WE, the people of Bhutan:

BLESSED with the luminous benedictions of the Triple Gem, the protection of our guardian deities, the wisdom of our leaders, the everlasting fortunes of the Pelden Drukpa and the command of His Majesty the Druk Gyalpo, Jigme Singye Wangchuck;

SOLEMNLY pledging ourselves to strengthen the sovereignty of Bhutan, to secure the blessings of Liberty, to ensure Justice and Tranquility and to enhance the unity, happiness and well-being of the people for all time;

The State shall strive to promote those circumstances that will enable the successful pursuit of Gross National Happiness.

Over the past decade, experiments devised by Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich in Switzerland, among others, have shown that many people will cooperate with others even when it is absolutely clear they have nothing to gain. A capacity for true altruism seems to be a part of human nature. It is a heartening discovery, yet one that has also touched off a firestorm of debate.

The experiments at the centre of the controversy are as simple as they are illuminating. They ignore theory-based preconceptions about how individuals ought to behave and focus instead on finding out what they actually do when playing games in which there is real money at stake.

One of the most basic of these games is the "ultimatum game". An experimenter gives one of two players some cash, say $20, and asks that person, called the "proposer", to offer a fraction of it to the second player, called the "receiver", whose identity is hidden from the other player. The proposer can offer any amount they choose, from nothing up to the entire $20. The receiver then has the choice of accepting or rejecting the offer. If he or she accepts, the cash is shared according to the original offer. A rejection means that no one gets anything. The game is played just once.

For the receiver, self-interest would seem to dictate accepting the offer no matter how small it is, since getting something is better than getting nothing. Knowing this, a similarly self-interested proposer should offer as little as possible. But over the past decade or so, research on student volunteers has shown that proposers in such experiments typically offer anything from 25 to 50 per cent, while receivers tend to reject offers of less than 25 per cent.

"People reject low offers," says anthropologist Joseph Henrich of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, "because they view them as unfair." And through their rejection, they show a willingness to punish the unfair offers even at a cost to themselves.

A vast number of other experiments illustrate the same point. Last year, for example, Fehr and his colleagues had students play a version of the famous prisoner's dilemma game, in which two people can prosper through cooperation but are also given strong incentives to cheat on one another. In this game, if the participants cooperate, each receives a worthwhile monetary pay-off. But either player can get an even higher pay-off by cheating while their opponent cooperates (see Diagram).

In this particular version of the game, the researchers got people to play sequentially: one would go and then the other, fully aware of what the first had done. In theory, anyone thinking only of their own personal gain would always cheat, as this pays more than cooperating. But in the experiments, although many of players who went first did cheat, others cooperated, despite knowing that the second player could sucker them by cheating. What's more, roughly half those who went second rewarded cooperation by treating their opponent fairly, even though that meant forgoing an easy pay-off for themselves (Human Nature, vol 13, p 1). "The facts are clear," Fehr says. "Many people are willing to cooperate and to punish those who don't, even when no gain is possible."
"Many people will cooperate, and punish those who don't, even when no gain is possible"

This tendency - which researchers call "strong reciprocity" - throws into question the assumption that apparently selfless behaviour must have some selfish explanation. Across disciplines, researchers now agree that people often act against their own self-interest. "This is the most important empirical work on the human sense of justice in many years," says evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The things to do are: the things that need doing: that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done. Then you will conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done -- that no one else has told you to do or how to do it. This will bring out the real you that often gets buried inside a character that has acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others on the individual. --Buckminster Fuller

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his 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 this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

-- Albert Einstein

When things seem out of control remember that, indeed, they are. It is only the belief that you are ever in control that makes life seem to go awry. The harder you try to rule life, the harder it fights back. Learn to tell the difference between creating in the present and trying to control the future. One feels good, the other bad.

