Exploring the progress of human consciousness and leadership from the dawn of history to today, Christ Conscious Leadership invites people of every faith to become vigorously engaged, at this critical point in their spiritual evolution, in developing the consciousness of the anointed one, the Eternal Absolute. Anchored in the traditional wisdom of the world's major cultures as well as in current perspectives from a wide range of disciplines, from psychology to quantum physics, the book guides the reader through five steps in the process of becoming a Christ conscious leader and provides exercises for introspection, self-assessment, and personal growth.
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Director of the Center for Action and Contemplation, praises Christ Conscious Leadership: "Old things are returning as very new things, and what feels like traditional teaching is now becoming conscious, revolutionary, and exciting. Barbara Benjamin brings so much together here in a time when we need so much."
Eminent psychiatrist Dr. Clancy McKenzie writes: "Barbara Benjamin is a truly enlightened person.... Her new book, Christ Conscious Leadership, is a major contribution to mankind".Benjamin's work empowers people of every faith to evolve consciously and to transform a global society that is headed for self-destruction."
Excerpt
From the preface...
Today, wherever we turn, we are being bombarded with doomsday predictions of Armageddon, with warnings that we are soon to run out of the vital resources needed to sustain a rapidly escalating world population, and with warnings that our current oppositional behavior in relating to one another is bringing us to the precipice of mutual annihilation. And across the board, all these predictions and warnings are fueled by solid and alarming facts. We know that water resources continue to diminish rapidly, with four thousand children dying every day because of diseases caused by dirty water or poor sanitation. We know that an estimated one billion people are underfed and undernourished, while an equal number of people suffer from obesity. We also know that since the end of World War II, the proliferation of civil and international conflicts and nuclear weapons continues to pose a threat to global security.
In response to these realities, there is a widespread call for change. We are being told that we have to change the way we protect and allocate our dwindling resources, the way we address international conflict, and the way we think about ourselves in relation to others and to our environment. Governments, torn between immediate political and economic pressures and long-range solutions, try valiantly, though ineffectively, to address this call for change. Well-intentioned individuals, torn between habitual patterns of thought and behavior, find themselves overwhelmed by the erosion of all that is familiar in their environment. And those in traditional leadership positions in our families, schools, churches, financial and corporate organizations, and local and national governments attempt to adopt new strategies as fast as they can find them, but to no avail.
Certainly humanity has faced many challenges in the past and adapted to those challenges in order to survive, but those adaptations have been physical and social adaptations, and many have taken hundreds of thousands of years to occur. We don't seem to have the option this time of waiting that long. This time it seems that our adaptation has to be faster than the depletion of our resources, faster than the explosion of our population, and faster than the eruption of global conflicts and the production of annihilating weapons. We seem, in fact, to be in a race against time for our very survival, and the odds of our winning this race seem slim.
But how real is the perception?
In light of everything our wisdom literature teaches us, from the Upanishads to the Koran, there is no race, and we are not facing a doomsday scenario that threatens our survival. We are, rather, coming quite naturally upon a new dimension in the evolution of our conscious awareness of our souls, an evolution that is our established and promised destiny. This new dimension invites us to discover our indwelling unity with God, the "Christ in you" (Colossians 1:27) that the apostle Paul speaks of, and to manifest that unity through actions that fulfill God's plan to establish his kingdom on earth.
To move forward into this new dimension in our spiritual evolution, we need perspective, guidance, and introspection. We need to gain a sense of where we have been, where we are, and where we are headed, physically, socially, and spiritually, and we need to become aware of the innate tools we have for consciously engaging in our continuing evolution. We also need to understand how the scientific and technological innovations that are shaping the world we live in can facilitate our spiritual progress. Above all, we need perspective, guidance, and introspection to help us relinquish our habitual patterns of thought and behavior, to turn the kaleidoscope of our consciousness so that we can begin to perceive new patterns of thought and behavior that reflect our unity with each other and with Christ, the Eternal Absolute.
Structured to provide that perspective and guidance, as well as to provide an opportunity for personal introspection, Christ Conscious Leadership is divided into three sections. Section One, "The Good News: Evolving and Surviving," offers a comprehensive reflection of historic and current forces that have brought us to this point in our evolution and prepared us for the next step in our spiritual development. In Section Two, "The Way to Christ Conscious Leadership," five steps are presented for achieving and manifesting Christ consciousness in our interactions with each other and with our environment: Unity, Love, Detachment, Commitment, and Action. Opportunities for introspection, self-assessment, and action planning are presented in Section Three, "Your Christ Conscious Leadership Profile."
The Indo-European root word for leadership is kla, meaning load. As this root word took on new connotations, it came to mean carry your load. In the emerging reality of leadership as the expression of the state of mind of each individual on the globe, carrying our load becomes an immeasurable personal responsibility, a responsibility that we cannot possibly fulfill without developing a new consciousness, Christ consciousness. It is to this end, to helping us each carry our load, that the pages of Christ Conscious Leadership are dedicated.
