Browse Topics
Ethics
Twenty-Eight Words That Could Change The World
Robert Hinkley’s Plan To Tame Corporate Power
We can’t solve the problem of corporate irresponsibility by imposing volumes of laws and regulations that try to restrain the system, because the system is designed not to be restrained. I believe the solution lies in redesigning the corporation itself to build in some self-restraint.
September 2004
Sunbeams
March 2004[The philosopher] Wittgenstein writes about a man who, not being certain of an item he reads in the newspaper, buys one hundred copies of the paper to reassure himself of its truth.
Risky Business
Peter Sandman On Corporate Misbehavior And Public Outrage
I tend to be more passionate about the process of communication than about the outcome. I’m interested in people listening better and talking more and wanting to understand each other’s point of view. I try to eliminate the things that get in the way of that. And it’s a Sisyphean task, because industry people and activists aren’t really talking to each other; they’re doing theater with each other. Whichever side I am working for, I try to find a way for both sides to listen better.
December 2003
Coming Back To The World
Timothy Conway On Engaged Spirituality
There are two kinds of really powerful, transformative spirituality. One is mystical spirituality, or the full, inner awakening from egoism to transpersonal awareness. The other is engaged spirituality, working for the public good or collective welfare, out of a deep sense of solidarity with all sentient beings. The problems in the world today are so immense, grievous, and dire that we need both kinds of spirituality, not just an individual, inner mystical spirituality.
April 2003
Searching For The Soul Of America
An Interview With Jacob Needleman
Human beings are meant to do more than simply live out their physical lives on this earth. They’re meant to do more, even, than be good stewards of the natural environment. Humanity is meant to be a conductor of great forces, passing from above, through humankind, and back. That’s what I mean by the “American soul.” Our society has a unique spiritual function that is all too often forgotten.
December 2002
Sunbeams
August 2001We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.
Sunbeams
July 2001May we remember, as we log on, that half the world’s people have never used a telephone, and recall, as we chatter, that most of those around us have no chance to speak or move as they choose. May we recall that more than half a million beings live without food, and that as many children live amidst poverty and war.
Next To Godliness
The Story Behind Dr. Bronner’s Soap — An Interview With Ralph Bronner
A few times a month, I’m asked whether we’re a New Age religion or a cult. Well, we’re not, or if we are, we have no members. Our family is running a soap business based on Dad’s teachings. All he did is what any religious person does: he read the great works — the Torah, the Bible, Thomas Paine — and picked what he liked. His theology was a sort of cosmic soup.
January 2001After The Ecstasy, The Laundry
Bringing Spirituality Back Home
It is one thing to offer a multitude of prayers for the sick and the poor, or to undertake loving kindness and compassion meditations for thousands of sentient beings everywhere. It is another to bring these same practices to bear in our own family and our closest community.
December 2000
