Introduction
In order to have a co-creative community space where people can collaborate and cooperate effectively in their normal day-to-day activities or in their sharing of or search for secular or spiritual truth while discovering, creating and personalizing that truth it is necessary to have a safe and collaborative environment with wise and healthy yet flexible boundaries. A safe and collaborative environment with appropriate boundaries creates the basic social agreements, shared community. culture and values and procedural and organizational flow and harmony essential to effective learning, creating and maintaining healthy individual and communities. And, equally as important this safe and collaborative environment also acts to gracefully manage naturally arising conflicts in secular facts, ideas and spiritual beliefs in an optimized way in order that the community may effectively move in unity toward its stated goals.
Over the last 10 years we have evolved the Open Source Spirituality Manifesto to help us achieve that optimal safe environment for learning, collaboration and cooperation for individual and community secular and spiritual development within the omni-denominational and trans-denominational Evolution Spirituality movement. We have been surprised by how many of the manifesto's principles can be adapted (with a bit of extrapolation,) directly to secular matters within the community as well
This manifesto's 22 key principles provides the Evolution Spirituality movement not only important cooperation principles, but also critical safeguards for the growth of Evolution Spirituality in individual hearts. This manifesto in many ways also helps to deal with the postmodern objective "it," subjective "I" and inter-subjective "we" naturally arising "reality" and truth conflicts and misunderstandings commonly affecting science, spirituality and religion. (After reading part one and part two of this manifesto below we recommend coming back to explore and learn more about the objective "it," subjective "I" and inter-subjective "we" realities of Post Modernism.)
The Quick Overview and Definition of Open Source Spirituality:
Open Source Spirituality is a new and evolutionary tool for empowering today's spiritual organizations --- particularly the Millennium generation and the Evolution Spirituality movement. Open Source Spirituality is a critical and vitally enabling element essential to the flourishing of the Personal Spirituality movement.
Open Source Spirituality as a spiritual movement includes and yet transcends the global interfaith movement as well as many other types of spiritual movements. It is essential to help to collectively provide and when necessary co-evolve a core spiritual "kernel" (the core operational spiritual principles, processes and information and, safeguards,) for an open source, collaborative and cooperative new planetary meta-spirituality (a meta-spirituality includes and transcends the best of humanity's vast spiritual wisdom heritage and religions without including their worst.) In software computing, the kernel is the main component of most software computer operating systems think Windows Linux, Mac OS 10; it is a management and communications bridge between various general software applications and the actual data processing done at the computer hardware level. (From the Wikipedia online encyclopedia.)
A few of the 22 principles of open source spirituality, (which will be explained later,) are open access, open process and participation, transparency, non-exclusive ownership, shareability and forkability, (forkability being the ability to use the essential spiritual information and principles (the kernel of source code in software terms,) to create any new "source code" application by having the ability to "fork" the original source code and create a new derivation or iteration of it. (In part 2 of the manifesto linked at the bottom of this page you will find the full list of the 22 software-adapted Open Source Spirituality principles with short explanations.)
This organization Universe Spirit and its new Evolution Spirituality, follows the principles of the open source movement as applied and appropriately adapted to a new science-grounded personal spirituality that can be practiced in groups. Open Source Spirituality is a significant part and tool in our Evolution Spirituality movement and is major contributing factor to the new and integral global meta-spirituality evolving within the Universe Spirit organization.
An open source spirituality such as in the model of Evolution Spirituality is one in which:
1.) Humanity's most life-affirming and non-pathological or conflict producing spiritual knowledge and current scientific knowledge (humanity's spiritual and scientific core "kernel" of source code #1 is found in part in this document and in and through the links at the bottom of this page. The kernel is the requisite minimal organization and essential necessary core structure needed to have an effective and safe process in creating your own spirituality or creating a new spiritual community. It contains among other things the open source spirituality operational principles, basic spiritual processes and principles and spiritual safeguards.) It is made freely available (on the Universe Spirit website for any individual or organization to openly access, share, use and "fork" to enhance, modify and empower their personal or organization's spirituality and/or their personal lives by adapting the open source spiritual kernel to their needs. (The core kernel as found on the Universe Spirit website and within Evolution Spirituality is the result of decades of spiritual, theological, historical and organization research on what works for healthy personal and organizational spiritual development and even more importantly what will not work in today's shrinking world of competing organized religions combined with today's urgent global challenges to humanity's survival.)
