Kindness & Kosmos

Tom Yeomans

Mar 5-7, 2010

Kindness is a quality of the soul and a choice to act for the good of the whole. Rooted in awareness, it starts with oneself, extends to others, and flows out to the whole of creation. Natural to human beings, kindness can be cultivated, and it can be stunted. Lack of kindness sows the seeds of disconnection, destruction, and despair.

Kosmos is a beautiful word in Ancient Greek; it means the beauty of the whole and also that there is a deep order to the world. When we are deeply connected to our souls – when we have ripened as souls – we experience how incredibly beautiful and deeply orderly the world is. Human beings have this perception naturally, for it is how the soul sees the world all the time, but we fragment that perception because of our suffering and our inability to stay connected to who we really are.

Kindness and Kosmos spring from the realization that we are unique human beings alive in a living universe. The challenge and practice, then, is to remove the obstacles to this realization and to learn to live it more consistently, rather than in glimpses. As we do this, kindness quickens and kosmos prevails. We find new ways of being that are creative and enable us to thrive. And we are better equipped to navigate the uncertainties of living that we face, individually and as a species.

On this retreat, we will explore the challenges and confront the obstacles, within and around us, to kindness and kosmos, and we will strengthen these experiences within our daily lives. The principles and practices on which this work will be based are drawn from Analytical Psychology, Psychosynthesis, and Spiritual Psychology. We will explore how we experience Kindness and Kosmos in our lives already, what keeps us from this connection, and how to enhance its depth and frequency. We will also learn from the group dialogue, which will be balanced with periods of solitary reflection. Weather permitting, we will spend time outdoors. Suggested reading: Duane Elgin’s The Living Universe.

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Thomas Yeomans, PhD, has been involved in the Human Consciousness Movement for forty years. He studied Psychosynthesis with Roberto Assagioli in the early ’70s, and has trained professionals in Psychosynthesis and Spiritual Psychology throughout North America, Europe, and Russia. He has published writing on psychosynthesis and spiritual psychology as well as three volumes of poetry and a children’s book. He is founder and director of the Concord Institute and is at present working on a book about the soul and spirituality in this time of global crisis and transformation.