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So what, then, is Spiritual Intelligence?
It is literacy in navigating the pathways of transformation.
It is the art and practice of inner and outer evolution.
It is learning how to progressively live fully in body, mind, and spirit.
It is navigating the journey from the selfish orientation of youth through the transformative stages, and finally surrendering into Divine union and sacred service.
Spiritual Intelligence is learning the “how-to’s” of forwarding our own movement from stage to stage; of recreating our worldview at each stage; of stepping into a deeper and more global relationship with the world.
Spiritual Intelligence increases at each new stage and reaches its omega point in Unitive awareness and global service.
We think leadership development is intimately bound up with Spiritual Intelligence. Many of the greatest figures in every discipline (spiritual, scientific, artistic, political, etc.) were functioning at a unitive level of awareness.
At a minimum, they were functioning at a level or two higher than the average for the time.
We call this Spiritual Intelligence — a way of seeing and acting that focuses on doing the tough work of transforming body, mind, heart and soul — personally, interpersonally, organizationally, globally.
When we adopt this evolutionary, transformative perspective, we accept that the organization’s and the world’s transformation is inextricably bound to our own. Spiritual Intelligence is literacy in the practice of transformation.
Collective Spiritual Intelligence
While individual transformation is essential for organizational and global transformation, it is not enough. We have to find ways to work in higher order relationships with each other so that we can discover and create together higher order systems. With individual growth in consciousness, higher order relationships become possible.
Dialogue is a key tool for coming into higher order relationships and discovering higher order systems. It is a tool for accessing the higher/deeper wisdom that is in the collective body, mind and soul.
Much is being re-learned about dialogue as a tool for the transformation. When people come together to practice dialogue (by suspending judgment, listening deeply, balancing advocacy with inquiry, etc.) something very special can happen. The conversation gets progressively more authentic.
People share the truth of their experience and listen to the experience of others. People become more vulnerable, discussing risks, fears, and “undiscussables.”
The deeper the conversation gets, the more the assumptions and beliefs that shape our collective reality have a chance of being exposed and re-examined. As these assumptions and beliefs are rewritten, group and system behavior can change. This is Dialogue, Dia-Logos — or meaning moving through.
Dialogue is a tool for large system learning and collective change.
Because individual and collective are interdependent (in fact, one), dialogue is also a tool for personal transformation.
As dialogue deepens, an amazing thing happens: the group consciousness expands, it accesses a flow state. People can feel this happening. It is quite palpable. This is what is meant by sacred space.
Groups can create sacred space: a rich field of trust, connection, and learning. In the field of sacred space, collective wisdom is more easily accessed.
The expansion of awareness within the group affects everyone present.
It encourages everyone to step beyond the boundaries of their current identity and worldview.
Boundaries and limits are temporarily suspended.
Each person plays at a level higher than usual.
It is an experience of living from a higher level of awareness.
People access higher (spiritual intuition) and deeper (body wisdom) parts of themselves, perhaps for the first time. The experience of having accessed it once makes it more available on an ongoing basis. In this way, phase shifting is stimulated and supported in the sacred container of dialogue.
Emerson said, “We lie in the lap of immense intelligence. We are the receivers of its truth and the organs of its activity.”