and the natural world.

Just as we are in the world it is in us. The changes we wish to see in the outer world cannot happen unless our inner world also changes. As Mahatma Gandhi put it, We but mirror the world…If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.²⁴

It is not technology, science or ideology that holds the key to our future it is awareness of a reality that unites us all, oneness appreciation. It is the essence of what is needed to power the impulse to live in ways that sustain the balance of all life, the rightful place and purpose of every element of the whole respected.

The mirage of a civilised world

If we accept human beings are endowed with the capacity for wise choices in fulfilment of their purpose in the overall scheme of life on planet Earth, given we are an inseparable part of a self-regulating natural world, it follows that part of the reason for our existence at the top of the food chain is to sustain the balance of the whole.

That understanding was reflected in the prevailing ethos of all Indigenous cultures and was likely the norm for hundreds of thousands of years.

The ways of today’s ‘civilised world’ represent the antithesis, the result of a relentless 12,000-year degeneration of our long-standing, holistic socio-economic structures, systems and priorities and previously salubrious relationship with the natural world. For centuries now, there has been clear evidence of ‘civilised progress’ fuelling unprecedented environmental destruction and social inequalities.

In that light, what exactly is a civilisation?

Civilizations are intimately associated with and often have characteristics such as centralization, the domestication of plant and animal species, specialization of labour, culturally ingrained ideologies of progress and supremacism, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon farming and expansionism…Civilizations are organized densely-populated settlements divided into hierarchical social classes with a ruling elite and subordinate urban and rural populations…Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings.²⁵

If we contemplate these characteristics of a civilisation, it is hard to understand how