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SHEN Status Report

SUMMARY

This first annual status report is intended to serve as a focus document sharing our vision, goals and objectives, history, concepts, rationale, strategy, past achievements and future plans with the growing network of SHEN stakeholders.

Diversity is the order of the day. Human history is a witness to the inadequacy of mere tolerance and coexistence in the prevention of identity savagery; and it calls for effective proactive steps to bridge the hearts and minds of people.

SHEN proposes to respond to this call with the addition to the present educational systems of a consciousness-raising and transforming discipline of shared and unifying core spirituality.

Appendix A presents religion as two-faced institution: one face unites and the other divides. The former face comprises the shared and unifying core spirituality inclusive of all beings.

This proposed discipline of spiritual education must measure up to a strict standard of inclusiveness and freedom. It must, therefore, satisfy a stringent code of ethics. Such a code is presented in Appendix B.

SHEN proposes to begin with a post-secondary curriculum in order to educate a core of teachers for the lower grades. Appendix C presents such a curriculum.

Appendix D presents a multi-religious and multi-disciplined conceptual framework for curriculum development.

Spirituality is a matter of insight. Life stress prevents spiritual insight. Appendix E proposes an inclusive spiritual practice to lower stress and enable spiritual insight.

Finally, Appendix F presents a comprehensive listing of implementation tasks including the progress achieved to the date of the report.

1. Introduction

We undertook to write this report when, towards the end of 2008, two of our friends and well-wishers expressed their curiosity about our achievements. SHEN passed through a long thinking process and the results were not apparent. We also realized the importance of the report as a focus document for the expanding group of the SHEN stakeholders.

The main purpose of this report is to share integrally in one document our vision, goals, objectives, history, past achievements and future plans with our growing network of workers, contributors, friends, well-wishers, employees, volunteers, and others interested in our success. It can keep us all focused, centered and coherent as we proceed towards our vision.

We welcome your feedback on the following questions:

1.      Does our direction measures up to the ethical criteria of inclusiveness and freedom established in this report?

2.      Are the ethical criteria solid and satisfactory?

3.      Is the proposed conceptual framework for curriculum development sound?

4.      Is the community outreach satisfactory in its focus and scale?

We plan to update this report once every year in February.

2. Origin of the Idea

A number of the founders of Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. have their origins in India and were born before 1947. The reason why this organization exists today can be traced back to 1947 when India was partitioned into two countries on religious grounds.

India is and always was a pluralistic country where diverse people lived together free to practice their own religions. They coexisted for centuries in ‘peace’ but, perhaps, they never succeeded in building lasting bonds of humanity between the populations. As a result, unrest on both sides of the partitioned land resulted in large scale rioting, butchery, rape, and homelessness in a shameless orgy of religious hatred.

We were told that the identity savagery of 1947 in India was an act of uneducated masses and things would improve with the spread of modern education. But the truth of the matter is that the human condition has not improved in the intervening years.

Recent historical events of these years all around the world indicate that the hearts and minds of humanity are no closer today than in India and Pakistan of 1947. The promise of education remains unrealized because the world educational systems have failed to address the issue of raising human consciousness to perceive our common humanity. This perception is necessary to build bridges between the hearts and minds of diverse people living in the global village today.

That identity madness that we witnessed affected us deeply. We dedicate our lives to unifying and inclusive spiritual education as our contribution in ensuring that it will never repeat itself anywhere in the world.

3. Important Dates

As an organization, Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (SHEN) came into existence on September 15, 2000. It received its registration as a tax-exempt charity from Canada Customs and Revenue Agency on April 7, 2003.

4. Mission

The mission of the Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. is to provide easy access to the thinking and findings of those enlightened beings (prophets, sages and seers), who have spent their lives studying the nature of humankind and its relationships in the universe.

The peak spiritual experiences of these noble exemplars comprise the core spirituality of all religions and it is totally unifying. By its very nature, it is inclusive of all beings and it is meaningful to all human beings, irrespective of faith or the lack of it.

We consider core spirituality as the spiritual heritage of humanity and worthy of preservation as well as propagation.

