Join virtually, with family, friends and colleagues for the launch of ‘a planetary journey to the rescue of the 2030 Agenda (UNToday), Monday 22 April 2024, from 6.30pm to 7.47pm Cairo/Harare/Geneva time (77 Minutes for 7 Generations) Register here.

Kosmos | Alexander, your career spans diverse fields from academia to banking and now transformative education and integral philosophy. So what were the moments or insights that led you to transition from these more conventional industries to focus on holistic transformation?

Alexander | I had an early sense that business has to be understood as an integral part of society, and that we need to look at economics and business in a much more holistic way than we do. After my own experience in investment banking, in running my own publishing company in Singapore for many years, I saw how distorted conventional education is in terms of not preparing us to create regenerative enterprises, but rather the opposite. In Singapore, around 2000, I saw how an entire country was sold out to a western paradigm, and had turned into a huge shopping mall. I felt something was utterly wrong if a country with such powerful cultural roots is so disconnected from its own origins.

Also critically important in my life, right at that time, my younger brother, my closest relationship in the family, contracted cancer. And within four months he was gone. At that time I knew that I had to give everything, full heartedly, to bring about a shift of paradigm. I supported the shift initially through education, then I co-created an organization called TRANS4M which worked on transformative education to help build regenerative (integral, as we call it)  organizations, community initiatives, schools, universities around the world.

Kosmos | And Rama, how does your background in political science intersect with your approach to transformational peace building and justice work?

Rama | The only reason I chose politics was due to my experience growing up in India. I was madly in love with my country, but I was  constantly horrified that a country that had such depth and such beauty could also be such a place of violence and injustice. I was horrified by what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, how casually a human being could treat another human being as subhuman. I just knew that we as human beings are capable of treating each other with so much more generosity and compassion – with, interbeing, to use the beautiful term that connects us so deeply. And I felt I had to give my life to bring about that transformation – in people, and in institutions and laws that instigate or justify inhumanity. That’s why I initially felt I had to enter politics.

Very fortunately for me, when I was about thirty, Spirit called me back with a huge bang and made me realize that it was not my life purpose after all to work within politics or indeed within any existing system or institution – but rather to transform the system and the paradigm of power  itself, from the outside. It was my discovery of a beautiful Buddhist text on the compassionate warrior that awakened me to my soul purpose and to the realization that it all begins in here, in the soul, and that conflicts and injustices out there are a reflection of the unaddressed shadows inside us. This is today at the core of Home for Humanity’s integral approach of activating simultaneously the ‘inner home’ of personal transformation, the ‘local home’ of home and community-based transformative initiatives, and the ‘Earth home’ of contributing to planetary wellbeing.

Kosmos | Alexander, when did you hear your heart’s calling? 

Some 18 years ago, I was moving to Geneva and  looking for a place in nature. Through serendipity, I met Rama in 2007 in the midst of the French countryside near Geneva, in the home which has become the Integral Campus of Home for Humanity. Over time, we realized one very important thing: that in an integral, authentic expression of who we are, the very environment that one is living and working in, becomes part of the story. A calling has to be embodied. It has to be visceral. Yes, integral philosophy and yes to theory and academia, but if it’s not embodied, if it doesn’t lead to real social and personal change, I’m not interested. There was a radical commitment growing in me, to follow the heart’s calling. And from that evolved inner stage, the words ‘Home for Humanity’ landed in our hearts, as an expression of our collective hearts’ calling.

Together we placed the very notion of home at the center of our work. The co-creation of a new paradigm, would need to begin at the place where one lives and works. In fact, almost all the transformative organizations and initiatives, around the planet, that we had been working with in the past two to three decades, had been initiated in a home or “home-like” environment, with deep connections to local nature and culture. As we supported the emergence of such pioneers of regeneration in literally all continents, a deep sense of belonging and inclusion, of rootedness in space and story, became the starting point for such processes – and is at the heart of Home for Humanity.

A home for humanity can be many things. It can be an enterprise, it can be a school, it can be literally anything, but it has to be an authentic, rooted expression, to build the future.  Every home has the potential to unfold its potential for systems change, if it stands on solid ecological, relational and cultural grounds.

Kosmos | And Rama, How do the Arts, and your Theatre of Transformation fit into the Journey?

Rama | I had just completed my PhD at the University of Cambridge in the UK, on restoring justice after violent conflict and genocides, and was living in Ethiopia, working for a non-profit, as a policy advisor for conflicts across Africa. On a peace mission in Somalia, in the middle of the night, I received my most powerful epiphany.

The central message was to create a place in the midst of nature where people of very diverse backgrounds, cultures and circumstances can come together, can feel at home, and can co-imagine and co-create the future. And that is indeed what has emerged with the Home for Humanity movement, not just at our own home, but with growing numbers of diverse ‘homes for humanity’ connected worldwide.

Art was at the core of this vision. That art has the power to transcend past, present, and future. And art is also a way to be really present to pain and to create the possibility of imagining a future that transcends the present situation.

And indeed, art, what we call Earth Artistry, will be central to the One Home Journey: as we shall encounter Earth Artists in every country, whose art heals and unites humanity, revitalises culture and regenerates the Earth.

