“Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline.” – Lewis Mumford
The longevity of any society depends upon the ability of its constituents to balance inner development with outer ingenuity. Overweighted to the former, society will eventually implode. The more likely outcome, if history serves as a guide, is that the scales will be tipped so far to the outer that society cannot help but gloat, bloat and unravel of its own accord.
Gregory Hake 
It is ironic that we live in such a remarkable era in terms of technological advance, and yet the human capacity for spiritual or even moral understanding continues to lag far behind. Of course social consciousness, as it is called, continues to evolve, but not always in a balanced way. Attitudes and convictions come in and out of fashion, but Truth is so often lost in the shuffling patterns of political power plays.
I appreciate the fact that your blog points consistently to the Central Way. we need a keel on the boat in order to maintain a consistent course!
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So profoundly true. A discovery that I made about thirty years ago is that success is 20% skills and 80% attitude. That being said, all of our educational systems and all of the training that is provided by companies to do a certain job is focused on skills. It doesn’t make sense does it!
That is why over the years my focus for both myself and hopefully others whom I influence is to focus 80% of their development efforts on the discovery and building of their own personal character – the development of themselves, or as I often refer to it “the process of becoming more valuable”. This begins to develop a genuine attitude that than becomes truly valuable in all aspects of their living.
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I find this awareness to be personally relevant to my work in the health field. There is more and more scientific knowledge accumulating in regards to it. Without a grounding in wisdom and integrated understanding much of the knowledge can seem overwhelming and conflicting. Your words allow a foundational base of perspective for pieces to fill in for a greater functional usefulness of the knowledge available.
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We create, then protect through our arrogance the seeds of our own destruction.
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