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The Home of Evolutioneers

Master List of All Open Source Spirituality Principles for the Global Collaborative Commons

The Current Master List of Open Source Spirituality Principles: (Explanations further below.) 

  • Introduction
  • On Its Prime Focus
  • On Diversity
  • On Personal Spiritual Choice and Authority
  • On Organizational Spiritual Authority and Revelation
  • On Miracles
  • On the Questioning of Faith Beliefs and Practices
  • On Personalities in the Movement
  • On the Non-Equality of All Spiritual Wisdom
  • On the Process Itself
  • On Polarization
  • On Organization and Distribution
  • On Other Open Source Integral Spirituality and Global Collaborative Commons Process Objectives
  • On Ownership, Patents and Trademarks applied to Spiritual Wisdom and the Global Collaborative Commons
  • On No Requirement of Blind Allegiance
  • On Expanding our Common Core of Moral Values
  • On the Pathologies and Abuses of Religion
  • Other Probable Administrative Principles of an Open Source Spirituality and an Expanding Global Collaborative Commons
  • On Free and Open Access
  • On Open Source "Forking" as a Natural Method to Manage Religion 2.0 and Evolution Spirituality Independent Organizations and individuals who fail to follow the Recommended Religion 2.0 Evolution Spirituality Member Conduct Codes, Teacher Ethical Guidelines, or Spiritual Safeguards. (Number 20 at Bottom of page.)
  • On the Improved Integration of Science and Spirituality. (Number 21 at Bottom of page.)
  • On the New Open Source Definition for What Faith Means: (Number 22 at bottom of the page.)
  • On the New Open Source Definition for What Healthy Boundary Awareness in Spiritual Development Means: (Number 23 at bottom of the page.)
  • On the Policy that Open Source Spirituality holds that No Existing Religion has Absolute Authority in its Message and No Religion has the only Way to Salvation: (Number 24 at bottom of the page.)
  • On the Reality that All Religions are Trying to Describe the Great Mystery. (Number 25 at bottom of the page.)
  • On Science being an Ideal place to Start Searching for the Great Mystery of Ultimate Reality. (Number 26 at the bottom of the page.)
  • On the Self-organizing Nature of Open-Source Spirituality. (Number 27 at the bottom of the page.)

Introduction to the Open Source Principles of Religion 2.0
The emerging Collaborative Commons for humanity's spiritual culture is now expanding at a faster rate than ever before in history. This
Collaborative Commons is supported by the evolutionary processes of open source Religion 2.0 and open source spirituality, as described in this document.

"The use of open-source spirituality principles is critical and essential to the ongoing existence and expansion of Evolution Spirituality. These core, indispensable new structural principles allow Evolution Spirituality to function effectively, productively, and peacefully with individuals and groups from vastly different spiritual backgrounds. In addition to helping to create the Collaborative Commons for humanity's spirituality, the open-source principles of Evolution Spirituality are one of the key factors that distinguish Evolution Spirituality from the traditional religions of Religion 1.0." Lawrence Wollersheim

Open-source spirituality is also intended to help facilitate and expand the Collaborative Commons of humanity's spiritual culture where all individuals can be part of a common culture of shared spiritual experience and spiritual wisdom held in balance with and grounded in what we know through science. It is also a place where people can feel a tangible interconnectedness to each other through recognition of their common Origin, the commonalities found in their highest intentions as well as their common inter-religious and humanistic/moral values such as justice, love, mercy, humility, kindness, and compassion.

The Collaborative Commons for all human spirituality is a place for the collection, consolidation, and distribution of all of humanity's spiritual and science-related wisdom that is life-affirming, universal, inclusive, and hopefully also often even empirical (as it relates primarily to the common spiritual experiences of the members of the world's spiritual communities and religions.) It is also a place for the collection, discovery, and sharing of the most universal common denominators of authentic spirituality, new evolutionary disclosures about Ultimate Reality from any and all sources, and yet, --- is still appreciative and respectful of our many denominational diversities. The Collaborative Commons for all human spirituality is created by a self-organizing, dynamic process that has a self-propagating life of its own.

Below are the minimal essential, but flexible values and principles of the open-source spirituality Collaborative Commons collaboration process that will facilitate expanding the healthy space and processes of the Collaborative Commons for all human spirituality. Once an individual or organization understands these basic principles they can effectively contribute to and expand the Collaborative Commons for all human spirituality.

This list will be amended or upgraded as needed, as would be expected of any evolving and yet incomplete new movement.

1.) On Its Prime Focus

The most important focus of open-source spirituality is the increasing knowledge of the common core and essence of all religion as well as the Ultimate Reality of science, religion, and humanism. This focus is to help support individuals and societies that are transforming themselves in congruence with that knowledge in order to live in more life-affirming ways.