The £1,000 Overall Social Innovations Award for 2004 goes to Mahabir Pun, a teacher whose dedication and imagination has brought the internet and telecommunications to some of the remotest communities in the world in Nepal. Using an inspired mix of solar power, tree-based relay systems and wireless technology, the project is helping yak farmers stay in touch, families communicate and, with an expansion into distance learning, children to gain education. See NepalWireless.net for more information.

The Environmental Social Innovations Award for 2004 goes to Kerry Channing, an IT consultant from Brighton, who proposes a footprint or profile for products to allow people to make ethical choices between them. Products would be assessed on their fairness (to workers), their sustainability (can they be recycled, what impact they have) and their health (do they affect the health of humanity or the environment?). In this way, an 'IQ' would be created, allowing for greater transparency in the retail market, and greater choice for consumers. For further information, see the EIQ Profile

The old Quaker adage, "Let your life speak," spoke to author Parker J. Palmer when he was in his early 30s. It summoned him to a higher purpose, so he decided that henceforth he would live a nobler life. "I lined up the most elevated ideals I could find and set out to achieve them," he writes. "The results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque.... I had simply found a 'noble' way of living a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart."

Thirty years later, Palmer now understands that learning to let his life speak means "living the life that wants to live in me." It involves creating the kind of quiet, trusting conditions that allow a soul to speak its truth. It also means tuning out the noisy preconceived ideas about what a vocation should and shouldn't be so that we can better hear the call of our wild souls. ...

Palmer seeks to help us "rejoin soul and role," so that individuals and communities can be healed from the ravages of consumerism, injustice and violence. No small task, yet in classic Palmer style, this mission is fleshed out with stories, poems, personal confessions and a plan--concrete steps for creating "circles of trust" where honest, open sharing allows each person's "inner teacher" to show up. (Ground rules: "no fixing, no saving, no advising, no setting each other straight.") Palmer's concern is that too many people have "divided lives," with personal values that don't match what they are asked to do in the world to succeed. ...

Never naive, Palmer warns that these "circles of trust" are not management tools that organizations can force on employees for some grand motive, such as crisis control or increased productivity. They are the opposite of quick fixes--places where we sit and wait for our souls to tell the truth. ...

Here he speaks to our yearning to live undivided lives--lives that are congruent with our inner truth--in a world filled with the forces of fragmentation. ...

This is a personal, human, moving, insightful, practical work on the discovery of True Will, and living life in conformity with it. ...

"Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent."

"True self, when violated, will always resist us, sometimes at great cost, holding our lives in check until we honor its truth."

"...self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others."

"The attempt to live by the reality of our own nature, which means our limits as well as our potentials, is a profoundly moral regimen."

"One dwells with God by being faithful to one's nature. One crosses God by trying to be something one is not. Reality - including one's own - is divine, to be not defied but honored."

Q: You wake up in a strange new world where everyone gets paid the same salary no matter what they do for a living, even if there's no obvious 'market' for it, and no matter how many hours a week they work at it. And everything costs 'whatever you can afford'. What would you do for a living? Is this something you're already good at, or something you'd like to *become* good at? What kind of people would you like to work with, or would you prefer to work alone? And what would you do with your new-found leisure time?

A: For a living, I'd study and report on the languages of other animals, so that ultimately we could learn to talk to them, and learn from them (more than we do already). I have some skills that would help: Strong analystical and problem-solving ability, creativity and communication skills. But I'd need to study linguistics, to be a better listener, and to pay more attention to detail. I'd like the project to be self-managed, and the team working on it to be self-selected (that means we would pick each other, not that I would pick the team). My spare time would still be spent as it is now -- writing -- though I would probably also spend more time talking with, perhaps in a teaching/coaching (but not lecturing) capacity, young people.

According to Andrew Cohen ... the most important question you can ask yourself is 'What would you do if you knew that you would die tomorrow?' The answer is that you would want to unburden yourself of feelings of guilt and shame. You would want to become transparent to loved ones and to god. And there are many cases of dying people doing this very movingly. The next question is 'why not start doing it now?' The ego hates the idea of doing this and will avoid it right up to the moment of physical death. And overcoming the ego is the only way to liberate the authentic self and experience the energy of evolutionary enlightenment.