5. Objective

Its mission dedicates SHEN to an objective with four parts:

1.      The promotion and delivery of public education in the spiritual heritage of humanity by providing courses, lectures, seminars, conferences, and workshops;

2.      The development of educational material by engaging in related research;

3.      Service to the marginalized in society; and

4.      Building networks of goodwill with individuals, and organizations.

6. Purpose

The goal of the envisaged spiritual education is a clear communication of the core spiritual principle that the universe is an indivisible whole thoroughly pervaded and intimately connected by its ground of being. Its implication defines the purpose of human life. It becomes our responsibility then to fully absorb this principle taking it deep into our consciousness in order to live our lives accordingly. This principle is totally unifying and inclusive of all beings without exception.

The darkness of divisiveness disappears in the light of the unifying core spirituality. It is the purpose of SHEN to dull the edge of doctrinal divisiveness in the light of the unifying core spirituality of world religion. We hope to facilitate spiritual insights for humankind to lead loving and constructive lives in unity and cohesion.

7. Rationale

Religion is a two-faced institution. One unites and the other divides.

Religion is founded upon one unseen spiritual reality underlying the entire universe. This reality connects us all and is the unifying face, the core spirituality of religion. Religion also confines this infinite reality in finite forms rendering somebody's God less Godlike, somebody's prophet less prophetic, and another’s community less righteous and deserving. This is the divisive face. Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. proposes to use the unifying face to dull the edge of the divisive one. See Appendix A for more on this rationale.

8. Strategy

Development of spiritual education curricula for all educational levels is a huge task. Therefore, Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. proposes to take up the task in stages. The first stage addresses the curriculum needs for the post secondary level. The purpose is to create a pool of teachers for the lower levels.

Where do we offer the curriculum? It will take time for the universities and colleges to shed the hold of their long standing religious conditioning. Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. proposes to offer this curriculum in a distance education mode on the internet after due testing by teaching it live in the classroom. It is hoped that the success of the curriculum in the distance education mode will convince the established educational systems to follow suit.

It is therefore essential for us to adopt high academic standards and follow strictly an inclusive code of ethics in developing our curriculum and the associated course material. In addition, we must readily share our developments with individual universities, colleges, and professors who are willing to take a leadership role.

9. Ethical Criteria in Spiritual Education

Spirit being the antonym of matter, the spiritual realm is inclusive and unitive, while the material realm is exclusive and separative.  The more spiritual is a thing, the more inclusive and universal it is. This is the thinking underlying the ethical criteria in spiritual education proposed by SHEN. Please see Appendix B for the suggested code of ethics.

10. Nature of Spiritual Curricula

The envisaged curriculum is integrated multi-religious and multi-disciplinary in nature without any contradictions or gaping holes. It must appeal to the totality of being human: head, heart and hands leaving nothing to faith alone. It must encompass the cognitive and the conative since spirituality to be practiced must be affirmed by personal insights.

11. Measure of Spiritual Growth

Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. considers the capacity to perceive the underlying oneness of all beings in the universe as a measure of spiritual development. We cannot “love thy neighbor as thyself” until and unless we “see thy neighbor as thyself”.

12. Suggested Curriculum

We propose a post-secondary curriculum that we believe is comprehensive and deep enough to enable the teachers to prepare the youth to live cohesively as one human family. Please see Appendix C for details.

12.1. The Cognitive

SHEN has developed a conceptual framework for curriculum development. This framework can form the basis for detailed development of most of the courses in the proposed curriculum. It has undergone successful classroom testing repeatedly with mature and diverse students. Please see Appendix D for details.

12.2. The Conative

The Ego is a major barrier to progress in the human effort to submit to the spiritual light of the divine immanent in all beings. SHEN proposes a strategy to overcome this barrier and contribute also to the maintenance of physical and mental health. See Appendix E for details.

13. List of Activities

Appendix F shows a list of the activities envisaged to propel our objectives and the progress to-date.

14. Concluding Remarks

This is the first publication of an ongoing status report of the Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. We have made a sincere effort to report the status accurately without overstatement or understatement.

