The Soul of Nations: Healing and Evolution

By Wolfgang Aurose

Understand how our national identities can help us heal and transform—and why humankind’s shared future on this planet depends on it.

We're in the midst of a global evolution into a new sense of identity and belonging on this planet. We all become more interconnected at every turn. And although we may not realize it, our national identity plays a major role in how we reconsider what it means to coexist on Earth.

Globalization has advanced to where we’re starting to outgrow traditional nations and cultures altogether. Humans seem to be entering a new stage of evolutionary consciousness: one shared global identity. How can we prepare ourselves to make this major transition an enriching experience for all?

In The Soul of Nations, award-winning German-American author and workshop leader Wolfgang Aurose carves out a new evolutionary understanding of the nation-state and our national identity.

The book draws upon the principles of Integral Philosophy—which contends that the evolution of human consciousness and culture has now outpaced biological human evolution—to explain why our capacity as individuals to heal and transform is so closely fused to our national identities.

We each must work to understand, accept, and process the soul of our own nation—its unique soul qualities as well as its "shadows," or dark, painful history—to move forward as a peaceful, interconnected humankind.
The Soul of Nations features examples of Integral healing and transformation happening right now in countries as diverse as the US, China, India, Russia, Iran, Germany, Colombia, and Israel.

These case studies demonstrate how Integral work is a crucial and underutilized method we can use straight away to address one of the most pressing global challenges of today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667138237

Book preview

Introduction

We are in the midst of a global evolution into a new sense of identity and belonging on this planet. As we move further into the 21st century, we all become more interconnected at every turn. Rapid technological advances, population growth, and the climate crisis are just a few of the factors that now challenge us to reconsider what it means to coexist on Earth. And although we may not realize it, our national identities play a major role in how we process these ideas.

It is true we can each hold very different beliefs about the world and still be part of the same nation. But we often underestimate the degree to which our birth nation shapes our worldview. In 2022 in the U.S., a person could be either a diehard Trump supporter or a Democratic Socialist. Yet as Americans, these polar opposites would both still likely uphold the American ideals of individualism, ingenuity, and achievement. In other words, we are in many ways personally shaped by our national identity.

But just as humans change and evolve over time, so do nations. Think back to the countless wars and conquests over the centuries, where national borders have shifted dramatically. Some nations have expanded, some contracted, and some eliminated entirely by merging with others. Today’s world map would look very different to someone who lived even a century ago.

So would our national demographics. Massive migrations of refugees and asylum-seekers have reshaped nations that previously had one dominant culture. And there is a rising interest and curiosity, especially among young people, about life beyond the borders of their birth nation. Since WWII, international tourism and intercultural exchange have become a mass phenomenon. TV, film, fashion, and food are just a handful of ways we can expand our identity and life’s options. Our interconnectedness gives us more opportunities than ever before to find common ground, engage in meaningful discourse, and develop a more profound respect and understanding of one another.

To be sure, not everyone welcomes these changes. Proponents of the status quo often lack any curiosity about the world beyond their borders, favoring consistency over change. And millions of refugees and asylum-seekers are forced by tragic circumstance, rather than a pioneering spirit, to leave the country they call home. Once in a new nation, many feel stranded in cultures that are utterly alien to them. While they may be granted fundamental human rights in their new country, they still face significant cultural gaps in terms of worldview and customs. And in too many cases, they’re met with hostility from those who cling to an outdated view of their nation—one that existed before the arrival of foreigners.

But the desire of some to keep things as they are is futile for two reasons. First, there is no way back from our new global world order. We have intentionally forged and built upon a global existence since WWII. Globalization has become a force of nature, operating on its own evolutionary trajectory.

Secondly, and to that point, I believe globalization has reached a point where we’re starting to outgrow traditional nations and cultures altogether. Humans instead seem to be entering a new stage of consciousness: one shared global identity. If this is true, how can we prepare ourselves to make this major transition an enriching and fulfilling experience on both an individual and communal level? How can we live a more interconnected, united future on this planet?

As an anthropologist and historian, I have spent decades examining economic, political, and social systems. These constructs frequently provide a framework for solving many of life’s urgent dilemmas. But not all.

A shared global identity is one such case. If we are to evolve to the next level of human consciousness—an enriching, interconnected future with one shared global identity—I believe we must turn to the philosophical and spiritual realms.

Specifically, I feel the answer lies in the works of two modern visionaries: the late Indian philosopher and yogi Sri Aurobindo Ghose and the contemporary U.S. philosopher and researcher Ken Wilber. Both philosophers believe in Integral philosophy—the idea that the world, and humans, are constantly evolving toward a higher level of consciousness. Integral philosophy also posits that the evolution of human consciousness drives the evolution of the planet.

