We thought this of more than passing interest to SN readers
Wisdom2.0: it came for our heartbeats, now Google wants our souls
Dublin’s Google headquarters bears all the hallmarks of the modern tech workplace: an industrial chic aesthetic, endless free snacks, designer furniture in primary colours that looks like it’s been hijacked from a children’s playground, and, this week, the advanced forces of what may or may not be the Next Big Thing: not a new mobile phone, or a really super fancy watch, but something even more radically cutting-edge: “wisdom”.
Because for three days this week, in an auditorium at the heart of the city’s hi-tech cluster, an unholy alliance of Googlers, Buddhist monks, techies, HR directors, MPs and recovering CEOs bandied around words like “compassion”, “empathy”, “communion” and “consciousness”.
This was Wisdom2.0, a Californian conference that grew out of the west coast’s twin obsessions of technology and self-actualisation, and that came to Europe for the first time this week.
It has already held events in Google’s Mountain View office and at Facebook and since its inception six years ago, it’s been enthusiastically taken up by the tech industry. More than 2,000 people attended Wisdom2.0’s main event in San Francisco this year, and it’s attracted high-profile supporters like Arianna Huffington and Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, and now it’s looking to take the message to a global audience.
‘Stroke the person next to you – feel the connection’
It might be called a conference, but to the uninitiated it looked more like a revival meeting or religious gathering – just without the religion bit getting in the way. Prayer bells called the delegates back to session, regular “stillness” breaks were built into the agenda, and at one point participants were told to put their arm around the person next to them, softly stroke them “and feel the connection”.
It’s technology that’s at the heart of this, or at least what technology is doing to our lives. And Wisdom2.0’s mission is to address this, “the great challenge of our age”: how to “live connected to one another through technology … in ways that are beneficial to our own well-being.”
Another take on it is that the tech industry having captured our attention, our time and our bank accounts with their endlessly distracting devices, and created apps that measure our heartbeats and quantify our physical health, has taken the next logical step: it is now after our souls.
Mindfulness: overtaking yoga as the must-do metropolitan activity
Soren Gordhamer, Wisdom2.0’s founder, explained to the delegates who had paid up to €600 each, that at its heart it represented an attempt “to bring ancient wisdom into the modern age”. And at the vanguard of the movement is mindfulness, the secular version of meditation that is said to do everything from slowing ageing to improving your sex life.
It’s currently vying to overtake yoga as the must-do metropolitan leisure activity but it’s also had proven clinical results – to reduce stress, aid sleep, and improve both physical and mental well-being – and Chris Ruane, the Labour MP for the Vale of Clwyd, told the audience about how, having introduced to the House of Commons, an all-party parliamentary group is now trying to roll it out into wider public life after the next general election.
But that is just the beginning. Alfred Tolle, a senior sales manager at Google who was the host for the event, went even further. It was, he said, about trying to create “a collective consciousness” that would hopefully “make the world a better place”.
“Ten years ago, if you’d said this sort of thing, people would have said ‘Put the hippy in the ground’,” he said later. “But today, people are starting to get it. Even in management meetings, I talk about connecting inner and outer worlds and people look at me suspiciously, but they sort of get it.”
‘Our relationship with technology has become something even its creators can’t control’
Tolle has been practising Zen meditation for 25 years and on top of his sales remit, he seems to have taken it upon himself to become Google’s unofficial chief soul officer. He said he wanted to hold the event because “we have to reconnect to our souls and ourselves in order to use technology wisely. I see it as my job to drive Google in that direction.”
There is, said one of the participants, a Dublin-based technologist called Frazer McKimm who studies human and machine interaction, “an increasing sense of disquiet. There’s a sense that our relationship with technology has become something that even the creators of it can’t control. Even the dominators are being dominated. It’s infantilising us in a way.”
The challenge, according to a Scottish app developer, Rohan Gunatillake, is to deal with it without “pathologising our relationship to technology”. He proposed that mindfulness should be built into all technology, and suggests solutions including a traffic system warning for websites and nutrition information-style labels that detail what they do to our mental health; he singled out newspaper comment sections, which should carrying a big red flag. “Technology is not the problem,” he told the conference. “Bad technology is the problem.”
In fact, says Gordhamer, it’s no surprise that questions about meaning and purpose have been embraced so enthusiastically by the tech industry. “If you look at the tech founders they all found success so young that it’s only natural that they should now be asking, ‘What else is there?’”
And, it’s that question – what else is there? – that had drawn participants from as far afield as Australia. Katrin Bauer, a 46-year-old consultant radiologist from Dundee, said that she’d discovered meditation as a means of coping with the stress of technology.