Other key open-source spirituality goals are to support one’s continually expanding and deepening direct personal or non-personal experiences with Ultimate Reality, improving one’s balanced practice of the virtues, and aiding in the individual's achievement of spiritual completeness. (Personal spirituality is generally the innermost and most critical essence of all religion, as opposed to religion’s outermost characteristics, such as its social beliefs, doctrines, rituals and organizational structures, authorities, and hierarchies.)

2.) On Diversity

This is an open-source movement! It encourages many individuals, organizations, and teachers of spiritual wisdom to contribute their wisdom to the open-source spirituality Collaborative Commons for all human spirituality.

This diversity is essential to the unending search for additional and broader spiritual truth and is vital for making spiritual wisdom accessible to the great variety of personalities, learning styles, psychological developmental levels, and cultures. Though different in abilities, all are equal in spiritual dignity and can act as co-creators of the global Collaborative Commons.

3.) On Personal Spiritual Choice and Authority
Every mentally sound person already possesses the internal means to be their own highest spiritual authority for discerning spiritual truth for their own spiritual path. This implies that each individual is their own highest spiritual authority and should be allowed full freedom from coercive or deceptive influence in making their own spiritual choices.

4.) On Organizational or Spiritual Authority and Revelation
In both
Collaborative Commons for all human spirituality of religion 2.0 and in the open-source spirituality movement, it is necessary that there are no highest Popes, Bishops, Avatars, Gurus, Rabbis, Imams, etc. or any religious hierarchy of final spiritual authority or religious orthodoxy outside the spiritual authority of the individual. No one spiritual source, teacher, founder, leader or organization has the universal or final spiritual authority on what is authentic or appropriate spiritual wisdom, spiritual truth, spiritual process or spiritual law for anyone other than themselves.

From the date of creation of this original Open Source Spirituality manifesto in 2004 onward, the above paragraph naturally infers that there is also no longer a recognition of special, exclusive, ongoing, or final spiritual revelation being presented from or by Ultimate Reality uniquely or solely to one individual or to one organization that is applicable to or for anyone beyond the specific individual or organization that received it. While Open Source Spirituality does accept the possibility of unique personal revelation/guidance in terms of the communication quality possible in the relationship of the individual to Ultimate Reality, Open Source Spirituality does not hold that this unique personal revelation/guidance can or should be held out as authentic or final religious or spiritual truth, law or authority for anyone or any organization except possibly for the individual who received it, and then only if they themselves judge and accept it to be religious or spiritual truth, law or authority for themselves.

Religious revelation intended or decreed as final, authoritative, or religious law for anyone or any group other than for the unique, single individual who received it is an area of religion and spirituality historically fraught with abuse and misuse and the source of much of the current religious strife in the world today. Furthermore, by its very claim to be either an authentic or final religious/spiritual revelation for a group or mankind there is not only any real objective way to disprove it, but there is also no real objective way to prove it, either.

Revelation, because it is subjective and not objective (and can therefore not be proven or unproven), has most often been something that not only divides people but often historically has served as the rationale for violence against disbelievers of some particular subjectively-received-or-decreed revelation.

Revelation that confers special or exclusive privileges, rights, roles, responsibilities, religious laws, authorities, or properties on or over a select few or special group is even further suspect in that the message of the revelation is not inclusive, universal, or just, and therefore not congruent with those prime and potential qualities of an Ultimate Reality.

If you do believe that Ultimate Reality will in fact continue to disclose more of its infinite self and aspects to humanity in revelation as time goes on, then perhaps you believe that it has always, when the time was right, intended to eventually disclose more of itself through a new multi-religious, open-source, co-creative process where the combination of insights and wisdom from all religions and individuals will offer a bigger and broader, clearer and more accurate picture of Ultimate Reality than the revelational perspective of any one religion. Maybe we’ve arrived at this time in history to discover that we have finally now both become and really are --- all vital spiritual and moral partners who are equal-opportunity, (open source) co-revealers of the endless and expanding truths about Ultimate Reality.

Maybe, for our post-postmodern times, the revealing of the endless and expanding truths about Ultimate Reality is now better executed by a continuous and collaborative group effort in Collaborative Commons rather than by only a progressive or exclusive single revelatory effort by any one religion. Maybe continuous group efforts to accelerate the revealing of the expanding new truths about Ultimate Reality is the appropriate evolutionary stepladder now needed for these times for our new revelations where later revelations are no longer viewed as either final or even necessarily superior to earlier revelations, but instead, new revelations are viewed as a just another beautiful pearl to be added to a string of pearls that can grow into endless strands.

Maybe, from the very beginning of our spiritual history (although we did not know it then,) the endless expanding truth about Ultimate Reality has always been far, far too great for anyone religion to hold. And just maybe, while the absolute truth of Ultimate Reality may always be one, we still may need the many different religious paths to start us out, but then it will be the combined best wisdom from all the religions that will keep us on our way most effectively and efficiently to the greatest spiritual heights possible.