We are satisfied both with the quality and quantity of accomplishments. We would sincerely like to hear from the readers.

Appendix A -
Rationale

Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. sees religion as a composite of unitive core spiritual and divisive doctrine, see Figure 1. Religion builds communities and core spirituality builds one human family in the wider world context.

Religion is meaningful only to its followers. Core spirituality on the other hand is meaningful to the whole humanity. Religion is the basis of exclusive tribal values. Core spirituality is the basis of inclusive and shared human values.

It is ironic, with religion, that what starts off unifying people into communities becomes the thing that divides them. Community is good, but divisive tribalism is not.

Doctrine veils core spirituality and its propagation is not in the worldly interest of religion. It is obvious that religion is ineffective as a vehicle of teaching our underlying oneness and shared human values in a pluralistic world.

Religion is equipped to the building of religious identities. Core spirituality, on the other hand, transcends religion and can help human beings in transcending religious identities on their way to global human identities. Globalization of human minds is essential to eliminate identity savagery.

It is the position of Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. that the propagation of core spirituality and the building of global human identities is a matter of essence for the educational systems of the world. The educational systems must rise to meet this challenge if humanity is to survive the global problems it faces today.

Appendix B - Ethics of Spiritual Education

Spiritual Education must be delivered and pursued ethically. It must be remembered at all times that spirituality and religion are complimentary and not in competition with each other. Religion seeks to build communities of human beings while spirituality seeks to knit all beings into one family. Spirituality seeks to highlight the universality of the essence of religion. It regards all religions as different paths of perceiving one reality.

It must be remembered at all times that the over-arching spiritual ethic is the ethic of our underlying oneness through the oneness of our deepest essence. Good is what makes for this oneness, and evil is what makes for separation or division.

The goal of building one family with mutual respect, love, understanding and rich coexistence cannot be served by shaking a seeker’s faith in his or her particular religion. We need to work on the principle that one’s personal salvation or liberation lies in the single-minded pursuit of one’s chosen religion and everyone must have the freedom of pursuing their salvation or liberation in their chosen ways. The important conclusion of spiritual endeavour is that it is senseless to bring in the element of exclusivity in one’s religion while downgrading others. This conclusion needs further elaboration because what is advocated here is not merely tolerance of other religions but mutual respect and acceptance of other religions. This can be ensured only when there is no seed of intolerance at all in the pursuit of a religion.

It is true that civilized secular societies have ensured that there are constitutional mechanisms in place where there is no scope for religious intolerance to raise its ugly head. But our objectives go one step further. What is advocated is true spirituality that transcends all differences, including religious differences, and where there is no room for intolerance of any kind. According to Meister Eckhart, “Everything pertaining to the spiritual realm is inclusive and unitive by nature, whilst matter is by nature exclusive and implies separative particularity; the more spiritual a thing is, the more inclusive and thus universal it is, and the more material a thing is, the more it excludes other things by the very rigidity of its specific contours.”

It is our position that spirituality that lies at the core of every religion is “inclusive and unitive by nature” and we therefore present the following ethical criteria for teaching such spirituality:

1.      The over-arching ethic is the ethic of underlying oneness of all. Good is what makes for this oneness, and evil is what makes for separation or division.

2.      All educational material, lectures, seminars, practices, etc. will be equally applicable to the whole humanity, irrespective of religion, belief, faith, race, gender and culture, and without discrimination of any kind whatsoever.

3.      All educational material, lectures, seminars, practices, etc. will use extreme caution and sensitivity and refrain from affirming, diminishing, or denying any religion, belief, faith, race, gender and culture explicitly or implicitly

4.      All educational material, lectures, seminars, practices, etc. will acknowledge due academic credits to ideas and concepts used from any religion, belief, faith, race, gender and culture.

5.      The approach used to research, develop and deliver the curricula shall be based strictly on academic considerations.

6.      There shall be absolutely no PREACHING and no PROSELYTISING.

7.      All educational material, lectures, seminars, practices, etc. will promote tolerance, understanding, love, and respect for all human beings without any discrimination.