1. People want to experience that they live. Now.
2. The truly important things are: being-human, development, challenge and fun!
3. People define their own passion, energy, success and needs.
4. Our EQnomy is a sizzling party of real, authentic human beings.
5. We seek no 'balance between work and personal life'; we are our authentic selves in work and in private.
6. Our talents, time, attention, ideas, knowledge and networks are ours and our responsibility.
7. An organization is not a Counsel, Company, Care- or Educational Institution. An organization always consists of PEOPLE who are committed to each other and to other people.
8. "What does your care, involvement, service or product add to me, my development, challenge and fun!?"
9. We do not want to be 'robbed'; we want to be 'touched'.
10. Before we go along with an organization, we first want to understand it and feel it; the mission, the culture; the people.
11. We are loyal to the passion and inspiration with which all once began. Not to the rules that 'crept in' along the way.
12. To us it is not about WHAT we do. To us it is about WHY we do what we do.

"And in the naked light I saw
ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
people hearing without listening.
People writing songs
that voices never shared,
no one dared disturb
the sound of silence.

Fools, said I, you do not know,
silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell
and echoed in the wells of silence"

Listen. Instead of falling prey
to our neon Gods.

'Underlying Happiness' state
• Characteristics: A feeling of happiness underlies all other feelings. It exists simultaneously even with difficult feelings such as sadness or anger. In women, a continuous loving feeling is more dominant, although the happiness is still present.
• Cause: Heart and body brains fused together.
• Comment: Doesn't stop the past from feeling emotionally traumatic.
• Frequency: Estimated 9% relatively continuously, additional 12% recognize it.

'Big Sky' state
• Characteristics: The world feels huge. Looking at the sky, it feels gigantic. Your boundaries disappear, especially above your head.
• Cause: Body, mind and Buddha brains fused together. The sensation of the huge sky is from a body sensation of the relative distance between objects and one's body.
• Comment: I'm not sure if I've accurately analyzed this state. Treat it as possibly being due to some other phenomenon. More work needs to be done on it.
• Frequency: Not determined.

'Brains Communicate' state
• Characteristics: The three brains can communicate with each other. Brains interact like a dysfunctional family.
• Cause: All the brains' awarenesses are touching and in communication.
• Comment: A useful intermediate state, but not as valuable or dramatic as a fused one. In a Perry diagram, the circles all overlap slightly.
• Frequency: Estimated 12% relatively continuously, additional 23% recognize it.

'Deep Peace' state
• Characteristics: Deeper peaceful feeling than the Beauty Way. A feeling of being balanced, evenness, no irritation. Feels like the physical heart is lower in the body. Feel more lightweight. Not effortless, but not as bad as normal consciousness. Brains are aware of each other, can communicate directly, and you are aware of each simultaneously.
• Cause: Brains' awarenesses are superimposed, but not completely fused. No hollow sensations in the body.
• Comment: An intermediate state that we don't try to get.
• Frequency: Not determined.

'Hollow' state
• Characteristics: Body feels hollow inside the skin. All parts of the body feel 'continuous'. Emotions have a cognitive rather than affective quality.
• Cause: All brains fuse together.
• Comment: Chakras are not merged. Brains are not connected to the Realm of the Shaman.
• Frequency: Estimated 7% relatively continuously, additional 12% recognize it.

'Wholeness' state
• Characteristics: The word 'wholeness' is the most accurate for this state, and is used spontaneously by people acquiring it. A feeling of being complete, with nothing missing. Music is especially vivid.
• Cause: A fusion of the placental and sperm tail 'energy' or 'awarenesses' with the other triune brains.
• Comment: The sensation of wholeness exists independently of the state of fusion of the other brains.
• Frequency: Not determined.

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book on page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

a flowing to or toward some point; afflux.

1. something that flows to or toward a point, e.g. "an afflux of blood to the head". 2. the act of flowing to or toward some point.