Learning to Give, Curriculum Division of The LEAGUE

I would say that there are probably two projects. One is Diversity 2000 which is now into its tenth year. As a learning community, we’ve been able to sustain it for quite some time. And then one of the other areas centers around Latino activities in Oakland with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

I would say that there are two projects that are diversity related. One is called the Collegium Think Tank, and then the other one is Diversity 2000. If I was going to talk about two that I’ve been doing for a number of years, those would be the two. The Chamber has been on and off, working with groups of people for the last 15 years, but in no way as consistent as these two.

With the Collegium, it’s more national in scope and it involves collaborating with other diversity practitioners who have been involved in this work for a number of years. It’s pretty much our life calling. And what we’ve been doing in this group is trying to develop the practice and field of diversity. So in some ways it’s legitimizing the field as it evolves into a professional discipline. Tthe best way I’ve described it is to say: imagine that we’re a group of practitioners and researchers who have been doing psychological work but there’s no such field called psychology yet. So how do we pull together the various branches of this entity that we’re all involved in called diversity and pull it together so that there is a common set of theoretical points of agreement? There are branches to it like in psychology where you might have Freudian, humanistic, transpersonal, behavioral or cognitive, but it’s still all part of this thing called psychology. That’s what I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring with the Collegium—trying to figure out if we can’t pull together our various streams of thought and create this body of knowledge and solidify it so that it’s accepted both within academic and professional areas as a legitimate study and legitimate profession. Sometimes it’s hard to find the language because we’re creating it as we go along.

That’s what I say to the group sometimes. Like about three years ago we were finishing up a retreat near Jenner, California and as we were taking pictures I said that a hundred years from now when diversity is accepted as a bonafide profession and free from all the political whims and criticism, there’ll be a group of folks who’ll look at these pictures and say these were the thought leaders who were establishing Diversity in the early days. In this regard I think of the pioneers of psychology from Freud to Maslow.

Similar but different. This is again, much more national. It’s almost global. We do papers or proceeding reports that are about a hundred plus pages that capture our four days together. It’s almost really focused more as a think tank that creates at a high, spontaneous level. Diversity 2000 is a living entity because it is a virtual community that has a vision of changing the world. Each year we move closer to understanding how we can attain our vision of the world we want to live in during our lifetime. When it started ten years ago, I had this idea of a congregation of brilliant diversity practitioners coming together who could teach and stretch each other. When I was clear how it could benefit the field, I asked a core group of colleagues, Thomas Mitchell, Kay Iwata, Carol Mc Huron and Julie O’ Mara if they would co-sponsor the event with me.

In the Bay area I observed numerous people doing diversity work. It was real big in northern California. There was a whole range of activities called diversity work and diversity training that had its roots in social justice, self awareness, teaching, organizational development, and race training to name some. And there were a lot of people that knew each other but the competition was so intense that it created poor communication and minimal sharing of ideas. People were making a living doing diversity work, so there was this notion that people were trying to stay ahead of each other, intellectual property was important. The Diversity community didn’t always operate at the highest level of trust, I would say.

And so I kept thinking about all the talent and passion that we had, and was trying to figure out if there was a process where we could come together, set aside that competition, and figure out how we could collaborate so that we could further the field. That was the first step. I was using a model similar to the one in Silicon Valley, where you have all these different folks who are filled with vision and are interested in changing the world. They want to do the kind of technological things that they were doing and have breakthroughs, but they were collaborating. Certainly some were competing, but there was this sense [of fluidity] and people were collaborating and building and pulling together the talent and the creativity. So that was the idea.

But it wasn’t until I started to work with Harrison Owen and learned about Open Space Technology that there was a model that would really stimulate the group in terms of co-creating together, expanding in the area of diversity and thinking of what I call breakthrough ideas in working with diversity. Then I talked other people into going forward with the idea and asked if they would support me, help put up the money and all the other stuff—then we had something that everybody was willing to go with which was the Open Space Technology. So that’s the model that we’ve been using and have been inviting people in to come up with breakthrough ideas.

How it’s evolved now after the first year—there were some real “ah ha [moments].” But probably what was most significant was this notion that if we could build a community that could sustain itself and evolve, then there was a possibility that as a group we could impact the world using synchronistic thinking, metaphysical thinking, even elements of chaos thinking. Which is how we go about creating a community in which we wanted to live. Part of what we do is study ourselves, in doing so we are a microcosm of North America. Hopefully the insights and collective learning can be taken out to our various communities. So the vision is to actually try to change this notion of how we live in the world so that people could see that we’re always going to have this diversity. It’s just a natural state of what we’re in. How can we build a community that’s caring, has the skills to work with those conflicts that may emerge in the differences, and at the same time build this notion of inclusive interaction and a climate of deep understanding so that people could experience being part of a community? That’s what we’ve been working with.

Yes, we’ve been doing it for ten years.

Actually it’s been fairly consistent in that we’ve averaged anywhere from 40 to 50 people for most of those years. One year it was a little lower, maybe 25. The rest of the time it’s been consistent and out of that there’s been a core group of people, probably about 40 percent, that are core, maybe 50 percent that keep coming back from across the country.

