The Power of One Becomes the Power of Many

by Emanuel Kuntzelman

In order to express the depth of my own feelings about social transformation, it's fair to say this has been a passion for the last forty years or more. Having seen in the late 60s and early 70s, the beginnings of an energy crisis and potential world conflicts threatening civilization as we know it, I dedicated my life and livelihood to doing whatever I could to raise awareness to these issues to overcome the divisions that politics, religion and cultural upbringing have established today.

A lot of time has passed, the obstacles are increasing, the stakes are getting higher and the crisis is deepening, but it is never too late to act. In fact, the depth of the crisis is in many ways our greatest ally in coming together and finding solutions. The deeper the problem, the more people will rally and the more creative the answers will be. But I have always been by nature an optimist, and while I often call attention to the severity of the challenges we face, it has always been in the sense of focusing on the need to find solutions rather than merely broadcasting a doomsday scenario.

Now, more than ever, I remain in the optimist camp. I truly believe in the evolutionary potential and innate goodwill of human consciousness to work together and create reasonable, practical and innovative solutions to the global crisis.

This requires leaving many of our preconceived concepts and cherished notions behind, and truly opening our minds to new, broader visions about who we are and what we can be. The evolution of the individual into the separate self is now coming to an end. 

Descartes’s famous words of “I think, therefore, I am,” which set us apart and pitted us against each other in our individual struggles for recognition, is now vanishing before our eyes. That initial notion of consciousness as separate selves is coming full circle, leading us to a literal Second Coming of Consciousness.

The awe and wonder are no longer about individual essence, but rather, about collective power. As we share our visions and join forces, we see that the power of One becomes the power of Many and adds up to far more than the sum of individual parts. There’s an energy fusion of the coherence of minds, thinking alike to bring forth a movement for social justice, equal distribution of resources and the well-being of humanity as a whole. The common will within us all is to share the riches of our wealth and understanding with others, to treat others as we would have them treat ourselves, and to empower and expand the lives and consciousness of everyone on the planet. We can’t take our accomplishments with us at the end of this life as individual beings, but we can leave a great heritage for future generations through the work we perform in social connection and taking action for a higher purpose.

We are transcending the struggle for existence for the individual and subjugating it to the need of helping society survive. Descartes’s famous words of “I think, therefore, I am” which set us apart and pitted us against each other and our individual struggles for recognition, is now vanishing before our eyes. That initial notion of consciousness as separate selves, is coming full circle, leading us to a literal Second Coming of Consciousness.