« Einstein Said Survival Requires a "Substantially New Manner of Thinking"—Are We Getting There? »

Einstein 1921 by F Schmutzer The atomic bomb changed the world in 1945. Physicist Albert Einstein, a devoted pacifist, was barely involved at all, but recognized that the problem of human and ecological destruction it delivered placed on humans the demand to move to new thinking, to greater consciousness. 

He saw the delusional nature of the kind of thinking that created nuclear power. He called it “a kind of prison.” He believed that by expanding our circle of compassion to include nature and all creatures we could get out of prison. The problems nuclear power created would require a “substantially new manner of thinking” from that which sought to create nuclear power.

 Here are Einstein’s words (according to the abridged version that appeared in the, Monthly Review, New York, 1949):

“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty…We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind [sic] is to survive.” (emphasis added)

The New York Times, May 25, 1946, in an article entitled “Atomic Education Urged by Einstein” quoted him as saying: “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” 

His words have new relevance today when applied to the catastrophic scenarios of ecological collapse.

So I quote physicist Albert Einstein (1875-1959) on the opening page (frontispiece) of my upcoming book, From Egos to Eden: Our Heroic Journey to Keep Earth Livable, because we need a substantially new manner of thinking in order fully engage ourselves in the ecological disaster underway. We need to shift how we see ourselves vis a vie Nature. We need to see ourselves as part of the whole of Nature and the Universe. Without this, as Einstein says, we live in a kind of delusion in which we see ourselves as separate from the rest.

MultiEarth’s ways spin such a mesmerizing delusion. New technologies gush into our awareness with assurances of new convenience and status. Yet, entrancing as MultiEarth living is, my book explains why I believe we can do what we must: break out of the trance. Doing so requires journeying into a larger topography of consciousness where we see Earth-size ways of living as more enticing than we’ve ever seen them before. In Earth-size consciousness, we can reverse climate change and other ecological crises we’ve inflicted on ourselves, on Earth, and on other species. 

When we doubt that our species is capable of this tall order, it is because we have not yet come to believe how great a change happens to us when we move into substantially new thinking, into larger topographies of consciousness. It is no exaggeration to say that in larger topographies of consciousness we become new humans. Our souls have what it takes to get us there, but civilization has not called us to such greater capacities. Now, however, Earth calls us there. She speaks to us through extremes of weather and changes to fresh water supplies, oceans, and air quality. Her speech calls us to get into our greater capabilities. From Egos to Eden guides us on the journey to being new humans, a journey that is at once heroic and completely doable.