8.      The educational material will be complementary to the existing educational systems.

9.      The educational material will incorporate totality of human experience with a multi-disciplinary approach.

10.  All educational material, lectures, seminars, practices, etc. will be mindful of the individual need and right to the exclusive practice of one’s chosen religion with undivided devotion and surrender in following the path of one’s personal salvation or liberation.

11.  The educational material will promote the use of natural and environmental resources with respect and responsibility.

12.  The educational material will promote positive personal involvement in improving human condition through oneness, education, nonviolence, understanding, respect, love and service.

Appendix C - Suggested Curriculum

Core Courses

1.      Ultimate Reality and the Individual: This subject area is related with an understanding of ultimate reality and its relationship with an individual: how the underlying one is related with the many of sense perception. This understanding is fundamental to spiritual growth as we become what we think we are.

2.      Meaning and Purpose: An understanding of our essence and its relationship with that of the universe leads to an understanding of the purpose and meaning of our being. This course also encompasses the strategies we adopt to fulfill our purpose.

3.      Contemplation Methods: The purpose of this course is enabling our individual insights about our essence and our relationships on the paths to spiritual growth.

4.      Spiritual Ethics: This universe is an indivisible whole pervaded and intimately connected by its ground of being. Therefore, good is what makes for unity or oneness and evil is what makes for separateness or division. This ideal is all-inclusive and necessary for survival of the global village that the world has now become.

Support Courses

1.      Spiritual Leaders and Literature: The purpose of this subject is to learn from the peak spiritual experiences of prophets, sages and seers about ultimate reality and its oneness as reflected in the great scriptures and spiritual literature of the world. 

2.      Philosophy and Psychology: The purpose is to study the philosophical and psychological issues related with the facilitation and realization of individual and societal spiritual insights.

3.      Theology and Mythology: This course studies the role of theology and mythology in the interpretation and propagation of the peak spiritual experiences of prophets, sages and sears.

Natural and Life Sciences: Sciences and spirituality complement each other in the human search for truth. They comprise the totality of human experience which must comprise one continuum of understanding of the reality underlying the universe.

Appendix D - A Conceptual Framework for Curriculum Development

Science and the Material World: Modern View

Macro Body Micro Particles Energy § Finite & Diverse § Gross § Deterministic § Both Finite & Infinite § Subtle § Many possibilities § Infinite & One § Infinitely subtle § Infinite possibilities

 

1.      Energy is the one underlying reality of matter

2.      Energy is undefined except in its effects

3.      Energy is infinite

4.      First emergence of matter is in the form of fundamental micro particles called quarks

5.      Quarks coalesce to form electrons, protons, and neutrons

6.      The weight of a proton equals that of a neutron. In comparison, an electrons is very light (almost weightless)

7.      Electrons are negatively charged, protons are positively charged and neutrons do not carry any charge

8.      Like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract

9.      All matter is comprised of a handful of elements

10.  The smallest possible particle of an element is an atom

11.  An atom has an nucleus and an electron cloud around it

12.  The size of an atom is about 100,000 times the size of its nucleus

13.  Nucleus contains a certain number of protons and usually an equal number of neutrons

14.  Energy binds the positively charged nuclear particles together and it also keeps the negatively charged electrons from collapsing on the positively charged nucleus

15.  Thus, each atom contains sub-atomic particles which emerge from energy which with its immanent presence also holds the atomic structures from collapsing

16.  Ingredients of atoms of all elements are the same; difference between elements is in the number and arrangement of constituent particles and the immanent energy level

17.  Elements interacting with each other lead to an infinite material diversity

18.  Compatibility for interaction is determined at the level of the micro particles

19.  The immanent energy drives material interactions by rearranging the micro particle

20.  Matter in its macro existence behaves deterministically by the laws of cause and effect (no mystery in the macro world)

21.  Matter in its micro existence behaves probabilistically (micro world is mystical)

22.  Micro particles exist in wave (energy) particle (matter) duality

Science and the Material World: Early View

1.      No single underlying reality of matter

2.      All matter is comprised of a handful of elements

3.      The smallest possible particle of an element is an atom

4.      Atom is not further divisible

5.      Atoms of different elements are different

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.      Material diversity is an effect of interactions between atoms of different elements

