Author: Ronald Engert
Category: Communities / Projects
From October 3 to 6, 2019, the first congress on the connection of business and spirituality took place in Kirchzarten near Freiburg. Initiator and visionary is the management consultant Hans-Jürgen Lenz, who organized the congress together with the IAK Freiburg. Renowned speakers presented their findings and 220 participants worked out their own approaches to solutions in workshops and the Openspace format.
Prof. Dr. Claus Eurich introduced his lecture “Revolt for Life – Vision for an Earth Worth Living On” with climate change. Dr. Franz Alt, the well-known proponent of solar energy, also led the audience and viewers to the topic in his lecture “Profit through meaning – the new entrepreneurial philosophy”.
Prof. Eurich began by pointing out that our ethics up to now have been an ethics of man, but often forgetting animals, plants and Mother Earth. An ethics for life, however, includes animals, plants and the earth. Eurich presented the great philosophers of ethics: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Hans Jonas, Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, Hannah Arendt and Albert Camus. His conclusions in four points: 1. Simplicity in life; renounce what is not needed for an existence in dignity. Deal with money in a life-serving way and do not deny beauty. 2. live in the spirit of non-harming. Practice love and live vegetarian. 3. fraternity, in the spirit of the Canticle of the Sun by Francis of Assisi. 4. practice mindfulness, knowledge orientation and contemplative living. Conscience is the final authority. – Its consequence for the economy: fifty percent of the planet would have to be put under conservation – since nothing on earth can be thrown away.
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Franz Alt’s lecture shone with a high density of information and some bon mots such as this: “The maximum penalty for a physicist is a conversation with an economist.” For example, he is certain that science and technology are ready to meet our energy needs with 100% renewable energy. Only the big commercial companies are not willing to do so, because it is against their economic interests. Some facts: 86 million tons of fertile soil are destroyed every day, 150 million tons of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere every day, half of all species are extinct, 30 billionaires have more income than 3.8 billion people (half of all people). Meanwhile, Alt’s beautiful insight: “The real reality is always the divine order.” He advocated for profit through meaning rather than profit through growth, recounting his recent trip to Mali, where people have only recently had electricity. This means for the pharmacist that he can now refrigerate his medicines, for the tailor that he now has an electric sewing machine that makes his work much easier, and for the students that they can now watch soccer on TV. The result: no one wants to escape anymore.
In Freiburg, a stronghold of ecological living, ninety percent of the roofs are still without solar panels. So there is still a lot of room to improve and supplement our energy production. Unfortunately, the promotion of solar energy has ended. According to Dr. Alt, this has resulted in the loss of 80,000 solar energy jobs, which have now been moved to China. In contrast, we have 20,000 jobs in the coal industry that are being maintained through subsidies. China already has 16,500 electric buses in the city of Chenseng alone, whereas German cities don’t even get ten buses because there are supply bottlenecks. 1 l of fuel destroys 10,000 l of air. The World Bank reports that the energy turnaround costs money, but no turnaround costs five times more.
This year, green electricity already accounts for fifty percent of the total in Germany. As a well-known television journalist, Franz Alt reported on the program he broadcast on public television in 1993 on the subject of the energy turnaround. At the time, the energy industry countered this, claiming that Germany would be able to generate at most 4 percent of its energy needs from green power by the end of the 21st century. Iceland and Ecuador are already at 98 % renewable energy today.
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But Alt also delivered another piece of news, a frightening one: half of all Himalayan glaciers have already melted. When these glaciers have completely disappeared, two billion people in India and China will be without water. Alt reported a plan by the University of Beijing to detonate 200 small nuclear bombs to blow away parts of the Himalayas so that rivers would flow into northern China. Every year, the water table in northern China drops by ten meters.
Alt also delivered a message from the Dalai Lama: “The human spirit is the key factor. It is the root and the solution of the problem. Spirituality enables a reorientation. There is only one true religion: a good human heart.”
Other interesting presentations included those by Christoph Harrach, founder of Karmakonsum: “Living the Good Life. Using Yoga to Promote Sustainable Development”; and by Martin Bucher: “Leading Employees with Heart and Mind. Introduction to Nonviolent Communication.” Harrach evaluated, among other things, the ancient Vedic scripture Bhagavad-Gita for the modern economy and reported on the 6th Kondratjev cycle, according to which we now have a paradigm shift from the topos of the world economy to the principle of quality of life. Bucher directed our attention to our own needs and made it clear that without need there is also no action. If one does something, it is to fulfill oneself, not to harm others.
Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Brodbeck, economist and Buddhist, gave a lecture on the problem of consciousness, which has not yet been clarified in science. He pointed out that the average time for a cell to come into being by chance is so long that it takes several times the lifetime of the universe. The creative process is still unexplainable. The new cannot be derived from the old. The new comes from the consciousness. It must be recognized. That is why the first verse of the Dhammapada says, “Things are preceded by mind.” Quantum physics also befriends the idea that it is not the brain that gives rise to consciousness, but consciousness that gives rise to the brain. The Buddha said, mutatis mutandis, that the first reality is the sensation and experience of the subject.
Brodbeck also reported on money from the perspective of consciousness and Buddhism. Just as, according to Buddhism, all phenomena are without substance, so is money. If money were substantial, huge fortunes could not vanish into thin air overnight. His beautiful point in conclusion: the fact of interdependence manifests as feeling, and that is compassion. When you observe reality, you recognize that. That’s what mindfulness is. That’s why in Buddhism, mindfulness and compassion are the central virtues.
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Of the many other lectures and workshops, we should mention the contribution of Vivian Dittmar, who presented her latest book in the lecture “Das innere Navi – transrationales Denken als Schlüssel zu ganzheitlichem Erfolg”. She explained transrational thinking and distinguished between inspiration, intuition and heart intelligence. These terms are often mixed, but they refer to distinguishable transrational qualities of our mind. Inspiration comes from above and manifests as an idea. Intuition comes from below and shows up as an impulse to act. The heart is our organ for sense and sits midway between the two. Dittmar said that in the heart sits a culture-independent ethic that distinguishes good and evil in a non-moral sense. The heart aligns itself with the true, the beautiful and the good. The paradox of the heart: The feeling of the suffering world hurts in the heart and it closes itself. But the heart is also the medicine for suffering. Dittmar reported on the brain researcher Tania Singer, who studied the effect of the ‘Loving Kindness Meditation’ on the brain and was able to show that compassion can be learned. In compassion, we respond to suffering not with stress, but with help. But our current economic system punishes us when we act from the heart.
Hans-Jürgen Lenz, the initiator, has been working for ten years on the topic of connecting economy and spirituality. The congress is his heart’s project and required one and a half years of preparation, which he gladly provided without monetary benefit. He succeeded in opening the space for the participants as a new field of research and encounter, creating encounters at a deep level and with a high quality of transparency and openness.
The congress united many more lectures and workshops, some of which ran in parallel. A strong field of love and confidence built up, which took people along more and more and formed them into a community. Approaches to cooperation emerged in the small working groups. Many people will certainly stay in contact after the conference. All in all, it was a successful start for a new paradigm of the economy. Many people could feel and realize that they are not alone. The need for community and networking was clearly perceptible and joy and happiness arose because both were possible here. It was encouraging to see that there are so many courageous, sensible and competent people who are on the way to implementing a human world worth living in – and an economy in which spirituality is a natural quality. The conference should take place again.
This article has also been published on the German Website: https://www.tattva.de/kongress-wirtschaft-und-spiritualitaet/