I’m not sure I understand the question.

Oh, I understand. What’s the drive? I’d best describe it as being a life calling. More and more, it’s clearly become the case. There are times when I’ve decided I wanted to go in a different direction but I somehow end back up in the same place. So I realized that in some degree it’s not my choice because I keep being put back in the same place.

I describe myself as a pretty spiritual person. That’s important to me and from the vantage point of spirit; I often see that we have this web of intricate connection that includes energy within consciousness. I often see that but somehow in the physical world I see this notion of barriers and emotion that impact our ability to relate at that level. And so I see that in spirit a lot and so what happens, I think, is that it drives me as a person in the world to try to figure out if there’s ways to help build that community that sees it is connected on multiple levels.

There are always examples of when those things happen for a little while in these sessions or breakthroughs. Where you just actually see it, share it, feel it, rejoice in it. And so I think that it’s probably a calling on the inner world that helps me understand that the struggle is how to make it happen. If we all come from this place called the ocean of love, where we originate, what makes it so hard to manifest it in the physical world? For me, the push is in that area.

I think also from an experiential point of view. There are times when I’ve experienced being different. In looking at it or in looking at others that have been close to me and seeing how the impact [of being different] has been. It just seems like such a waste of not being able to pull people in and let them flourish and be creative to their full extent. They’re spending time trying to figure out why am I not accepted or why this violence is happening to me, and it seems like such a waste of humanity.

And then probably generationally, I come from a time through the Chicano movement, social justice movement, where it’s about equality and fairness. It’s more and more subtle about what that is.

Yes, I think Price Cobbs has always been both a model and a mentor. My father-in-law, Pablo Sanchez, was. As part of the community organizing family, Caesar Chavez was a model. At the spiritual level there’s a lot of inspiration that comes from Sri Harold Klemp, the spiritual leader of Eckankar.

For Diversity 2000, there was this point where I was talking with the group and doing a piece and we were all working on it. Then I said I was developing some ways of doing my work and coping in an environment but that I didn’t think things were going to change in terms of eliminating racism in my lifetime. At some point a few people really pushed back on what I was saying and on the group as a whole. Finally, Thomas Mitchell said, “If we don’t think that what we’re working towards will ever change, how can we create space or hold the space for change so that people can believe the world will be a different place?” When we really wrestled with that, when it really hit, there was a very strange sensation, almost like a crack in the egg of consciousness, we all felt it and collectively said, “Yeah, that’s right.”

Ultimately, we’re dealing with the conflicts of what I would call the physical world, like quantum physics. If we stick with Newtonian thinking, it will never change but if we could shift to quantum physics, then in fact we can change what are perceived to be obstacles that are immovable. I think that there was a recognition that we felt probably more profoundly in terms of our consciousness, but it was a clear indication that it was possible. An indication that we could do things that people often times think can’t be done. And they certainly can’t be done if you think of the world in Newtonian concepts. But if you think about it in a whole new way of looking at what quantum mechanics tells us, then who is to say that we can’t do time travel? And that kind of fits with a spiritual approach, too, because part of my path is the science of soul travel. People would say “Soul travel, that’s pretty odd, how do you do that?” But in fact you can in contemplation.

You can shift spirit, shift consciousness, and there are times when you can leave your body at night and visit the other worlds. It seems absolutely crazy to some folks if they’re locked into looking at the world in one way. I hadn’t yet connected the two but when it fit, it made a lot of sense to me and reminded me of things that were already being done. I’m not sure if that made sense.

Yes, with the holistic experience. It was almost like connecting my heart, my head and my spirit. Whereas one of the gifts that I have is that you can think completely out of the box in terms of connecting with God and use contemplation and soul travel to connect to other places. But I hadn’t always applied that to what I do in diversity in terms of dealing with the kind of slow moving, slow vibration stuff of hate and violence. Once I was able to realize that I can apply these things that I’m doing here to this . . . It’s not going to be as easy and fluid and light. But if you’re still being trapped by hate, you still have to work with those kinds of things and figure out what your escape routes are.

I think basically part of the journey for me is making it whole, and I think that that in a lot of ways comes back to what we’re talking about. As I get older what I realize is giving and gratitude go a long way in terms of not only my own personal growth but in helping to pull people together. If we slow down and recognize that we can have gratitude and thanks for those that helped us along the way and for what we’re trying to build, it sustains the move or it sustains us to continue to move forward.

There are a lot of different people that I’m working with. I’m trying to pass down my approaches and my information and probably have influenced about three or four people who have been consistent with me. I’m trying to figure out how to present it relative to my state of consciousness so that they can understand it where they’re at. Because whether we try to or not, the way I look at it and the way it’s influenced by my era, the degree of diversity that existed in my era is not the same as it is in for folks now. They’re different worlds and different experiences. So the question is how to take some of it that fits but apply it to where they’re at.