7.      Behavior of matter is strictly deterministic, no escape from the laws of cause and effect

Psychological View of Human Being

Before the age of science, the psychological view  probably coincided with the prevalent spiritual view of human being as body, mind, and spirit	Body Mind Spirit §    Finite & Diverse §    Gross, material §    Determ-inistic §    Both Finite & Infinite §    Subtle, immaterial §    Many possibilities §    Infinite & One §    Infinitely subtle §    Infinite possibili-ties
Early age of science was marked by over-zealous empiricism and
Sigmund Freud’s structural model of human mind ID : Natural instincts based on sensory learning; it operates automatically Super-ego: Learnt family, society and religion Ego: Logic that mediates between id and the super-ego Freud also introduced the concepts of the conscious, sub-conscious and the unconscious
Alternate representation of the Freudian model Ego encompasses the familal, societal and the religious mores and the logic that mediates between them and the sensory instincts

Carl Jung extended Freud’s concept of the unconscious by suggesting that it consists of two parts: personal unconscious representing the sum total of a person’s experiential learning, which was once in the conscious domain, and collective unconscious not connected with conscious personal experience. The collective unconscious represents primordial images common to all humanity. It may include inherited experiences acquired perhaps through biological continuity from the beginning of life. Obviously, personal unconscious is more accessible that the collective unconscious which comprises the deepest layers of human psyche.

Shortcomings of the Psychological Model

1.      All decisions are ego based

2.      No independence of human will

3.      No possibility of freedom from experience and instincts

4.      No possibility of any original ideas

5.      No possibility of unbounded love and universal unity

Spiritual View of Human Being – Major Traditions

The Samkhya School of Thought Manas: The sensory faculty Ahamkara: The ego self Buddhi: Thinking, discriminating, decisive, and intuitive faculty Purusha: Consciousness
The Book of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” The heaven and the earth comprise the created domain and Holy Spirit is the uncreated Being
La illaha illa’ Allah: There is no existence but Al-Haqq, the Real Nafz: Creaturely identity Ruh: Principle of praiseworthiness Sirr: Witness and recognitions
The Kabbalah Ein Sof: Ultimate Reality Nishmeta Qaddisha: The holy soul Nefesh Hayyah: The animal soul Ruha: The sensory faulty

Spiritual View of Human Being – Composite of Major Traditions

Ego: Called the individual or the ego self; storehouse of all worldly experience and logic including sensual, familial, societal and religious learning Ultimate Reality: The Real Self
Alternate Representation: This representation may be discussed in terms of various sheaths veiling the Self

Sensory Faculty	Ego	Intellect
Gateway to: §    Cognition §    Action §    Gratification §    Mediates: person on one side and family on the other	Storehouse of: §    Instincts & Tendencies §    Experiential knowledge §    Societal Learning §    Mediates: person, and family on one side and  society on the other	That which: §    Discriminates, discerns, and decides §    Defines human will §    Mediates: person, family, and society on one side and humanity and global concerns on the other

Natural Growth

Stage 1: At birth, body functions, senses partial Psychic essences exist merely in potential form to be actualized
Stage 2: Senses develop and give rise to the ego, soon after birth
Stage 3: Development of senses leads to the development of ego, soon after birth
Stage 4: Development of the go gives rise to some related logic Development of the intellect is time consuming; it takes for ever

Four States of Being

Waking State: This is our ordinary waking state
Dream Sleep: Body going to sleep when tired; progresses to deep sleep and reverts back to waking state automatically
Deep Sleep: Body and senses going to sleep; initiated by the body; automatic progress from dream sleep, reverts back to dream sleep automatically
Transcendent State: No connection with the sleep or waking states; fully conscious state; complete stillness of body, senses and the ego; mind beyond the domain of objectivity; the state of ascension of ordinary human consciousness to spiritual consciousness.