“I work on a computer all day and they break, they go wrong, we don’t have the most up-to-date software. I didn’t tell my colleagues at first. These eastern practices are seen as a bit of a taboo in the NHS but so many of my colleagues are off sick – very capable, talented people who just burn out. And there is an absolute clinical benefit to mindfulness that goes far beyond just churning out more pills. There is so much more that could be done to improve people’s well-being.”
Training staff to have compassion
Just as mindfulness secularised an ancient spiritual practice that’s been used for thousands of years, so the new wisdom industry has taken other concepts, more usually associated with religious practice, and given them a fresh new spin, foremost among them “compassion”, the buzzword of Wisdom2.0.
Tania Singer, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute, who has led the biggest research study so far in to the effect of mindfulness on the brain, gave a talk in which she showed her research into neuroplasticity and “affective training”. Compassion, she claimed, is distinct from empathy. It can be taught. And it had the effect of making new areas of the brain light up: in effect, it made its subjects happier.
Kelly Palmer, head of “talent transformation and inclusion” at LinkedIn made in her talk entitled “Fostering empathetic connection: lessons from compassion Efforts at LinkedIn” which included the information that “sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do is to let an employee go.”
The cynical take on all this is that it’s big business trying to create a new generation of happy worker drones. The chief people officer – or what used to be called the head of HR – for Zynga had come to look for new ideas to take into the workplace and she explained that it was not enough to provide industrial chic furnishings and a free lunch any more: “Millennials want more than that. They want meaning.”
There has been “a convergence of work and personal life,” she said. “People are never really off so we have to address the whole person. And if we can help people, it helps employee retention. Anything that helps people personally has benefits that apply to the whole company.”
But for all the corporate talk, there was, at times, more than a touch of the Timothy Leary to the event.
“What is money?” asked Google’s Alfred Tolle, at one point. “It’s just a bunch of zeros.” And a significant proportion of the audience had already tuned in, turned on and dropped out. Participants included the former CEO of a Norwegian TV station, a former barrister, Neil Seligman, who now teaches lawyers at big City firms how to be more “conscious”. Friedhelm Boschert, former CEO of major European bank, Volksbank International, said that he used to do weekly Zen meditation with his top managers and is now teaching it to other bankers as part of something he calls “New Banking” – top-down old banking apparently having got us into the current financial mess.
Is it the start of the push back? Or simply corporate America’s latest initiative to bend the world to its will? “We don’t check people at the door,” said Soren Gordhamer.
“My work is to show up and be present for people who care. The only moment we ever have is right now. Life is more fulfilling when we show up without an agenda.”
Thanks to God, followers of Indian gurus cannot claim copyrights over meditation!
The day is not far away when newly become Enlightened beings will look for corporate sponsorship to build their brand of logistics to the other world.
This part of the discourse is sponsored by Rip Off Drinks India Ltd. kind of thing!
Your ego has disappeared in the universe and there is no interview on prime time TV.; this is going to end.
Virus of ambition is going to spread everywhere!
Meditation mixing with money, It is a germ-free hand wash to remove guilt strains.
“Meditation mixing with money” — Shantam
Exactly. Vipassana is an open secret, available for free.
Osho’s discourses were freely given, his meditation instruction was freely given, his darshan was freely given, his satsang was freely given, his sannyas was freely given … Osho showered us with flowers with no cost involved. Eternally grateful to Osho.
“Enlightenment is unattainable because you are already enlightened. You have
just forgotten it. It is not a question of attaining it, but of remembering it.” —Osho, Zen: the Quantum Leap from Mind to No-Mind, Ch. 15
Here you go again, Kabir, orange-coloured specs clouding your memory once more. You appear to have forgotten the entry charges to the Pune ashram, not to mention the price of meditation ‘camps’ and groups!
(And btw, I don’t get the relevance of the Osho quote).
PS: I’m intrigued by your enthusiastic espousal of “laziness”. May I ask how old you are? And whether you’ve ever worked at anything in your life? If so, what? If not, how have you survived?
Beloved Satyadeva, I have not forgotten anything. My memory is good. The gate fee was less that one dollar. All daily spiritual activities (15 hours worth) inside the commune were voluntary and free of charge. If you chose to attend an event like a meditation camp, or a group, you were choosing to pay money. Nobody paid any money inside the commune for what I participated in daily:
Dynamic meditation: FREE
Morning discourse: FREE
Sufi dance: FREE
Vipassana meditation: FREE
African dance: FREE
Orange coloured glasses: FREE
Unlimited hugs: FREE
Lovemaking: FREE
Kundalini meditation: FREE
Evening discourse: FREE
Music group: FREE
Being in a buddhafield: PRICELESS
But I thought you said you were supremely LAZY, Kabir…Come on, you can’t have it both ways, either you are bone idle or you’re not – so which is the truth, eh?!
And how about answering my questions re your age and work experience (or lack of it)?
UH OH!!!!
Satyadeva is circling his prey.
Get back to your painting, Arpana – this is no place for the squeamish….