In dealing with all previous spiritual claims by individuals or religious organizations that they have received a special, exclusive, ongoing, authoritative, or final spiritual revelation that does or does not bind or confer special or exclusive privileges, rights, roles, responsibilities, laws, authority or property on or over a select few or special group (other than over only the unique individual receiver of that revelation,) the open-source movement of Evolution Spirituality intentionally does not at this time address the validity of such claims and takes no official position toward such claims of past revelation. The Collaborative Commons for all human spirituality will provide additional insights on this, but we leave this for each individual to work out as an issue of personal faith for themselves.

5.) On Miracles
In open source spirituality, miracles that defy the natural laws are treated as a personal issue of subjective faith. Miracles may not be used as proof of spiritual authority or spiritual truth for anyone other than the individual experiencing the miracle even if the miracle has been subjected to rigorous scientific investigation. This is because even in the most rigorous of scientific investigation, although the fact that an event has occurred might be ascertained with a high degree of certainty, why or what caused that event to occur is far harder to discern, especially when a spiritual cause is being assigned or attributed to that event.

Open source spirituality has been birthed in the 21st century where there is a new emphasis on the reintegration of the values and wisdom of spirituality with the facts and rationality of science. Looking at the deepest cause-and-effect patterns of our 13 billion-year evolution and the beauty and order it has created, it easy to see from a spiritual perspective that "miracles" are found everywhere in the most ordinary of events in our everyday lives. Spectacular or simple personal miracles that supposedly supersede the laws of nature are of minor and tangential interest to the Open Source Religion 2.0 movement compared to what best helps individuals connect directly to Ultimate Reality, grow towards spiritual completion and live lives of balanced virtue.

6.) On the Questioning of Faith Beliefs and Practices 
We have come to a new point in humanity’s spiritual history where if individuals or religious organizations assert to another that their own faith beliefs or practices should be believed or followed as fact and/or that specific behavior is dictated or ordered by those faith beliefs or practices, then those faith beliefs or practices should be open to a gracious public questioning and dialog on their factuality and/or usefulness in directing specific behaviors. Religious pathology, abuse, fundamentalism, and religious terrorism are not just matters of history, but fill the pages of our daily media. The only way many of these issues will heal is by open, candid, and gracious dialog concerning the truthfulness or usefulness of faith beliefs or religious practices that may be instrumental to creating these situations.

This does not imply that private individuals who are not asserting to another that their own faith beliefs or practices should be believed or followed as fact and/or that specific behavior is dictated or ordered by those faith beliefs or practices should be questioned on their faith beliefs or practices. In this situation, the individual is fully entitled to believe whatever they privately choose to believe, much as a person is entitled to speak or hold their opinions and cannot be sued for libel or slander if they are just expressing opinions and not presenting their opinions as facts.

Many religions already encourage their members to sincerely examine and reality test the faith beliefs or practices being presented to them. An open-source spirituality just extends and expands the sanction and healthy practice of a sincere and gracious questioning and reality testing of faith beliefs for the benefit of both society and religion itself.

Additionally, if we do not allow for gracious questioning of faith beliefs and faith practices it closes off the possibilities for addressing behaviors that perpetuate historic unfairness. Tolerance and diversity can be used quite well by the clever to perpetuate all types of injustice and cruelty in the name of religion.

If beliefs or practices from other religions have not been examined for their factual truthfulness or usefulness they should be not be taught within the Religion 2.0 and Evolution Spirituality movement and instead any such dogma, belief, or practices should be respectfully treated as possible metaphors or teaching illustrations used by other faiths and not facts or objective reality.

7.) On Personalities in the Movement
The open-source religion and spirituality movement gladly accepts co-creational assistance and contributions from anyone, but it gives no inappropriate or special attention, honor, position, or consideration to any person or organization involved because they are personalities or organizations of wealth, fame, power, specialized influence, celebrity or pre-existing or current ecclesiastical authority or saint in a religious or spiritual organization. 
The open-source religion and spirituality movement also gives no inappropriate or special attention, rights, powers, honor, position, consideration, or sacredness to any person who may have been a founder, co-founder,  hero, or "saint" of the open-source religion and open-source spirituality movement itself as well. 

8.) On the Non-Equality of All Spiritual Wisdom
Not all spiritual wisdom is equal in applicability or usefulness. The inclusive collection of all of humanity's spiritual wisdom as part of any synthesis process will naturally involve both general categorization and then some pruning of this wisdom from our combined spiritual heritage.

Some spiritual wisdom will be more widely applicable, inclusive, universal, life-affirming, timely, and even more empirical. Some spiritual wisdom will be more useful than others in that it is more effective or efficient in producing the fruits of authentic spiritual growth in more people with various personality types, psychological developmental levels, learning styles, cultural backgrounds, etc. in a safe and balanced way.

The fruits and the time-proven community validity tests of authentic spirituality and spiritual growth from humankind’s spiritual heritage are held in the open-source movement to be in part the life results of the individual or organization that demonstrate the balanced application of the virtues. These time-proven community validity tests are a principled focus for the movement to use for categorizing and evaluating the effectiveness, truthfulness, or the partial usefulness of various pieces of spiritual wisdom.