Inner Conflicts and Negotiations

Psychologically, life is a process of cycles of stimulus and response

Arrows to the right: Stimulus Information

Arrows to the left: Suggested response

Upward arrows: Return of the unacceptable suggestion for reconsideration (inner negotiation)

Conflicts arise due to different demands of the body, sensory faculty, ego and the intellect.

Inner Struggle and its Outer Manifestation

Human Conscience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Human Conscience operates at three levels:

§   Level 1: When a person does something for him/herself and against the interests of the family

§   Level 2: When a person does something for him/herself or the family and against the interests of the community

§   Level 3: When a person does something for him/herself, the family, or the society and against the interests of humanity at large

Levels of Human Consciousness

Body Centric: Addiction to one’s body to the exclusion of the family, society or humanity Undesirable for the Family, Community and Humanity	Manifestation: Crimes against the family and society
Sense Centric: Addiction to the family to the exclusion of one’s self, society or humanity Undesirable for the Community and Humanity	Manifestation: Crimes against the society
Ego Centric: Addiction to the community to the exclusion of one’s self, family or humanity Undesirable for Humanity	Manifestation: Crimes against humanity
Spirit Centric: Centeredness in the Immanent Ultimate Reality or the Real Self: Consciousness of humanity including the self, family and the community without being limited by any way Most Desirable for All The Transcendent State	Manifestation: Oneness, “Loving thy neighbor as thyself”, unconditioned and unbounded love for all Kingdom of God Within, Enlightenment, Buddhahood,  Fitra, Realization of Tawhid (Divine Unity), Kaivalya, Nirvana, Salvation, or Liberation

Appendix E - Towards the Kingdom of God Within

1.      Requirement: “Death”, “extinction”, “uprooting”, “transcendence”, “stillness” of the ego (creaturely self, nafz, ahamkara, nefesh hayyah, inferior reason, etc.) “He (God) is a jealous lover and allows no other partnership, and he has no wish to work in your will unless he is there alone with you, by himself”- (The Cloud of Unknowing): Even a thought about Him (God) is an obstacle. “So I say that a man should be set free of his own knowing as he was when he was not.” - (Mester Eckhart)

2.      Humanity has a repertoire of disciplines which can help with attaining the state of human perfection described above. In this status report, we will only focus on one of them.

3.      Psychologically life is a process consisting of cycles of stimuli and response; physiologically life is a process consisting of cycles of inhalations and exhalations. Brain being the physiological organ of the mind, the body and mind are so intimately related that the psychological and the physiological life processes mirror each other.

4.      Ego is a faculty of the mind and it “thinks” that it knows” everything. It runs the psychological process automatically without or little involvement of the faculty of intellect just like the primitive part of the brain runs the physiological process of breathing automatically without involving the thinking part

5.      Life is full of tension and stress. Mother always feeds us something we do not like and she never cooks something we like. If we get something we dot like, we are stressed. If we do not get something we like, we are stressed. Our likes and dislikes develop before we can think. So do our fears. We are stressed when we are afraid. Our likes, dislikes, and fears comprise our ego; and they are the products of our body and our senses. Being older than the intellect, they do not consider it important to involve it in running the process of life. Life stress leads to ego and ego feeds stress. We have to break this cycle.

 

6.      It is a matter of common experience that when we are stressed, we breathe shallow and fast. Our breathing is out of control and automatic.

 

 

7.      Our stimulus-response process mirrors the breathing process which leads to even more stress.

 

8.      How do we break these out of control automatic processes? The faculty of intellect can help. Willfully slowing the physiological process of breathing reduces the stress. This can be easily experienced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.      Inserting thought into the breathing cycle does not only reduce the stress level, it also inserts thought into the psychological stimulus-response cycle. Physiological processes of breathing mirrors the psychological process for stimulus-response.

10.  Insertion of thought in the breathing process leads to thoughtful action rather than the ego based automatic reaction resulting in a weakening of the hold of ego on human life. It is merely a technique which is easily learnt.

