Collective Inquiry – Consultation
Invitation to participate in a research project on consultation, collective inquiry & decision-making
Posted on May 23, 2022 by jean-marie nau
Do you have experience with Bahá’í consultation, the process of collective inquiry & decision-making?
Would you like to participate in a research project that uses mainly conversation analysis to examine what helps some groups as they consult and explore reality together?
Are you currently engaged in Bahá’í consultation or other forms of collective inquiry and collective decision-making processes?
If the answer to those 3 questions is ‘yes’, then I would like to hear from you. Participating in the research only requires the autorisation to audio and/or video record a session, either physical or online. This is completed by agreeing that the online session is being recorded.
This research project should take place at the university of Luxembourg and is motivated by the pressing need that humanity is facing today: to find a unifying vision of the future of society and of the nature and purpose of life.
[…] religion and science are the two indispensable knowledge systems through which the potentialities of consciousness develop. Far from being in conflict with one another, these fundamental modes of the mind’s exploration of reality are mutually dependent and have been most productive in those rare but happy periods of history when their complementary nature has been recognized and they have been able to work together. The insights and skills generated by scientific advance will have always to look to the guidance of spiritual and moral commitment to ensure their appropriate application; religious convictions, no matter how cherished they may be, must submit, willingly and gratefully, to impartial testing by scientific methods. (4.2002, Letter to the World’s Religious Leaders—The Universal House of Justice)
The task for the session is for the group to focus on one or two paragraphs and seek to gain a deeper understanding what the text may mean for you, your current and future circumstances and how the session with a number of participants will motivate you to take possible actions.
Text to consider:
We put great reliance on you and on National Spiritual Assemblies to ensure that, in all the efforts made to acquaint the friends with the nature of this collective enterprise, the perspective of history is kept fully in view.
The civilization of today, for all its material prowess, has been found wanting, and the verdict has been issued […]:
“Know ye not that We have rolled up that which the people possessed, and have unfolded a new order in its place?” The establishment of Divine Civilization is, in the words of the Guardian, “the primary mission of the Bahá’í Faith”.
It is to be built upon the most foundational qualities, ones for which the world stands in great need: unity, trustworthiness, mutual support, collaboration, fellow feeling, selflessness, commitment to truth, a sense of responsibility, a thirst to learn, the love of an all-embracing heart.
(30 December 2021 – To the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors, 2nd last §) www.bahai.org/r/758524518
being alive through resonance 