Sri Aurobindo and Wilber see this emergence of a shared global identity, or what they called transnational identity, as evidence of the latest step in human consciousness that is happening right now. For the first time in human history, people worldwide feel free to leave their inherited religions, traditions, customs, and their native lands. This exciting new level of independent thinking and acting is even happening in parts of the world where most continue to faithfully follow traditional rules and modes of their culture and national government.

In other words, just like biological evolution itself, Sri Aurobindo and Wilber believe transnational identity is inevitable and cannot be stopped. Now human consciousness is evolving at a much faster rate than basic biological evolution. For better or worse, humans reign supreme over all other life forms on Earth.

Scientists agree. Geologists describe our current planetary epoch as the Anthropocene, the era in which human decisions are the primary force shaping the planet. It is obvious that current changes on Earth are primarily human-caused. Human consciousness has impacted every facet of our planet. And one could argue that the degree to which it has altered the Earth is directly connected to where we are in the evolutionary stage of human consciousness.

For example, the consciousness of the very earliest people 100,000 years ago was quite archaic. Humans had hardly any impact on the planet at that point. They only knew to do what they must to survive: seeking food, water, warmth, and sexual activity. Fast forward to today, however, when human consciousness has evolved to an advanced level. Our consciousness now encompasses characteristics like self-interest, purpose, and community awareness, and our shaping force on the planet—for good and for very bad—is unmistakable.

This brings us to another critical aspect of Integral philosophy. Human consciousness is constantly evolving toward a higher level and is the main determinant in the overall process of planetary evolution. Therefore, as I will soon discuss, Integral philosophy can also be used to unlock new insights about the evolution of nations—not just humans and the planet.

The framework in Integral philosophy that we use to understand these new insights is called Spiral Dynamics. The concept of Spiral Dynamics was initially developed in 1952 by U.S. psychologist Clare Graves. Spiral Dynamics maintains that there are eight levels of increasingly complex human value systems (vMemes) that represent the evolution of human consciousness. And like biological evolution, these vMemes also develop in a predictable sequence over time.

The eight levels of human consciousness in Spiral Dynamics progress from the most basic level of survival up to pure enlightenment that views the world as one amazing interactive, interconnected system. (Clearly, we humans still have far to go by the Spiral Dynamics framework). Graves observed that these stages of consciousness are present in every nation to varying degrees. And so, in any given moment, they overlap each other within individual societies and worldwide.

For example, the earliest humans existed in the first Purple Safety vMeme, or the magic-shamanistic meme, where they believed in an animistic and animated world that rituals and sacrifices could influence. This worldview was succeeded by the second Blue Order vMeme, or religious or mythical meme, where humans evolved to believe eternal truths were revealed by God or gods and maintained through authority based on succession.

The subsequent vMemes in Spiral Dynamics reflect how human consciousness has progressed. Each vMeme reveals a level of human consciousness that is a little less rigid, and a little more inclusive. For instance, both the modern rational-scientific enlightenment (the fifth Orange Prosperity vMeme) that developed 300 years ago, and the postmodern view (the sixth Green Community vMeme) that exists today, believe that a worldview has no absolute order. These vMemes acknowledge the world is full of nuance and complexity.

Yet as advanced as our human consciousness grows, we are sadly not even close to achieving the seventh tier of Spiral Dynamics, the Yellow Interdependence vMeme. At this tier, humans value the magnificence of existence over material possessions and knowledge and competence over rank, power, and status. And there is still the eighth and (for now) final vMeme to realize—the Turquoise Harmony vMeme, where humankind collectively does things like synthesizing science and religion into a universal spirituality or acknowledging the Self as both distinct and a blended part of a larger, compassionate whole.

Will we ever get there? Will we ever reach the Yellow and Turquoise vMemes where humans can operate as a unified, compassionate whole rather than disgruntled adversaries? Although it may seem fanciful to think so, Spiral Dynamics proposes the answer is yes. The seventh and eighth vMemes are indeed on our periphery.

Just as human consciousness predictably evolved from its primal Purple Safety vMeme to the Green Community vMeme where we stand today, Spiral Dynamics asserts that consciousness will follow the same trajectory into the next two vMemes. Remember, the fact we are seeing a transnational identity beginning to emerge right now is, for many Integral philosophers, proof enough that we are evolving out of the sixth Green Community vMeme into the seventh Yellow Interdependence vMeme.

I should note that since this book explores Spiral Dynamics in the context of Integral philosophy, I simply refer to these yet-to-be-achieved seventh and eighth vMemes throughout the text as one Integral meme.

Each of the earlier vMemes—shamanism, religion, or scientific rationalism—holds only a partial view of reality. However, that final (as we know it for now) Integral meme will embrace all previous worldviews established in the vMemes before them.

The Integral meme recognizes the core of truth in each previous worldview. For instance, Integral philosophy holds that neither religion nor science is wrong; each ideology only sees partial and different aspects of our complex world. The emerging Integral meme weaves these partial truths into an overall holistic picture. Perhaps