11.  Realizing that ego is comprised of our likes, dislikes, our habits, our addictions and our aversions, our fears, our phobias, our prejudices, our limited identities, etc, the technique of mindful deep breathing can be taught to help in the management of habits, addictions: whether they are substance based or emotion based, identity issues, prejudices, and fears. Most of all, the technique is useful in management of personal relations as well as opening and centering of the mind.

12.  Mindful deep breathing in an atmosphere of physical and emotional relaxation should be taught so that it becomes a habit. It makes people thoughtful and inward oriented in seeking the solution of life issues.

13.  This is where focused meditation or contemplation begins. Stress prevents insight, spiritual or otherwise. It keeps us so engaged in our likes and dislikes, our habits and addictions, our prejudices, our hidden agendas, our limited identities etc. that we cannot think creatively with an open mind and cannot perceive the truth of any matter whatsoever.

14.  Stress reduction does not lead only to spiritual and moral growth, but also to many health benefits as stress in addition to preventing spiritual insights by strengthening human ego. Also breeds a number of physical diseases. Stress reduction through focused deep breathing has the potential of saving billions of health care dollars. Please see table below for the physiological and psychological benefits of stress reduction:

Thoughtful Breathing:

 Physiological and Psychological Benefits

Appendix F - Implementation Tasks and Progress

F1. Building the Network   

F1.1. Development and maintenance of websites:

§     SHEN Website

http://www.SpiritualEducation.org

§     Blogs

Globalization of Human Mind: http://www.theigloo.com (Service discontinued)

§     Social Networking Sites

F1.2. Participation in Conferences

§         Biennial Meeting Of The International Society For The Study Of Human Ideas On Ultimate Reality And Meaning, August 15-18, 2001

§         Biennial Meeting Of The International Society For The Study Of Human Ideas On Ultimate Reality And Meaning at the University of Toronto, August 13-th, 2003

v     Organized a Symposium entitled “The Unity of Mystical Understanding” by S.  Talwar

v     Article Presentation: “Yoga: Attainment of Ultimate Reality and Meaning” by S.  Talwar

v     Article Presentation: “Some Thoughts on Samkhya Philosophy” by R. Dubey

§         Regional Meeting Of The International Society For The Study Of Human Ideas On Ultimate Reality And Meaning at the University of Pune, India, Dec 21-23, 2004

v     Organized by S. Talwar jointly with Prof. V.N. Jha of the University of Pune, India

v     Article Presentation: “Building Religious Inclusivity through Ultimate Reality and Meaning Based Education” by S. Talwar

v     Article Presentation: “Ultimate Reality and Its Meaning” by R. Dubey

§         Biennial Meeting Of The International Society For The Study Of Human Ideas On Ultimate Reality And Meaning at the University of Toronto, August 3-6, 2005

v     Organized a Symposium entitled “URAM Based Spiritual Education” by S. Talwar

v     Keynote presentation at the above symposium by S. Talwar, Prof. Edward Sarath of the University of Michigan was the other presenter.

§         Biennial Meeting Of The International Society For The Study Of Human Ideas On Ultimate Reality And Meaning at the University of Toronto, August 8-11, 2007

v     Article Presentation: “A Psycho-Spiritual Model for Understanding the Totality of Human Behavior” by S. Talwar

v     Article Presentation: “The Ethics of the Gita” by R. Dubey

v     Article Presentation: “One Pathway Into the ‘Great Work’” by Lois And Kuruvila Zachariah

F1.3. Related Organizations

§     Memberships

v     Interfaith Grand River (www.interfaithgrandriver.org),

v     The Snowstar Institute of Religion (http://www.snowstarinstitute.org)

v     Association for Ultimate Reality and Meaning (www.utpjournals.com/uram/uram.html and  matrix.scranton.edu/uram)

v     Ontario Dismus Centre

F1.4. Publications

§     Published Journal Articles

v     Talwar, S.D. 2001. “Ultimate Reality and Meaning of Samkhya”.  Ultimate Reality and Meaning.  Vol. 24 No. 1

v     Talwar, S.D. 2004. “Yoga: Attainment of Ultimate Reality and Meaning”.  Ultimate Reality and Meaning.  Vol. 27 No. 1