Sincere spiritual inquiry, the sharing of all spiritual wisdom (without regard to culture or religious “ism,”) and the search for spiritual wisdom that is more universal, inclusive, timely, and life-affirming inspires the open-source spirituality movement toward the discovery of more useful and applicable spiritual wisdom, more universal statements of the nature and purposes of Ultimate Reality and of the evolving nature of life itself.

The continuous process of cooperation and collaboration for collecting and expanding humanity’s spiritual wisdom in the open-source spirituality movement between the many individual or organizational efforts to know Ultimate Reality holds the promise of expanding humanity’s spiritual knowledge base, assembling spiritual wisdom of a complementary nature and expanding the free and open Collaborative Commons for all of humanity's spirituality. This evolutionary process also does much to reveal a greater vision of Ultimate Reality’s wholeness, truth, beauty, goodness, nature, and purposes, which then has the potential of translating directly into better processes for direct spiritual experience of Ultimate Reality for more individuals, for a better world.

9.) On the Process Itself
As in open source software, where software development is an unending process of continually evolving upgrades, open-source spirituality processes for expanding the global
Collaborative Commons is also more of an ongoing self-organizing evolving, collaborative process than any final result. It too will be constantly upgraded.

As more wisdom is included and synthesized in the expanding global Collaborative Commons new synchronicities and connections within this accumulating wisdom will point to, hint at or disclose additional new wisdom that sometimes will naturally transcend earlier spiritual or scientific wisdom. Co-creators should expect many pleasant and exciting surprises as new transcending spiritual and science-related wisdom is discovered or naturally emerges, disclosing new perspectives and metaphors of Ultimate Reality.

It will always be a continuous, incomplete, and evolving process of expanding the spiritual wisdom knowledge base of humanity’s spiritual commons. One of the prime reasons for this unending quality of the process is that the collaborative assembling and search for new or more universal, inclusive, and life-affirming spiritual and science-related wisdom concerning Ultimate Reality is itself an unending process. And, Ultimate Reality can never be fully knowable in its entire infinite splendor.

All efforts to fully know or disclose the infiniteness of its nature and purposes will at best be partial maps, myths or metaphors. No matter how much we can know about Ultimate Reality it will always be a partial and incomplete representation of its infinite potentials and its infinite realized aspects.

Individuals and organizations within the open-source integral spirituality movement always stand in openness, awe, and humility to new surprises concerning Ultimate Reality’s continual unveiling of itself to each individual personality and successive generation through any and all means, sources, or circumstances regarding its ultimate and complete truth, beauty and goodness. From the above, it is reasonable to deduce that one religion or one religious perspective alone will not have all the answers and all current religions might be partial or complementary views of the infinite wholeness and unfathomable Mysteries, which will forever surround the infiniteness and absoluteness of Ultimate Reality.

10.) On Polarization
Polarization in the global Collaborative Commons and the open-source spirituality and Evolution Spirituality movement is avoided by the recognition that this is primarily a non-deficient learning universe. This primary perspective of itself reduces polarization. (See New Universe Principles Part 2 for more on this appropriate universe "attitude.")

Humanity’s vast heritage of spiritual wisdom is partial, evolving, and has its own appropriate time, way, place, and target audience to emerge for specific applications. In this movement, our combined heritage of spiritual wisdom is appreciated in the context of:

a.      the age and scope of spiritual or social problems this wisdom was intended to solve

b.      the culture it came from and for what types of personalities, learning styles, and psychological developmental levels it was intended to reach and serve

c.      its effectiveness in a specific context and situation

d.      whether or not it causes any consequent harm or conflicts

e.      whether or not it creates non-inclusive, unfair benefits for one individual/group over another group/individual

f.       how congruent it is with the body of other spiritual wisdom found on our "shrinking," globalizing planet and in the global Collaborative Commons.

Our evolving life-affirming heritage of spiritual wisdom can be thought of as existing in an ever-widening and ever-deepening spiral of wisdom. Because of the perspective on wisdom appreciation (a–f above), open-source spirituality participants can discuss, evaluate, classify, categorize and organize this heritage of spiritual wisdom while valuing any particular piece of spiritual wisdom just for what is. Open-source spirituality participants recognize that a particular piece of spiritual wisdom has an inalienable right to be exactly just what it is and to play only the specific role that it has played in humankind’s spiritual history. With the above information, attitudes, and perspectives of appreciation and understanding, the polarization of competing spiritual wisdom or spiritual wisdom systems within the open-source spirituality and Universe Spirit movements and within the global Collaborative Commons should be naturally minimal and easily defused.

11.) On Organization and Distribution 
Humanity’s vast knowledge base of spiritual wisdom will be collected, organized, and distributed through free multi-channel delivery systems. This will help adapt the expanded human spiritual wisdom knowledge base for delivery to each individual’s unique learning style, personality, current psychological development level, culture, or other “isms.” This will increase the ease, speed, and efficiency with which individuals can assimilate this wisdom to improve their lives.

