We offer you the variant of Declaration for discussion from Polly Higgins, Dr. Royston Flude and Jonathan Granoff: The Declaration A Sustainable Future through Spiritual Culture The World Forum of Spiritual Culture, held in Astana, Kazakhstan 18 - 20 October 2010 with participants from 70 countries, reviewed and discussed advancing a spiritual culture as necessary to achieve a peaceful, just, and sustainable future. Certain principles were salient in the presentations: we are all one - interconnected and interdependent, life is sacred and must be respected and honored in all its manifestations, and love is essential for all our endeavors. These principles can guide healthy personal and public policy and can change the pursuit of dominance and violence in world affairs to the achievement of disarmament, peace and tolerance. These principles can prevent the spoiling of the environment from market excesses to nurturing our interdependence and harmony with nature.
A Spiritual Culture that emphasizes virtues, such as, compassion, patience, justice, tolerance, and generosity will amplify social, institutional and personal responsibility, honesty, trust and inspire positive trans-generational spiritual and even economic growth. A Spiritual Culture will help people honor the Creator, discover enlightenment and make positive contributions to present and future generations.
We share a vision to bring Spiritual Culture into daily life through the manifestation of Love. The World Forum of Spiritual Culture seeks to be a stimulant for change and a model for such values.
We seek the creation of sustainable healthy communities that respect individual growth and the creation of an abundant and thriving environment. We celebrate diversity in cultures and faiths and recognize that indigenous peoples have a great deal to teach us. We will develop a greater sense of conscience and caring for others such that our core institutions include universal values and respect for the natural world in addition to market concerns. A culture with such values will surely generate the political will to fulfil commitments to a just sustainable world such as those contained in the Millennium Development Goals as well as counteract religious fanaticism as well as excessive militarism, most pronounced in the need to eliminate nuclear weapons.
These changes require the empowerment of local self-sustaining communities based on appropriate technologies capable of optimizing agriculture, energy, resources, and science in a sustainable manner. Governance and Social Responsibility will be exercised through leaders accountable to effected communities and who operate in a context that embraces the goals of higher consciousness.
Religions must not be misused to divide our one human family; religions can be sources of inspiration for universal goodness and harmony with humanity and the Creator. Whether based on religion, faith or only reason it is now time for all to come into the open space of our greater humanity and apply the simple principle: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Our Spiritual Culture is revealed the deeper we realize and live this admonition