Ah, but I can have it both ways!
My reference to laziness was to avoiding working for money, you know like 60 hours a week in an office job.
My time with Osho was/is pure play.
Arpana has warned me not to answer your personal questions about work, sex, age, etc. as Satyadeva is “circling his prey.”
But Kabir, why take “60 hours a week in an office job” as a typical work regime? As I said before, that’s just a disingenuous ‘red herring’, calculated to avoid the issue.
If you insist on refusing to answer then I shall insist upon concluding that you have ‘something to hide’ about both your age and your working life (or the lack of it), even that you might well be someone who’s never had to work at anything in his entire life, as it’s all been handed to you ‘on a plate’, as it were.
In which case, of course, you’d really have very little to offer people whose lives have been a lot less privileged, a lot more ‘ordinary’ (and do me and yourself a favour by not citing Osho here, please!).
And while I’m on your case, could you confirm that you’re an Indian?
(Btw, contrary to your pathetic (for such a self-styled would-be ‘spiritual adept’) fears, I’m not concerned about your sex life – yet…).
Sleep well, the Bullshine Police are after you!
Kabir 1440 wrote: “The gate fee was less that one dollar.”
What year was that? It’s certainly a lot more than that now, around 15 US bucks, last time I heard, which was earlier this year. In fact, the rip-off gate prices have now succeeded in putting off large numbers of punters (it is rumoured that this is a specific tactic employed by the Mismanagement to put off the ‘lower class’ types, hippies, scroungers and so on!).
As I have experienced it, there is nothing free in the ‘Resort’. You can’t get in and access the daily meditation programme unless you have coughed up the gate fee, and from what you wrote, Kabir 1440, it seems that that has always been the case. Presumably, the activities you listed took place for the most part inside the ashram complex, with the possible exception of the ‘love-making’?
Of course, the whole daily package may have been comparably a lot cheaper then, compared to now. However, let us not forget the possibility that it was a marketing strategy for a new product line ie start off cheap to get the punters in and then crank the prices up once you’ve got ‘em hooked.
Ashok,
I can confirm that Kabir is right about the early days of Poona 1.
Friends of mine used to hang out and do meditations, and see Osho at lecture on a daily basis for years and manage to live on a few rupees a day. I can be corrected but as I remember the gate fee was at that time treated as a nominal thing, it may have been a single rupee.
One really good free thing to meet people etc was Sufi Dancing which was a mid morning thing.
As for the current Resort’s attitude towards hippies, etc, well, yes, things may well have changed over time. But in 1974/5 many (but not all) of Osho’s western followers could have fallen somewhere within that term, if used as a broad label.
Thanks for the info, Parmartha. All I can say is…I feel it is a real shame I was not around then, so as to be able to take advantage of it all esp. the free love-making!
“Virus of ambition is going to spread everywhere!”
So true , Shantam Prem , and don´t forget to include yourself into that !
Sounds like my meditation intensive workshop, opening this autumn on Ibiza, will be right on time. In true sannyasin spirit participants will be charged a fee, which will never tip the balance against the colossal weight of conscious living being delivered. Enrol now and avoid the rush!
Friends,
“The cynical take on all this is that it’s big business trying to create a new generation of happy worker drones.”
I would subscribe to that.
And there is another point in the article, in which I find much of my ´uneasiness´ with the ‘Zeitgeist’, linked: it´s the ‘new’ way of defining ´compassion´ and kind of excluding empathy; empathy, indeed something that most of the time doesn´t PAY…
Many of the younger generation in very rich industrial countries seem to have switched into these new paradigm , in what roles or games whatsoever.
And hardly, if you meet them on the roads or anywhere, are they offline, and you can experience them multitasking efficiently, but they are not THERE, I mean, there are not re a l l y present to other humans, nature and surroundings.
There are many ways ´to give oneself away´ , how Kabir did put it once;
and the ´drone´, the robot way is one of it, ´responses´on a MOMENT then according to presetted designs , often even not recognizable as such , anymore.
I often wonder about the self declared ´identities ´, imagining to be creative by often simply living mentally a technically efficient cannibalistic life , data-phishing just other people’s thoughts and picking up without having the intention to have fair trade rules, or think for themselves –
and performing like actors from a stranger’s life, they could capture anonymously.
Quite shady sides of another ‘Brave new World’, indulging also in the vision that ´all life is a play´ …and the winner takes it all, and fuck about rules to play together.
I share that from my experiencing such players who don’t care a shit about the human rights of individuals, which is negotiable in their eyes ,
who don´t look, their ears, which don´t hear and their mouths trading lies.
I dedicate my indeed sour statement concerning progress and how that is handled, to a men like E. Snowden, an Expert,
who found his ways back into his senses and is now paying for it, as the mass is silently nodding and Facebook ´thumbing´ and whatsoever thumbing, what is chosen to be appropriate for us all , and to an extent we are not even aware of.