12.) On Other Open Source Spirituality and Global Collaborative Commons Process Objectives
There are many possible objectives and goals that an open-source spirituality could and will engage with. To see just a few of those possible goals, click here.

13). Copyright Ownership, Commercial Uses, Individual Recognition, Patents, and Trademarks applied to Religion 2.0, Spiritual Wisdom and the Global Collaborative Commons

Patents and Trademarks, when applied to the collection or specific pieces of this collected spiritual wisdom, are misplaced. This is because these materials are intended to be as open-source as possible and because ultimately, only the original author and creator (Ultimate Reality,) could lay a valid claim to the ultimate original creative source rights.

This does not mean that original creative descriptions of this wisdom cannot be open and put into CreativeCommons.com-type copyrighted forms either for personal recognition or as part of a right commercial livelihood. It also does not mean that some type of flexible suggested donation or fair exchange should not be requested for their use by their creators for any of the materials, courses, or books used within the global Collaborative Commons. In a global Collaborative Commons in which all can participate freely and all can feel the common heritage ownership and/or participate in the open-source co-creation, trying to patent or trademark the spiritual and science-related spiritual wisdom to inflexibly lock it down is contrary to the most fundamental principles of open source spirituality.

CreativeCommons.com type use of scalable open copyrights that allow at least open access and then possibly various levels of open source co-creativity are recommended to be used by any author who wishes to maintain some personal recognition or some level of open-access future involvement with their work's evolution. (See CreativeCommons.com for the various types of open copyright licenses or the creative commons license used on this site off the Creative Commons license link at the very bottom of this page.)

14.) On No Requirement of Blind Allegiance
There is no denominational or authoritative religious book or authoritative religious personality/ecclesiastic authority blind allegiance required to participate in open source spirituality and to help expand the global
Collaborative Commons. In fact, any of the preceding allegiance requirements would be counter to the nature of an open co-creation of a global Collaborative Commons. The only participant allegiance of open source spirituality co-creators should be to including and evaluating all and helping to delineate the most universal spiritual wisdom. One can of course, on their own and at any time choose other deeper allegiances as appropriate.  

15.) On Expanding our Common Core of Moral Values 
The world’s major religions already share a common core of moral values such as justice, compassion, mercy, love, and kindness. Expanding the global
Collaborative Commons through an open-source spirituality and science collaboration holds the promise of disclosing new common values and finding new ways for individuals and the world’s great religions and other organizations to work together from those common moral values to collectively resolve the greatest problems the world faces today and to build a just, sustainable and equitable environment, particularly a place where people can be safe from the threats of war and injustice. Some of those new moral and ethical values can be found in the new Universe Principles.

16.) On the Pathologies and Abuses of Religion 
An Open Source Religion and Spirituality that will help expand the global
Collaborative Commons will need to confront and deal with the issues of the pathologies and abuses of religion in its knowledge base in a forthright and honest way. For many of the estimated 30% of the population that calls itself “spiritual, but not religious,” the word “religion” creates an unpleasant and aversive reaction. One does not have to go back in history very far to see the pathologies, excesses, and abuses of religion that are still occurring in many places today.

The Open-Source Spirituality movement recognizes that much in existing religions is not only factually wrong or no longer useful or applicable but some beliefs and practices are outright mentally or physically coercive and abusive. Doing everything possible to deal with and educate people about the pathologies and abuses of past religions and the critical spiritual safeguards that are necessary to prevent them from occurring in our new religion again is a natural aspect of the global Collaborative Commons work. Some (but by no means all) of the pathologies of institutionalized religion that the global Collaborative Commons will eventually have to address are: fixation of beliefs; establishment of oppressive ecclesiastical authority; religious fundamentalism; tendency to standardize and fossilize truth; diversion of religion from the service of Ultimate Reality to the service of the church; fund-raising focus in place of a humble spiritual service focus; creating discriminatory religious castes; becoming an intolerant judge of orthodoxy; creating an aristocratic "chosen-people" attitude; sexual and financial abuse of members, undue psycho/spiritual influence or coercive influence over members negating or debilitating their ability to exercise spiritual free will; fostering of false and exaggerated ideas of sacredness; routinizing of religion; accepting religious symbols and ceremonies in place of authentic direct spiritual experience of and with Ultimate Reality, using blind or absolutist faith to override proper faith balanced with rationality or scientific facts; preventing or slowing members from progressing through Fowler’s natural stages of spiritual growth; tendency to form sects and competitive divisions; petrification of meditation/worship; venerating the past while ignoring present demands; failure to make up-to-date interpretations of religion’s messages; entanglement with functions of secular institutions; inclination of leaders to become administrators instead of ministers; accumulation of vested interests toward increased secularization; failing to hold the interest of adventurous youth and losing the hope-renewing wisdom from ongoing personal direct spiritual experience with Ultimate Reality.

Click here to learn more about possible spiritual safeguards against religious pathologies and abuses.