2.) Once a person or organization understands the core, "kernel" working principles of open source Evolution Spirituality, through an open and participatory process they too can begin co-creating and contributing their spiritual and/or science related knowledge to expanding and/or refining the existing global spiritual commons of Evolution Spirituality knowledge and practices. Or, they can fork the collective spiritual source code that they have accessed from the global spiritual commons such as is found within Evolution Spirituality and exert some additional, but not total control over their new variation of it because they have to make their spiritual source code open as well. (Ultimate source code control is not possible because of the inherent shareability factor of the basic open source principles.)
If you think about the existing Evolution Spirituality body of meta-spirituality materials like the core operating system "Kernel" in traditional open source software, you would have a good image of what you are finding on this website. If you have not read the full definition of our open source spirituality kernel, click here to do so now.
3.) At its most fundamental level open source Evolution Spirituality is not just omni-denominational. It is also trans-denominational. It is the new form of integral meta-spirituality that is naturally and inexorably emerging out of the process of evolution itself to expand the wealth of human knowledge and spiritual wisdom to an open and shared global spiritual commons to more effectively and quickly deal with all of the challenges that we collectively face in the 21st century.
The Traditional Meaning of Open Source
"All of us together are smarter than just a few of us."
Open Source is a revolutionary idea born recently in the software development world. It means that the underlying software source code is accessible, open, transparent, forkable and free for all to share, see, use and improve! (Software source code is the internal programming code that has been assembled by a programmer that makes the software work, useful and effective for a specific task)
What is unique about open source software code as opposed to the original form of closed proprietary software code is that it's kernel can be used to create new applications or the kernel can also be improved upon by any person who understands the kernel's source code and knows what to do to improve or change it, providing only that they too make their new software source code improvements accessible, open, transparent and free for all to see use and improve as well.
The new idea and practices of open source software code in accessibility, transparency, and free sharing of innovation has created a veritable revolution in new software capacities and knowledge, distribution and services of all kinds on and off the internet. The results of the open source software revolution also has been one of the great facilitators for the democratization and empowerment of the flow of vital information around the world via the internet since the invention of the printing press. Open source software and the open source sharing concepts have also been a vital resource-leveraging mega-aid for the empowerment of non-profit organizations, non governmental organizations (NGOs), corporations and governments everywhere to share vital information for social and life betterment.
What Open Source Means When it is Applied to Creating a Meta-Spirituality
The open source concept applied to the new meta-spirituality found within Evolution Spirituality can be stated in many parallel concepts to how traditional open source software functions. It too is a mega tool and super process for sharing vital information (from the totality humanity's life affirming spiritual heritage and sciences,) for social and life betterment
For its primary kernel and source code #1 Evolution Spirituality uses all the available sources from humanity’s great life-affirming heritage of spiritual wisdom. This also includes current science related information as well as humanity's knowledge base of what can be or become destructive in personal or organized spirituality or religion. Because of its evolutionary including and transcending qualities, open source spirituality appears to be evolving the next natural step in spirituality and religion well beyond what is found in today's denominational sectarianism or even the progressive interfaith movement. It brings into being a new spiritual era for new forms of open source, evolutionary and omni-denominational spirituality and religion.
Like the programmers who collect any code or formulas that they might need to perform open source software code processes, open source Evolution Spirituality collaborators and co-creators collect and organize the essential information, principles and processes from humanity’s vast spiritual and scientific related wisdom with the intention of sharing these things as effectively as possible within a new form of an open source, global spiritual commons. This open source global spiritual commons created by using the peer-to-peer open source spirituality principles (explained in the parts of this article below) becomes a empowering meta resource for individuals seeking to create their own personalized spiritual paths, new spiritual groups, religions or personal life paths.
This is partially because in this new open source spiritual commons, a great cross pollenization of spiritual and scientific ideas and processes can take place and, completely new wisdom, principles and process can emerge from the ongoing dialectical synthesis process derived from the cycle of including and transcending. The accumulating new knowledge and perspectives expanding within the global commons can greatly aid any individual in their personal spiritual growth as well as expand their direct spiritual experience of the Ultimate Reality and improve their balanced practice of the virtues toward achieving spiritual completeness.
When individuals use the open source global spiritual commons to modify and improve it to create their own personal spiritual path, religion or personal life path they are now creating what we call personal source code # 2, which if they also add it back into the open source spiritual commons (as found on this website,) also expands and enhances the existing primary kernel and source code #1 (humanity's spiritual and science related wisdom that Evolution Spirituality currently forwards,) within this website's global spiritual commons.