Theatre of Transformation was born quite miraculously in January 2014 – at the instigation of Jean Houston –  who remains Alexander’s and my closest friend and soul guide, and who serves as co-chair of our Home for Humanity movement. Jean hosted my first ‘recital’, where I enacted the stories of people who had transformed themselves and consequently their societies in the face of crisis. Over the past 10 years, through hundreds of tailor-made public performances and workshops worldwide I’ve enacted the real life testimonies of over 100 real-life people I’ve encountered and been inspired by – including many of our home for humanity pioneers. Each time, I discovered with my audiences and participants the truth of our interbeing – with each other, with the world, and with the future we most desire – and the power of transformation we hold  within and between all of us. Theatre of Transformation will travel with us as a way to story the remarkable people we meet and to support their transformation into the future they long for. Alexander’s poetry too will be a key catalyst on this journey. Yes, Earth Artistry in all these forms will be central to the One Home journey.

Kosmos | So where does that bring us today? 

Alexander | Over the past 17 years together, Rama and I incrementally brought together our respective work of previous decades in personal, local/cultural and planetary transformation with our communities of practice across Africa, Asia, the America, the Arab world and in Europe. We began to converge and synergise as the Home for Humanity movement for planetary regeneration, with an integral vision grounded in the scientific paradigm and perennial wisdom of the interconnected wholeness of life. The movement has grown rapidly across all continents. With the dramatic turn of world events, we could feel that our movement was being called to fulfill a bigger vision and mission, to support and accelerate whole systems’ transition. And then it happened! In the midst of our silent retreat in 2023 we received the vision of the One Home Journey, of traveling to all countries on earth, home to home, hosted by our local home for humanity partners, to seek responses to the single question: “How do we live together in harmony with ourselves, with each other, and with all life on our home planet?” And our hearts said yes. It wasn’t even a question.

Kosmos | What does a seven-year journey look like for you on a practical level the next few months? How will it unfold? When will it begin? How can people follow you and become involved?

Rama |  It felt very appropriate that it start or be inaugurated on Mother Earth Day, which is the 22nd of April. And very beautifully, given that art has come up so often, the 21st of April is the international day of creativity and innovation. Those three words – Earth, Creativity and Innovation – summarize what the journey is going to be like. In every country, first and foremost, we will start by honoring the wisdom of Mother Earth in her specific geography, starting off with what is considered a  the sacred space that symbolizes unity for its people: whether it’s a mountain, a river, or a forest. There we will deeply listen to the indigenous people or wisdom keepers of the land. Next, we will speak and work with artists, and co-perform with them, listening to their stories as I used to do in countries in conflict, and invite them to create beautiful imaginative visions of the future. Then, we will meet and hear the stories from the ecological pioneers and social innovators who are creating possibilities for a regenerative and inclusive future. We will also teach, mentor and catalyze aspiring future-builders, especially youth and women from marginalized and conflict-affected backgrounds, so they can innovate their purpose-based initiatives to regenerate themselves, their communities and the Earth.

We will be inaugurating the journey at Sekem, our home for humanity in Egypt, described as the miracle in the Egyptian Desert, together with World Future Council, which is one of the 15 partner organizations and movements that is collaborating with the One Home Journey. 

Starting right on 22 April, everyone is warmly invited to accompany, engage with or support the Inaugural Season of the One Home Journey and the One Home UnivEARTHsity.

During this Inaugural Season, from 22^nd of April, Mother Earth Day, till 21st of September, which is International Peace Day, we shall launch and pilot together all our key programs, each time from a different world region, with our diverse local Homes for Humanity and global partner organizations.  People can join us live, onsite or online, for our extended ‘Happy Hours’ of ’77 minutes for 7 generations’, to experience and co-create each of these transformative moments with us.

On 22 September 2024, just as the UN’s intergovernmental Summit of the Future begins in New York, we will begin this collective expedition of humanity for our shared future in harmony with all life on Earth. Our first Season begins, naturally, in Africa, the cradle of humanity, with Zimbabwe and South Africa. Each year, over four seasons, we will circumnavigate the Earth, covering about 30 countries across all world regions, for seven years till 2030.

Week after week, people who join us can extend the web of connection and co-creation with the family of life on Earth. Through the One Home Journey and One Home UnivEARTHsity, each week, we will co-discover the infinite diversity and underlying unity of humanity and the interconnected ecosystem of the Earth that sustains us.

Alexander |  The One Home UnivEARTHsity is the vehicle for literally everyone to engage with the One Home Journey. Via four 12-week-seasons every year, one in every major world region, aspiring Earth Citizens can join us in numerous ways. People joining from around the world can develop a whole new perspective on humanity, week by week – while growing into a planetary community of co-learners and co-innovators.

The One Home UnivEARTHsity is also a container for living knowledge from all countries, accessible, as a Global Knowledge Commons, to everyone. This is a very important aspect. The knowledge that is shared and surfaced, is a gift to humanity.

Kosmos | We love what you’re doing and we will try to be with you psychically, energetically, and even physically in some cases. 

Rama | We are such great admirers of Kosmos, so it means the world to us to have your energetic support accompanying us! We would LOVE to meet with Kosmos in person perhaps once a season or at least once a year to exchange stories! We know we will meet MANY of the remarkable people and inspirational initiatives featured in your pages over the years as we travel around our One Home!

Kosmos | I feel a lot of happiness for you both. Thank you so much for sharing with us today. And we will keep an eye out for the Home for Humanity documentary film!