Re-Villaged Communities
Re-villaged communities are friends who usually live near each other, though not necessarily, who have decided this group will be one of their closest circles of friends. What they share is a commitment: to self-elder themselves to full maturity in the skill of self-consciousness, and once that is accomplished, to be continuously maturing in the skill of Eldering.
They are a close group of friends committed to being there for each other, loving toward each other, respectful of one another, and always forgiving of each other’s mistakes. We all long for such a community of friends in our lives. Today, that kind of community is rare and hard to build on our own — this is an opportunity to together create it with both new and old close friends.
Remember that mastering the skill of self-consciousness is the fundamental personal growth process in which we are all naturally and effortlessly maturing. Any spiritual, philosophical, scientific, or other belief system can be added on top of it.
These “re-villaged communities of friends,” as we label them, are usually formed using “organic membership”: the first person chooses the second person, they choose the third, they choose the fourth, and so on. This process forms a strong bond of commitment among everyone to the agreements described above. By contrast, inviting anyone who simply shows up at a meeting to join results in a much weaker bond of commitment.
These re-villaged communities of friends usually form after members have attended a SO Weekend Seminar and, afterward, have participated in a SO Support Group for a period of time. Doing so allows participants to deepen their knowledge, understanding, and skill in operating at the two higher layers of maturity in the skill of self-consciousness.
There is no fee for participating in either the SO Support Group or Re-Villaged Community. Both are self-organized, usually using the guidelines eventually provided on this website.
When you have formed a Re-villaged Community of friends, we invite you to list it on this website by the name you have chosen for it, its geographic location, and its contact person’s information — name, email, and phone number (listing that information for its members is also encouraged but not necessary). You can also indicate whether you are open or closed to new members. We can then keep all your members, or only your contact person, informed of activities and events that may be of interest to you.
We will encourage your Re-villaged Community to join with other local communities in an association we call an Agreement Nation. This is a nation defined by agreement rather than by geography as our current geographic nations are defined. It is a nation because we attend to all the needs of our members (we don’t call them “citizens,” as geographic nations do). We remain responsible citizens and active in our geographic nations, doing what we can to help them mature, but our priority is now our agreement nation.
We do not polarize the two; we prioritize them and value both.
We give priority to our agreement nation because it is the loving way to take full responsibility for our own lives. It also lets us participate in maturing humanity by offering a more mature nation to prioritize, without confronting existing geographic systems. Like the Pilgrims, who — rather than confront the monarchy in Great Britain — sailed to a new land to build a more mature society, within our geographically defined nation, also without confronting them, we are forming what we believe is a more mature nation: an agreement nation based on our knowledge and mastery of the highest two layers of human maturity.
Feel no obligation to join in an association with other Re-villaged Communities to help build an agreement nation — you are always free to choose your own path, and we support that Teen layer of maturity in you. At the same time, we know many of you will want to accept the responsibility of Eldering humanity into its next layer of maturity by helping provide a more mature option for others. So we are making the possibility of an agreement nation available to you.
Ours is named Sensation of Oneness. It is based on what you can read in the book Only Oneness Is Real: This Is Physics, Not Spirituality. We know others will want to start their own agreement nations, adding their own beliefs on top of this same natural maturation process we are all naturally mastering. Each religion may want to start one; each philosophical approach to life may want to start one; each different school of science may want to start one. Individual people may want to start one — Bernie Sanders, Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift, Barack Obama, LeBron James, Tom Hanks, and many others may want to start one for their community. We want to support thousands of agreement nations sprouting and flowering!
These agreement nations will usually be started only by people who believe they can unite with others to share responsibility for moving their own lives — and humanity — toward what they judge to be the next layers of maturity in being human, organized into nations defined by agreement.
These agreement nations will learn from each other and continue to mature as individuals and nations. Hopefully and eventually, they will naturally join in cooperation for the common good of all. Giving priority to cooperation and forging agreements for maturation is the natural next layer of maturity for both geographic and agreement nations.
It will simply be easier for people who have matured into operating at the highest two layers to do it as agreement nations. Also, they know they are providing a more mature option for those who are ready for it. It is also the most loving way — without confrontation — to help geographic nations learn to do the same, having all they do give priority to the common good of all. Historically, this has most often been labeled “moral” or “loving” behavior.
Re-Villaging Your Community
1. When a person decides they want to form a Re-villaged Community as described above, they use organic membership. The agreement is much like a marriage agreement.
2. Yes, the membership in the group can still change because of people moving away, unresolved conflict between some people in the group that can result in a person leaving the group, and any of many other reasons. The group is a dynamic group, with members seldom changing but changing as appropriate. But the initial intention is to remain a close community of friends committed to both mastering the full skill of human self-consciousness and then continuously maturing in the skill of Eldering.
3. Each person in the re-villaged community needs to have plenty of time to get to know any potential new member of the group well before they are invited into the group. Not doing this well, even once, can have a devastating effect on the group. That person will usually be unconsciously operating on the immature worldview that the universe is made of separate parts without knowing it. If the distinction between the two possible fundamental worldviews isn't made clear from the beginning, and the group is committed to learning how to operate on the oneness worldview, a person can easily continue operating on the separate-parts worldview without knowing they're doing it, which can tear the group apart.
4. This is where artful, compassionate, and loving skill becomes important. Someone needs to have the courage to take on assisting the person to become aware of what they are not aware of so they can make the commitment to the oneness worldview. If that fails, the entire group needs to take on the challenge of doing so. If that fails, the group needs to be comfortable asking the person to leave the group rather than allowing the group to end in response.
5. Nothing is more important when forming a Re-villaged Community than this commitment to operating on the fact of oneness with each other, always getting better at it, and having the courage to end a person's participation in the group if that's necessary for the group to continue amicably.
6. One of the best ways to start a Re-villaged Community is to form a Support Group. Now it's not only for personal growth but also for growth as a community, operating beautifully and successfully in the world. Otherwise, the format can be the same. The only other difference is that the Community will have more parties and all kinds of fun together. They will also attend to everything in each other's lives they're welcomed into knowing. They do this so each person can have a fulfilling and fun life, and be consistently Eldering in everything they do. Nothing is more enjoyable than Eldering.