It’s just like if someone was trying to teach me the principals of change and social justice and they were right in the middle of segregation but I wasn’t experiencing segregation at that level. Those would be good ideas but some of those practices and models wouldn’t be applicable to my reality. But there are some key core areas that are certainly critical and I need to have those fundamentals to understand how to apply it to where I am at now.

I often think that sometimes that’s where we have the communication breakdown. For example, you might have a Chicano activist trying to present information and experiences that young people don’t relate to. When I talk about what I experienced in the 60s and 70s, it doesn’t fit my daughter in 2000s. It doesn’t fit and I can’t drum in that reality. So what I have to be able to do is talk about the learnings and the insights and what I use and what works so they can take that and then use it to build on their own place in the world and what they want to do.

Both. Most of it has been formal with people that work with me and then some has been informally, like with my daughter and it’s been a little bit harder to try to find some youngsters that want to connect in, but I’ve often been looking. The other thing is I always weave in other vantage points. So, for instance, in addition to doing what my past is, I’m involving in working with the Indian community so I’ll be involved in lodges and that always helps in terms of looking at the world differently, coming in from my indigenous perspective.

What does the world need most? I think what the world needs is a sense of humanism to recognize as my Indian brothers and sisters say that we’re human and that within this concept of being human we need to realize that others are human and that we share a common—we share a planet. We share the oxygen that we breathe, we share the water that we drink, we share the resources that we use. We share on many levels. By being connected we have an obligation to be with each other, to learn how to respect each other, and to learn to find solutions for how to deal with the problems of our world. So that it’s not a simple thing, you’re different, you’re less than, you’re a threat, so I can do this to you and it has no meaning to other people.

I think that the capacity for dehumanizing each other is way too easy and the capacity for violence is way too easy. I believe we need to see that we’re all human and one of the strong ties that we have in being human is also our capacity to love, and it’s out of that love that we understand and build this sense of accountability and community that we’re all part of. So it’s not about one. It’s about a whole lot of us and this thinking of one is destructive.

You know, I think it resonates. I hadn’t thought about it a whole lot, but I think it says—it has a ring to it.

Yes, I’d have to sit with it a bit. I guess it has—it’s hard to focus in on. It says a lot and it says a little, so what does it mean? Generosity is a beautiful word and spirit is a beautiful and powerful word, so it coming together I’d have to sit with it a bit to see.

What I think or what comes to me when I think of generosity of spirit?

Okay, I’ll do that.

And another question I think would be good to ask. It’s one that I’ve been thinking about more and more. And that is why are people speeding up their efforts to give and to do what they’re doing? I guess it would be both why and what is it you’re trying to get and what is it you’re trying to do? And there may be variations of the same questions you’re asking now, but I guess I’m thinking about—I feel that there’s an intensity of effort and I’d be curious to find out what people are tapping into that’s pushing that along or driving that at a stronger level now.

I don’t know if you’re getting that from your folks. I just feel that many of us are sensing something out there that’s upping the ante.

Yes. I don’t know it all. I know that there is certainly a stronger push to do it. I don’t know if that comes from the inner for me or whether that comes from this collective fear that many people are talking about in terms of our institutions collapsing, the bigger conflicts between religions and war, the fear of the environment, a combination of all of that. I don’t know if that’s any bigger problem than it was a hundred years before, but I do feel when I talk to folks that there’s a stronger sense of urgency but I don’t know what it is, so I’d be real curious to hear from people.

I would suggest that there is that sense with “Boomers.” If you’re roughly working in this same age group, it’s clearly a generation that recognizes that they’re going to be passing on. It wasn’t like 20 years ago or 30 years ago when there was this sense that we are invincible and would live forever. I think we all know now that we’re looking at the down side of things, however long that is. We’re not looking up anymore, it’s looking down. When I’ve been able to get people to move and talk with them, there’s also the sense about—What is the legacy we want to leave for our generation? We certainly had a lot of high ideals, big vision and changing the world. Maybe everything that we talked about wanting to do, we didn’t get real close to doing and is this the last hurrah for that.

I think we did, but I’d also say that you’d have to pay attention to the fact that as a generation we also became the most influential financially, so I’d say that our generation probably got more swooped into materialism than any preceding generation.

Yes, so as much as we started off arguing against materialism and what it represented, we also ended up taking it to new heights.

The driving influence of guilt?

Yes, but that’s part of I think—that’s why I’d be interested in that other question of what drives us now and why now and what’s really behind it.

And then maybe the next thing I would say as you’re thinking about it because it seems to me now that you’re moving in that direction. Maybe part of what you want to explore is the question of what gives you meaning in life now and how does that fit with your giving. Because it could be that what you’re pulling on is something that has taken a while for people to arrive at in terms of what’s meaningful now. I see that in terms of some of the people I coach with that have been driving along this path for a long time. And all of a sudden they stop, look and say, “It’s not giving me the meaning in life I want.” And they shift. So folks that I’ve worked with have gone from being business bankers to all of a sudden being people that work with shamans or all of a sudden are on board that work with youth.