And that is not chosen by ourselves and is hardcore business, where we are a number or an algorithm –
Meanwhile indeed camouflaged by yoga stretchings as other stuff (which also sells) to let us forget – with or without ´orange´ spectacles.
And what has that to do with Sannyas News, I don´t really know, but may have to do with the data-phishing buggers who INDEED are everywhere around,
and also those are not ´around´ with intentions to co-operate or to have a fair-play.
Well, just a very contemporary issue – on another level, isn´t it?
Madhu
Cynicism is the only hope for humanity!
Cynicism is the only hope for humanity if you are male.
How women can live without the romantic images?
NO, Frank , NO.
Oh yes it is!
Diogenes` dog rules!
Yawoof!
But don`t worry about me, I`m just going through that awkward age between birth and death!
“…do me and yourself a favour by not citing Osho here, please!…Sleep well, the Bullshine Police are after you!” – Satyadeva.
SannyasNews “welcomes all sannyasins”…but don’t quote the guy who made you a sannyasin! LOL!
“Could you confirm that you’re an Indian?”
“I’m not concerned about your sex life – yet…”
You are funny, Satyadeva.
Here is a quote for you:
“Lucky are those who know equanimity even in defeat, for such people can not be touched by defeat.” – Lao-Tse
Congratulations on sliding away from the issues re your age, nationality and work experience, Kabir1440. You’re well on track for winning the SN ‘Slippery-as-an Eel’ Award for 2014.
The point about advising you not to cite Osho to justify your ‘lazy man’ bullshine is to see whether you can stand on your own two feet, give your own truth, instead of needing recourse to use Osho as an excuse, to provide you with what you think is an ‘unanswerable’ authority.
However, it seems you might well be one of those who uses Osho for his own person-al convenience, in this case aiming – perhaps half-consciously – to lend your view of your self and your public personsa/image a kind of ‘glamour’ through association with the Great Man who was ‘just like you’ (ie ‘lazy’)!
All this compounded, of course, by another bullshine quote (in this context) from a dead master.
As a result of this transparent self-delusion, you’ve just been nominated for the SN ‘Using Osho and/or Other Masters as a Smokescreen’ Award. But for this one, of course, you have quite a lot of competition….
Kabir.
You listed an an impressive inventory of ‘freebies’ from Osho.
Just a few things you forgot:-
SD: When you were asked to edit ‘The Mustard Seed’ (sorry to mention that again) how much did you charge Osho for your services? or did you give for FREE?
Shantam Prem: When you were asked to be a Hindi typist, did you charge an hourly rate? or did you give for FREE?
And all you Sannyasins who worked in the fields, gardens and kitchens were you paid? or did you give for FREE?
Remember Kabir, Osho was not the only one who gave for FREE.
(OK he was the only one to receive 100 Rolls Royces in return, but lets call those ‘gifts’)
The life of a communard as I experienced it Anubodh was not in some ways unlike my experience of other communes where people are listed as volunteers, like Israeli kibbutz’s for example.
The Osho communes from 1974 to 1985 – well, yes, one did the work/play in a sense for free, but when a full commune member one had good food, lodging and pocket money, and an annual trip to Rajnneshpuram, for free – not dissimilar ‘terms’ to other communes not devoted to Osho.
Being a ‘volunteer’ for truth, and somehow trusting that shelter and sustenance will arise as an act of trust, seems not a bad place to be.
Well, Anubodh, in fact I was pâid a small fee for each of the 21 discourses of the series, I forget how much, but I think it was just about enough to cover my basic food expenses during the five months or so of work. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been able to carry on living in India, as I originally came for 6 weeks but ended up staying far longer.
Still, I was fortunate as I said at the start that I’d be short of cash, so some provision was made on my behalf, otherwise I don’t think editors were generally paid at all.
“Remember, Kabir, Osho was not the only one who gave for FREE. (OK, he was the only one to receive 100 Rolls Royces in return, but let’s call those ‘gifts’)” – Swami Anand Anubodh
“I received a letter from a bishop of Wasco County, who had been for almost five years condemning my Rolls Royces. In every Sunday sermon he was not preaching Jesus Christ, he was preaching me and my Rolls Royces. The day I was leaving he wrote a letter to me, “Now you are leaving, it will be great kindness on your part if you can donate one Rolls Royce to this church.” Now, this shows the man….
I informed him, “Would you like all ninety-three, or only one?”
And a letter came, “If you can give all ninety-three, that is just the right thing. You are really great. I’m very sorry that I condemned you for five years. You are a man to be worshiped.”
It is a very strange world if you understand people: whatever they are saying shows more about them than it shows about the person they are talking about.”
Osho, The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here, Ch.12
And do you understand me, Kabir?