RON ROBINSON

Santa Barbara California United States

I'm a doctoral student at UCSB. My field is sociological cognitive neuroscience. I have been interested in the evolution of consciousness for a long time. I finished a doctoral program in Transformative Learning and Change at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), where I also taught courses in Embodied Mathematics and Cultural Consciousness and Cognition. I am very interested in social justice and in honestly and openly dealing with the problems of "white spiritual supremacy" and hyper-individualistic, self-empowerment "forums," which too often dominate interpretations of spiritual truths and traditions, distort inter-group and inter-personal relations, and thereby promote injustice. Their practice seems to be centered around the creed: "I am, therefore you are," even though they sometimes preach "oneness," "wholeness," etc. and/or that we're all "divine."

The time has come for what I call "socio-spiritual liberation and joyful justice." For truly, the social must be considered simultaneously with the spirit, liberation, joy, and justice. As such, our practice, like that of the Dalai Lama, is best centered around the African proverb and ethic: "I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am." My articles for the Huffington Post are sometimes seen as "connecting too many dots" and "overtly passionate" to some. But they are a wake up call to see the water in which we swim so we can evolve to become creatures that might not just crawl out of the water and onto the shores -- but fly as flocks of Phoenix no longer tethered to our evolutionary past and free of the winds of fear, doubt, and domination.