17.) Other Probable Administrative Principles of an Open Source Spirituality, Evolution Spirituality and an Expanding Global Collaborative Commons
The evolving administrative qualities of the Global
Collaborative Commonscommunity are envisioned to be created, achieved, and improved through the process of inclusion, synthesis, and transcendence. They are intended to always spiritually power the expansion of the commons and each step of the adventurous journey and process of getting there.

The Probable Administrative Principles are:

a.      Facilitating Intention and Action: The Global Collaborative Commons community holds the position that all co-creators within it intend to help people of diverse personality types, denominations, developmental or consciousness levels, cultures, ethnicities, or “isms” to work toward achieving expanding, direct spiritual experience of Ultimate Reality as well as the expansion of the Global Collaborative Commons.

b.      Collaborative: The Global Collaborative Commons community is a place of collaboration enhanced by openness, shared spiritual intention and attention, trust, authentic listening, speaking and participating from our experiences, intimacy, vulnerability, knowing, and where one can suspend strongly held ideas and look beyond personal preconceptions to enable the process of true learning and gaining new insights.

c.      Self-Organizing: The Global Collaborative Commons community will naturally operate on many of the principles of systems theory, particularly that of self-organizing systems. For example, those who show up are the "right" persons for the work. The commons promotes bottom-up-created and managed solutions. Volunteers have the self-empowering freedom and autonomy in selecting and managing (self-organizing) their own projects and resources.

d.      Interdependent: The Global Collaborative Commons community fosters interdependence between independent individuals and organizations.

e.      Balanced: The Global Collaborative Commons community seeks to create an enlightened win/win/win balance where individual, community, and (where applicable) environmental interests are mutually forwarded, balanced, and upheld.

f.       Cooperative and Co-Creative: The Global Collaborative Commons community is intended to be cooperative and co-creative with all organizations and individuals with compatible missions. As a non-commercial global commons it does not compete with anyone.

g.      Diversity-Honoring: Because Ultimate Reality appears to love novelty and diversity in evolution, the Global Collaborative Commons community seeks to utilize the life-affirming information from a multiplicity of cultural, ethnic, racial, spiritual, and scientific perspectives to evolve and expand and attract co-creators from all walks of life. To expand the Global Collaborative Commons many spiritual and non-spiritual perspectives are woven into a fabric that still maintains its distinct, diverse individual visible textures and colors. The commons sees diversity as both essential to better more inclusive solutions, complementary strength, and creative opportunity.

h.      Safe: The Global Collaborative Commons community seeks to create and maintain an environment where all people can feel safe spiritually, socially, and physically. The concept of building a safe space also means that only those minimum healthy boundaries and policies necessary to protect the open Global Collaborative Commons from unhealthy, unethical practices of individuals, businesses, or organizations who would unfairly or harmfully exploit it are created.

i.       Appropriate, practical solution-focused: The Global Collaborative Commons community seeks to create solutions that are personalized to specific individuals and groups, integral, sufficient, scalable practical, and non-authoritarian.

j.       Internet-centered: The Global Collaborative Commons community will be facilitated by many free, multi-lingual websites serving a global community 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The free-access websites allow all members access to all of spiritual wisdom whenever and wherever it is needed.

k.      Non-Adversarial: The Global Collaborative Commons community has no adversaries. We work toward reducing ignorance and inappropriate or disproportionate fear.

l.       Multi-perspective: The Global Collaborative Commons is being significantly expanded by the multi-perspective worldview. As such it operates from a "both/and" perspective, not an “either/or” view. The paradox is embraced.

m.     Universal and Inclusive: The Global Collaborative Commons community is an ecumenical, global, and universal spiritual vehicle and movement. It promotes understanding, tolerance, and unity among all religions and individuals.

n.      Flow State: Control and resources flow to where they are natural or needed within the Global Collaborative Commons community. Flow usually exists as a relative dynamic balance created from continuous re-balancing adjustments to exterior evolutionary stress and/or internal tensions.

o.      "Quality of Being" Focused: Unlike commercial entities, the Global Collaborative Commons community intends to make any key internal administrative decisions from both a "quality of spiritual being" and a “quality of physical existence” focus vs. a “solitary physical survival” focus.

p.      Healthy Boundaries: The Global Collaborative Commons community strives to set only the flexible, healthy, and most minimal boundaries on its processes and uses necessary to maintain the quality of our spiritual and science-related space necessary to expand the global Collaborative Commons. These boundaries will be derived or tested by historic spiritual and social "community validity tests" or safeguards that are also relevant to the conditions of the current situation.

q.      Neutral Space: The Global Collaborative Commons is a neutral, nondenominational space and sanctuary where all authentic spiritual expressions from all developmental levels, cultures, or personality styles found within the spiral of life can just be, coexist, and feel comfortable in a global spiritual community. In this spiritual sanctuary for the diversity of spiritual wisdom and expression, no one expression may dominate, claim final authority or attempt to inappropriately diminish another.