Just as programmers need to know the minimum technical principles for creating effective software code to make effective software products, individuals in any co-creative open source Evolution Spirituality peer-to-peer collaboration will need to know the minimum spiritual and administrative principles and processes (many are listed below in short form at the end of this section,) to work effectively to help emerge or co-create effective new spiritual knowledge processes, principles, visions, perspectives and contributions that can be used by anyone to forward their personal spirituality or to grow in their secular life as well.
This assembled Evolution Spirituality open source heritage of spiritual wisdom and related science knowledge is held open, easily accessible, transparent, and free in various online materials, courses, books etc. for the spiritual and practical wisdom cross-pollenization benefits for all individuals and all organizations to use and further expand, add to, edit and improve. All originators of this collection of humanity's spiritual and science wisdom (our current kernel and the source code # 1 materials,) can share (cross-pollinate) their spiritual wisdom application additions or improvements in this open source collaboration and even be recognized for their contributions, thereby helping to expand this new global spiritual wisdom commons in this open source spirituality peer-to-peer process.
Inside the Universe Spirit open source global spiritual commons is a new global culture of support where individuals can, as they so decide, evolve or modify their current beliefs or practices to expand and improve their own life goals and personalize their spirituality. This is greatly facilitated because of wisdom cross-pollenization and any graceful personal questioning interactions with humanity's vast spiritual and scientific heritage held with in the global spiritual commons, which is emerging because of the open source spirituality process.
If you are you potentially interested in becoming a co-creator peer in this evolutionary open source Evolution Spirituality or in contributing your unique wisdom to the global spiritual commons, then read all of additional open source Evolution Spirituality principles presented. For now, here are a few very basic starter principles of open source spirituality movement: (Full descriptions provided later in this manifesto.)
The Short List of Principles of Open Source Evolution Spirituality:
(Reminder: Please feel free to take any of the ideas on spirituality or science that you find on this web site to create or expand your evolving personal spirituality or local spiritual community. Evolution Spirituality as found on this website is an open, personalized and self-created spiritual process. You can always self-select, sequence and use the processes, wisdom and tools that you find in the optimal way that will work best for your current conditions, stage of spiritual development and understanding.)
No Requirement of Allegiance: The global spiritual commons is greatly aided by the fact that there is no requirement of allegiance to some particular organizational, religious or cultural ism, authoritative book/scripture or, some particular religious or secular authority to use it, add to it, edit or improve it. (More later.)
On Organizational Spiritual Authority and Revelation: In the global spiritual commons 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 and where applicable the "community of the qualified." No one spiritual source, spiritual teacher, founder, leader or organization has the universal or final spiritual authority on what is authentic or appropriate spiritual wisdom, spiritual truth or spiritual law for anyone other than themselves. (More later.)
Questioning of Faith Beliefs and Practices: We have come to a new point in humanity’s spiritual history where if individuals or religious organization’s 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. (More later.)
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. (More later.)
The Pathologies and Abuses of Religion: An Open Source Spirituality that will help expand the global spiritual commons will need to confront and deal with the issues of the pathologies and abuses of religion within its knowledge base in a forthright and honest way. (More later.)
The Polarization and Usefulness of Information: Polarization in the global spiritual commons and the open source spirituality movement is avoided by the recognition that humanity’s vast heritage of spiritual wisdom is partial, evolving and, has its own appropriate time, way, place, and target audience 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, and
c. its effectiveness in a specific situation,
d. does it cause any consequent harm or conflicts,
e. does it create non-inclusive, unfair benefits for one individual/group over another group/individual or
f. how congruent is it with the body of other spiritual wisdom found on our "shrinking" planet and within the global spiritual commons. (More later.)The Non-Equality of All Spiritual Wisdom: Not all spiritual wisdom is equal. 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 and even 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. (More Later.)
Personalities in the Movement: The peer-to-peer open source spirituality movement gladly accepts the co-creational assistance 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 ecclesiastical authority or position within a religious or spiritual organization. (More later.)
Diversity: All individuals, organizations and teachers of spiritual wisdom or science related knowledge are encouraged to contribute their wisdom to the open source spirituality collaboration. (More later.)
On the Process Itself: As in open source software, where software development is an unending process of continual upgrades, open source spirituality processes for expanding the global spiritual commons is also more of an ongoing evolving, collaborative process than any final result. It too will be constantly upgraded. (More later.)
