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Whenever people
hear about the World Bank Spiritual Unfoldment Society (SUS)
they always have the same reaction: incredulity. Why?
Because it sounds like an oxymoron. How could such a bastion
of intellectual economic conservatism have anything to do
with spirituality?
The
World Bank is a global partnership of 175 countries that
employs about 8,000 people, most of them in Washington, DC,
just a few blocks from the White House. Created in 1945 to
rebuild a war-torn Europe, The International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (known as the World Bank) has
since become one of the major providers of funds to assist
the governments of developing countries. The Bank provides
loans, technical assistance, and policy guidance to help its
developing country members to reduce poverty and improve
living standards by promoting sustainable growth and
investment in people. The Bank currently processes
approximately $20 billion in loans every year.
The
Bank has many supporters and many detractors. Its supporters
believe it has the power to work economic miracles; its
detractors believe it is at best no longer relevant. To many
people, the organization is an institutional monolith, an
organization wedded to mainstream capitalist economics, an
organization that lives in the intellect and has lost touch
with its heart.
Towards
the end of 1992, 1 was nearing completion of the second
draft of a book that draws on leading-edge theories of
science, religion, and psychology to create a practical
approach to spirituality. To get feedback, I invited about a
dozen of my more spiritually minded colleagues in the Bank,
where at the time I was Assistant to the Vice President of
the World Bank for Environmentally Sustainable Development,
to discuss the ideas and theories expressed in my book. We
began a series of six brown bag lunches.
A few
weeks after the meetings were over, two colleagues from the
discussion group approached me and asked if I would set up a
spiritual study group. That was the start of the Spiritual
Unfoldment Society. Naturally, there was some fear in our
early planning discussions about what we were doing and
whether it would be acceptable to management. As I saw it,
there was nothing to lose. Our mission statement was
perfectly laudable: "The Spiritual Unfoldment Society
promotes personal transformation through self-knowledge,
understanding, and awakening higher consciousness. SUS
provides a safe forum for the exchange of beliefs and ideas
that promote spiritual awareness. SUS encourages the
integration of higher consciousness into every aspect of our
lives. SUS seeks to create within the World Bank a
consciousness of love and understanding that contributes
toward transforming the way we interact with one another
(and the way the organization interacts with the
world)."
We
began holding weekly meetings in March 1993. We did not ask
permission. We simply advertised the meetings in the staff
weekly bulletin and waited to see who showed up. Within two
months 40-50 people were attending the meetings. People came
out of the woodwork, both attendees and presenters. It was
as if suddenly we had given permission for those interested
in personal transformation, and those seeking a deeper
meaning to life, to come out of the closet. At first, some
of the internal presenters didn't want their names mentioned
in the weekly announcement, as they feared how their
colleagues might react. Within a few months, it became
perfectly respectable to be associated with the SUS. We
began to announce our meetings on the internal e-mail
system.
A
major boost to the Society came within a few months. The
Washington Post featured the SUS in a magazine article on
July 4, 1993. Management was particularly delighted with the
following quote, "The World Bank at 18th and H streets
NW, typically regarded as just another institutional pillar
in the Washington power structure, is gaining a reputation
for enlightenment." After the article appeared we
immediately started getting calls from people who worked in
the downtown area who wanted to attend our weekly meetings.
We also had inquiries from outside speakers. For more than
two years, we have never had to search for a speaker.
Between
March 1993 and July 1995 the membership of the SUS grew from
about 25 to almost 340. In three months, weekly attendance
began to average 50 to 60 people. As many as 80 to 90 people
show up for some of the more popular seminars. In 1995, we
begin introducing monthly meditation sessions, and created
special interest groups that spun off to hold their own
meetings. We held two retreats in the first two years thirty
to thirty-five people showed up. In August of 1995, we added
a new discussion format to the seminar and meditation
sessions.
Since
the very first meeting of SUS, I have received countless
e-mad messages from members about the effect of the meetings
on their lives. Some reported significant life-changing
insights. For yet others, it was the sense of community and
open sharing that attracted them to the meetings. We knew we
were doing something right because people kept turning up.
Then,
from the steering committee came the idea for an
international conference on spiritual values that would be
put on by the World Bank, that would explore the link
between spiritual values and sustainable development. I
presented the idea to the Vice President for Environmentally
Sustainable Development. He was supportive, but felt that at
that time, it was beyond the growing edge of the Bank. He
would, however, support the SUS putting on the event. I felt
very deeply that this was an event that had to be put on by
the Bank and not by the SUS, so we shelved the idea for
about a year. Sensing a shift in global consciousness, I
again presented the idea to the Vice President late in 1994,
and the idea was accepted. The title of the conference would
be "Ethical and Spiritual Values and the Promotion of
Environmentally Sustainable Development."
This
international conference took place at the World Bank in
Washington, D.C., on October 2 and 3, 1995. No one could
believe that the World Bank was putting on such a
conference. Once more, I heard people say, "I am
totally amazed." The outside world was finding it
difficult to believe that this conservative monolith was
holding a conference on ethical and spiritual values in
relation to development. The real, but subtle, significance
of this conference was that Bank staff now has permission to
talk about values in development, to question their beliefs
and their right to impose them on others, and to bring their
hearts, as well as their minds, to work. The supremacy of
the intellect is being challenged in the World Bank. We must
wait and see just how far the heart of the organization
unfold.
Excerpted
from the article Spiritual Unfolding at The World Bank
Copyright © 1998 Richard Barrett & Associates LLC
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