§     Journal Articles Pending Publication

v     Talwar, S.D. “Building Religious Inclusivity through Ultimate Reality and Meaning Based Education”. Ultimate Reality and Meaning. 

v     Talwar, S.D. “A Psycho-Spiritual Model for Understanding the Totality of Human Behavior”. Ultimate Reality and Meaning. 

v     Talwar, S.D. “Values Education for the Global Village”. Fu Jen International Religious Studies Journal

§     Newspapers and Popular Press

v     Talwar, S.D. “Choose the uniting face of religion, not the divisive one”. The Record, July 14, 2007.

v     Talwar, S.D. “Teaching of moral values should be linked to our spirituality, not a religion”. The Record, May 10, 2008.

§     Text Books: no publications so far

§     Teaching Resources: unpublished

F2. Fundraising

§     Personal Presentations

v     Most donations received with this approach

§     Government Applications

v     Some success with Service Canada

§     Foundations

v     No success so far

§     Web Sites

v     Cause entitled Globalizing Human Mind: http://www.facebook.com

v     Project entitled Spiritual Development Through Education: http://shen.givemeaning.com (Project complete)

§     Tax Receipts

F3. Organizational Maintenance

§     Internal and External Communication

§     Internal Reporting

§     Office work

§     Book keeping

§     Accounting

§     Payroll

§     Government filings

§     Directors and Volunteer Liability Insurance

§     Organizational and Administrative Meetings

F4. Library Maintenance

§     Ordering and Receiving

§     Cataloging

§     Circulation

F5. Academic Research and Development

§     Research

v     Development of the Mission and Objective statements

v     Development of the ethical criteria for universal spiritual education

v     Development of operational strategy

§     Conceptual Framework

v     Development of a conceptual framework and/or directions for the development of teaching resources for courses entitled Ultimate Reality and the Individual, Contemplation Methods, Meaning and Purpose, Spiritual Ethics integrating major wisdom traditions, psychology and natural sciences, Philosophy and Psychology, and Natural and Life Sciences

§     Classroom Testing

v     Classroom testing of teaching material for the course entitled Ultimate Reality and the Individual

v     Classroom testing of teaching material for the course entitled Contemplation Methods

v     Classroom testing of teaching material for psychology part of the course entitled Philosophy and Psychology

§     Web Presentation

v     Writing of visual basic macros for web presentation of course material

F6. Community Outreach

v     Bimonthly public seminars on spiritual topics at the University of Waterloo

v     Stress reduction workshops twice a week at the Grand River Hospital to patients needing help in addiction management

v     Together with the Dismas Fellowship, Ontario, once a month stress reduction workshops to the inmates of the Grand Valley Institution, Kitchener (Federal Prison) and once a month to Dismas volunteers.

v     Meditation Sessions

v     Contacts with Local Agencies: more needs to be done in this area

F7. Volunteer Involvement

§         Interviewing, engagement, training and supervision of volunteers from the local residents and student body in general and the School of Pharmacy in particular for:

v     Giving stress reduction workshops for health and happiness to community groups at large (28% adult population of North America suffers from high blood pressure), see http://www.spiritualeducation.org/Volunteer/Volunteer%20Opportunities%20Health.htm

v     Related academic research and development work, see http://www.spiritualeducation.org/Volunteer/Volunteer%20Opportunities%20Education.htm

F8. Work In Progress

§         Research and Development

Integrating the understanding of Ultimate Reality and the Individual in the following systems of thought:

v     The Chakra System

v     System of Lataif-e-sitta

v     Sefirot - The Tree of life

§         Curricular Courses

v     Writing for web presentation of teaching material for the course entitled Ultimate Reality and the Individual

v     Writing for web presentation of teaching material for the course entitled Contemplation Methods

v     Writing for web presentation of teaching material for psychology part of the course entitled Philosophy and Psychology

§         Extra-Curricular (Related) Courses

v     Preparation of a course on Non-duality

v     Preparation of a course on the Bhagvadgita