Copyright Ownership, Commercial Uses, Individual Recognition, Patents and Trademarks applied to Spiritual Wisdom and the Global Spiritual 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, ultimately only the original author and original creator could lay valid claim to the ultimate original creative source rights. This does not mean that original descriptions of this wisdom cannot be open CreativeCommons.com type copyrighted 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 be requested for their use by their creators for any of the materials, courses or books used within the global spiritual commons. In a global spiritual commons in which all can participate freely and all feel the common heritage ownership and/or 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. (More later.)
The "Forkability" of the Evolution Spirituality Knowledge Base: Any individual or organization that understands the the context, process and relationships of Evolution Spirituality as a transformational and whole complex system may fork the knowledge base in new directions and use that direction as they see fit provided that they contribute that unique knowledge back to the core Evolution Spirituality Knowledge Base for its ongoing use as well. This forkability principle also allows any member or congregation to fork off should those leaders of their congregation lose sight of the essence of the organizations mission or should they behave in unethical ways that were resistance to learning and change.
The Improved Integration of Science and Spirituality: Open source spirituality holds that the myths, beliefs and metaphors of todays religions need to be actively updated toward congruence with the facts of science and science's emergence of the new Universe Evolutionary Worldview. 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 science facts of the physical universe when seen from a whole universe system perspective 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.
In summary and in addition to the benefits mentioned above:
1.) Open source Evolution Spirituality is a natural evolutionary emergence and is an essential key principle of the personality spirituality movement. It is also due to the revolution of open source software and theory and, the reality of the Internet bringing together all human knowledge. If you have not yet reviewed the personality spirituality movement, we strongly recommend it now.
2.) Open source Evolution Spirituality is a new means of open, peer-to-peer co-creation to co-evolve the collective spiritual wisdom of humanity, assist each individual expand their personal growth, success and personal spirituality, create a better world and --- improve understanding and tolerance between the religions of the world. It is the next natural evolutionary step beyond and both transcending and including the work and goals of the Interfaith Movement.
3.) The open source principles and processes can inform any new spiritual movement (like Evolution Spirituality found on this website.) Open source principles and processes also can inform and qualify the evolutionary spirituality, integral spirituality and Peer-to-Peer spirituality movement principles and processes.
4.) Any individual of any denomination or organization who understands the open source spirituality kernel and principles of peer-to-peer open source spirituality (in depth to follow,) and the materials that they would like to work on or contribute can contribute their spiritual wisdom, processes ideas and principles to help co-evolve the kernel and applications of Evolution Spirituality and thereby help expand the scope and usefulness of rapidly expanding global spiritual commons.
5.) Implied in an open source spirituality using a common operating kernel is the fact that there always will be many different harmonics of spiritual messages and types of spiritual individuals/teachers presenting spiritual wisdom from many different evolutionary, developmental, personal and cultural perspectives. This is exactly as it should be because spiritual wisdom needs to be organized and presented in a digestible manner that is tailored to the differences in individual abilities, learning styles, gender, ethnicity, and personality types as well as differences in religious or cultural backgrounds and psychological developmental perspectives.
6. Open source religion and open source Evolution Spirituality is a true theological, structural and organizational revolution like none before in the history of religion and spirituality. It has already changed and evolved forward the very definitions of what religion and spirituality can currently be and will commonly be in the future. It will not just naturally evolve current religious and spiritual organizations toward creating more open source future denominations, it will also naturally evolve current religious and spiritual organizations toward creating more open source churches, temples and mosques for those sections of their communities ready now or soon to be ready for this new evolutionary face of religion and spirituality birthed from and for the 21st century internet information age. This theological, structural and organizational revolution in religion and spirituality is so empowering and appropriate to our shrinking world that any denomination that fails to take note of its evolutionary emergence and make appropriate internal adjustments will steadily watch there members leave to go to religious and spiritual organizations that have incorporated open source religion and open source Evolution Spirituality principles.
7.) The Open Source Spirituality principles are an essential core part of kernel of Evolution Spirituality. For more information on the kernel of Evolution Spirituality, click here.
There is Much More to Learn About the Other Open Source Spirituality Principles and how it applies to the Evolution Spirituality Movement for the Curious and Our Online Students in Part 2 of the Open Source Spirituality Manifesto
If you would like to learn more about the Open Source Spirituality Manifesto Principles in Part 2 of this document or because you are curious or need to know why and all the details such as, creating a global spiritual commons and its relationship to the open source spirituality process, all of the peer-to-peer co-creational process principles for building an open source Evolution Spirituality collaboration and, how you can begin participating in or contributing to our open source and evolutionary Evolution Spirituality, click here.
Heard Enough?
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