r.       Competent, Productive, Responsible, and Ethical: Those who co-create within the Global Collaborative Commons community are stewards of any support the Global Collaborative Commons receives and do so at the highest standards of efficiency. They demonstrate and uphold both personally and with their peers the creation of a meritocracy of the highest standards of work competence, productivity, responsibility, and integrity and view their service to the Global Collaborative Commons community as both an honor and a privilege.

s.       Beauty and Art: Any physical spaces used within the Global Collaborative Commonscommunity are intended to be physically beautiful and filled with all forms of art and creativity. Beauty in art reflects Ultimate Reality.

t.       Appropriate Integrative and Integral Processes: Where appropriate, processes that are integrative and integral and are transcending and including are used to organize and manage the Global Collaborative Commons and the distribution of open source spirituality materials.

18.) On Free and Open Access

All of the courses and materials in this Evolution Spirituality global Collaborative Commons node that were created with the open-source spirituality process and principles are open and freely available to all. This open and free access does not mean that creators or co-creators of the courses and materials cannot ask for some form of fair value exchange or suggest a donation for using the courses or materials. Here the user gets to exclusively determine that final exchange value if any.

19.) On the Open-Source practice of "Forking" as a Natural Method to Manage Open Source Spirituality Independent Organizations or Individuals or Spiritual Facilitators/Teachers Who Fail to Follow the Recommended Member Conduct Codes, Teacher Ethical Guidelines or Spiritual Safeguards

Independent organizations or individuals who are part of the Evolution Spirituality movement or organizational center network who repeatedly fail to follow the Evolution Spirituality member conduct codes ethical guidelines or spiritual safeguards are managed organically because no one owns the Evolution Spirituality's Kernel and "source code" materials and --- we have no final spiritual authority or Pope that can demand compliance in Evolution Spirituality matters due to our belief in free will in spiritual choice and practice matters.

This means that Evolution Spirituality practitioners, members, and congregations who are repeatedly betrayed by an individual, group, or center's leadership are encouraged to simply "fork" off that individual, study group, or center and create their own new Religion 2.0 experiment, group or center.

The implication is only to abandon an individual minister, teacher, or organization if all reasonable and repeated individual and community efforts to inform, correct, or teach those individuals or the center leader(s) has failed. This encouragement to naturally fork off and create a new Evolution Spirituality experiment, group, or center when spiritual services or organizational ethics are compromised is the most powerful part of the evolutionary and naturally self-correcting and self-organizing open-source religion and spirituality mechanism for keeping the Evolution Spirituality movement healthy, growing and self-policing. After repeated attempts to educate and evolve a serious and repeated violation of our commonly held Evolution Spirituality principles and ethics there is no longer any reason to endure individuals or organizations that redirect the Religion 2.0 movement into inappropriate or unethical activities or inappropriate or unfair personal gain.

20.) The Improved Integration of Science and Spirituality: Open-source spirituality holds that the myths, beliefs, and metaphors of today’s religions need to be actively updated toward congruence with the facts of science. Religion forwards an original Source of the universe. That Source is like a seed to the universe and the universe can be thought of as its fruit. Since there is always relational congruence between the seed and its fruit, it stands to reason that the facts of the physical universe must reflect the nature of the Seed of the universe, and therefore the myths, beliefs, and metaphors of today’s religions need to be actively updated toward congruence with the facts of science.

21.) A New Open Source Definition for What Faith Means: Open-source spirituality provides a new and more useful definition of faith. It is a new definition that promotes the principles of reasoning and educated discourse. It holds that you cannot have a legitimate faith without also having intellectual honesty in the search for truth.

The new open-source form of faith in authenticity also aligns itself with truth in all forms! Whatever originating Source there might be in the universe, it is highly doubtful that originating Source would ever want its creations to not have intellectual honesty and alignment with all forms of truth--particularly in the vital matters of faith.

It is not surprising that today's science presents and validates most of the common forms of truth that we know. Carl Sagan, the famous astrophysicist, remarked that the universe and the scientific facts about the truth of its splendor and awe would make a great basis for a universal religion and spirituality and that eventually such a spirituality would be born. Open-source religion and spirituality as defined in the open-source spirituality principles and manifesto and as practiced within Evolution Spirituality may be close to the realization of that dream.

Open-source spirituality in faith matters also assumes that humanity possesses the required intelligence and emotional maturity to respond to rational argument, satire, and even ridicule on the subject of spirituality just as they respond to these discursive pressures on all other subjects and without physically attacking or killing each other. Our new definition of open-source spiritual faith challenges hope mistaken for knowledge, bad ideas protected from good ones, conviction without sufficient reason, wishful thinking elevated to a principle of salvation and good ideas obscured from bad ones.

It further recognizes that people can reason poorly and be very, very certain of their conclusions, and have a completely clear conscience. It also recognizes that people can be wrong and not know it (commonly called ignorance,) that it is possible to be wrong and know that, but not want to incur the social cost of admitting this publicly (commonly called hypocrisy,) and even that it is possible to be wrong and to be aware of this, but then to actually allow the fear of being wrong to increase one's commitment to one's erroneous beliefs (commonly called self-deception.)

