Vishen Lakhiani uses Ken Wilber's consciousness framework to argue you should assess leaders by their consciousness level, not just their policies. Different stages of consciousness shape how someone leads and makes decisions.
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Ready for some controversy? Okay, this question is pretty controversial. So someone asked, how do we know which political system is the best? Is it socialism? Is it democracy? Is it the ideas espoused by the GOP or the Democrats or any other political party? How do we, as human beings, using what we have learned in personal growth, assess who to vote for, assess what political systems are truly the best? So. So I was having this conversation with Mindvalley author Sri Kumar Rao, right, the incredible famous business school professor. And Rao said that someone once asked this question to a famous Indian philosopher mystic called Swami Vivekananda. So this was several decades ago. And the question that was posed to Vivekananda was, which is the best system for governing human beings? Is it communism? Is it socialism? Is it democracy? And Vivekananda said, it's neither. It's none of those. Rather, it all has to do with the level of consciousness of the leaders who are running that country. It all has to do with the level of consciousness of the leader, not the particular political system. So that leads to another question, right? How do you assess the level of consciousness of your leaders? Because if we have a simple framework for assessing this, we would know who to vote for. If you look at what's happening in the world today, especially with that huge controversy of how Cambridge Analytica mined data from 50 million people on Facebook, then ran ads to manipulate some 50 million people in America to vote for the political party backed by Cambridge Analytica, which we all know was the Trump campaign, you will see that many people are so influenced by fake news, are so influenced by fake promises, because you haven't been trained to assess the level of consciousness of a candidate. So what I want to teach you is a simple framework. It comes from Ken Wilber, who's another incredible philosopher here at Mindvalley, that shows you how to assess level of consciousness. He says that human society evolves into four different stages of consciousness. Right at the bottom is what you call the egocentric stage. People were in the egocentric stage maybe 10,000 years ago, right, when you were a hunter gatherer and you came across a bison and there was another hunter gatherer, and either you killed it and got the food for your tribe, or he did, and so you and him might go to war. There was no collaboration. It was all about the ego, egocentric societies basically looking at only themselves and the survival of their immediate him. Ken Wilber says that between 1 to 2% of humanity today is at the egocentric stage. The next level is where we have now evolved. It's called ethnocentric. Ethnocentric means, yes, you are kind, you are generous, you are loving, you think of other people. But you limit that to people who fit your idea of your tribe. And that may be your ethnicity, your skin color, your religion, your nation. 70% of human society today is ethnocentric. It is not bad, it's not good, it's just not at the highest level. Ethnocentrism is when you decide that your nation comes first, that your religion has all the answers and the other guys don't get it. That's ethnocentrism. You can easily detect an ethnocentric leader because they are the ones who talk about separating the UK from Europe. It was ethnocentrist leaders like Nigel Farage who pushed for Brexit. It's ethnocentric leaders who talk about building walls. They are appealing to a lower level of human consciousness. So what is above ethnocentrism? Ken Wilber calls it world centrism. World centrism is when, yes, you love your country, you love your religion, but you recognize that it is one of many other nations and religions. And your kindness, your compassion, extends to the entire human species. People who are world centric, they love travel. They are worried as much about kids starving in Venezuela as kids starving in their own country. World centric people see the world in a different way. No one is saying that one is right or wrong. What I am saying is that we progress as a human species. Ethnocentrism may have been necessary in some nations a hundred years ago. You have to fight for your nation during events like World War II. You have to proudly wear your flag. But in today's world, is ethnocentrism holding us back or taking us forward as a species? You decide. World centrism, in my opinion, is where you want to play at. World centrist leaders are leaders who take care of their country, but also ensure that their country is contributing to the collective human species. They do not pull out of global warming treaties. They rally the entire world to support planet Earth. They do not blindly declare war or attack other countries or put down other people because of their religion or skin color they embrace. You always want to vote for world centric leaders. Now there's a level above that. And that level is what Ken Wilber calls cosmocentric. Cosmocentric, sometimes spelled with a K, sometimes with a C, is where you don't just extend your compassion and kindness to everyone on planet Earth, but You think about all life. You think about all sentient beings across the entire universe. You think multiple generations down. If you're running a business, it's not about short term shareholder value. It's not about taking high fructose corn syrup and pushing it as happiness in a red can because you know you're poisoning the human species. It's not about being the marketing minds behind Nestle's Milo, which positions a sugary drink as a requirement for kids in Asia to be cosmocentric means in your decisions, in the leaders you elect. You think multiple generations down. You're not looking to just improve your country today for this election cycle, for this generation. You're thinking, how can I think about my children's children? So there you have it. That's a simple framework to decide the consciousness of your leader and people. The next time you vote. Stop believing bullshit on Facebook and instead observe the dialogue, observe the messages, observe the stuff that's coming out of your leader's mouth. And know this. Ethnocentric leaders have an edge in today's world because they gain votes by fear. There's a part of our brain, the reptilian part of our brain, that is evolved to protect us. And so fear appeals to that part. It arouses us, it gets us attention. Entire broadcasting networks like Fox News have built their empire tapping into the reptilian brain. So when you see someone who talks about building walls or banning people of a different color of separating their country, they United Kingdom from Europe, often these are based on lies. They're based on irrational fears for a world that has long disappeared. And these men and women hold us back at a regressive level of human consciousness. Instead, give your vote to the leader who embraces unity. World centric leaders, cosmo centric business people, that's where you want to focus your attention on. That's who you want to vote for. So remember this before your next election cycle. Thank you so much for watching. Be sure to subscribe.