Any honest open-source religion and spirituality faith search for truth is made even more difficult because most new scientific truths are not self-evident with commonly available instrumentation and are often themselves facts that are deeply counterintuitive. Common sense is just not the way that new scientific truths are emerging. By honestly recognizing that intellectual honesty is the core of open-source spirituality faith, the open-source spirituality movement sets itself on an expansion and integration course that few other spiritual movements currently honor or could duplicate. (The above is derived in part from ideas originally presented in The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris.)

22.) For Online Students and Those who want to Understand the Principles Of Open Source Spirituality at the Level of Organizational Implementation

For more detailed information about the spiritual working principles of our organization and how they naturally relate to and support the open-source part of an open-source religion and spirituality, click here. For more detailed information about the administrative working principles of our organization and how they naturally relate to and support the open-source part of an open-source spirituality and open source religion, click here.

23.) What Healthy Boundary Awareness in Spiritual Development and for Spiritual Safeguards Means in the Open Source Spirituality Movement

Humanity has thousands of years of experience of both healthy and unhealthy spirituality and religion. From this cross-denominational experience, it has developed lists of items that indicate that healthy boundaries have been violated and that spiritual practices and spiritual development have gone off track in potentially dangerous and destructive ways. This historic collection of cross-denominational spiritual wisdom on healthy and unhealthy spiritual practices is found in the spiritual safeguards section. Having all members of an open-source spiritual group know and practice these spiritual safeguards is essential to both their success and safety. Click here to review the spiritual safeguards.

24.) On the Policy that Open Source Spirituality holds that No Existing Religion has Absolute Authority in its Message and No Religion has the only Way to Salvation

Above it mentions that the Open Source Spirituality and Evolution Spirituality movement does not recognize a spiritual authority for these movements. It also does not recognize the absolute authority of the message or officials of any existing religion over any other religion. Nor do the Open Source Spirituality and Evolution Spirituality movements recognize that any existing religion has the only exclusive way to salvation.

25.) On the Reality that All Religions are Trying to Describe the Great Mystery

All religions to a greater or lesser degree are trying to explain and or mediate relations between the individual and group and the Great Mystery. Because when you take into account all of the principles of Open Source Spirituality, what remains is a Great Mystery, it is then essential to know the definition of Great Mystery used in the Open Source Spirituality Movements. Click here to see the definition of the Great Mystery that we use. Seen from the light of understanding the simple definition of the Great Mystery, the teachings of existing religions are not as filled with dogmatic conflicts They can now also be seen in the greater light of the search and teaching of practical life wisdom for their members.

26.) On Science being an Ideal place to Start Searching for the Great Mystery of Ultimate Reality.

Objective Scientific reality may be the best first place to start searching for the Great Mystery of Ultimate Reality. When you study Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Evolutionary history starting with the big bang you get a unique over-viewing meta-perspective of reality. If you consider physical reality the fruit of the originating seed of that which initiated the universe, you would have a great place to see in the meta-patterns of physical reality at universe evolutionary scales. These physical meta-patterns could also be seen as the most likely laws and purposes of that Great Mystery and Ultimate reality which initiated the universe. 

27.) On the Self-Organizing Nature of Open Spirituality Spirituality.

The New Open Source Spirituality is intrinsically self-organizing. Self-Organization will be the main way in which it spreads and grows. Click here for more information on some of the principles of self-organization.

Conclusion:

Balanced and healthy spiritual communities can be established and expanded within the network of practitioners and communities by following the Open Source Spirituality Principles. The Open Source Spirituality Principles also are vital to the Personal Spirituality movement and the Evolution Spirituality basic principle that members personalize their own spirituality.

Once you understand the preceding Open Source Spirituality Principles, you can immediately begin contributing your wisdom to the open-source religion and spirituality Collaborative Commons and Evolution Spirituality as found on this website at the Universe Spirit non-profit organization. You can also serve as a Collaborative Commons community facilitator aware of the open-source principles that we need to hold dear in a rich and diverse spiritual community in order to keep un-resolvable theological conflicts and other problems from harming cooperation or our growing Evolution Spirituality movement. If you think about these open source spirituality materials with the same central importance of a core operating system "kernel" in traditional open-source software, you would have a good idea of their critical importance and how they should be used. (If you do not know what a "kernel" is in software programming, click this kernel link and read more about what it is and how it holds the core principles of the new open-source spirituality found on this website.)

(Special Reminder: Please feel free to take any of the ideas on spirituality or science that you find on this website to create or expand your evolving personal spirituality or local spiritual community. Evolution Spirituality (as found on this website) is an open-source, personalized, and self-created process. You can always self-select, sequence, and use the processes, wisdom, and tools that you find in whatever way will work best for your current conditions, stage of development, and understanding.)

 

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