On July 1st, Mary Montgomery published at www.lightworks.com of her experience hearing Alfredo speak at DePaul University and listening to his radio interview on Chicago PBS show Worldview…

On Indigenous wisdom she writes the following…

As promised, this month’s column dovetails with June’s Cyberweave column, “The Vision of Spiritual Entrepreneurship and Management.” Last month I focused on the idea that the global survival depends on a business model that is grounded in spirituality. The idea of spiritual entrepreneurship and management is being promoted by Alfredo Sfeir-Younis, president and founder of the Zambuling Institute for Human Transformation (http://silentpeacemeditation.com) and a retired World Bank environmental economist.

As a World Bank official, Sfeir-Younis gleaned a lot of insights into spirituality around the world including the spirituality of indigenous peoples. After retiring and founding the Zambuling Institute, Sfeir-Younis’s understanding of indigenous spirituality deepened even further. He believes that indigenous people have important messages that we need to listen to.

For example, during Sfeir-Younis’s April 30th interview on Worldview, Chicago Public Radio’s global affairs program hosted by Jerome McDonnell (www.wbez.org/Program_WV.aspx), he was asked what lessons indigenous people could teach us about pollution. Basically, Sfeir-Younis believes that these people have three important lessons for the rest of us—lessons that should be listened to for the sake of the earth and future generations of humanity.

Lesson #1: Sfeir-Younis states, “I think that one thing that is a very important lesson is that these communities have lived on this planet for a long time so they have found ways to really live in a sustainable form, in a sustainable fashion. This is not only in terms of the maximization of our present benefits, present consumption, present profit, but they look at their integration with nature very long term … I think there are many, many experiences around the world—in Latin America, in Asia, in Africa—that demonstrate that these populations, by having understood natural cycles and ways to deal with different forms of nature, they can live in better communion than we in cities and developed countries.”

Lesson #2: Sfeir-Younis states, “…there are many choices that we make today that will have tremendous impact in the long term future. And many of us who belong to the market and we expect the market to give us signals on how to behave, we find out that the market is not giving proper signals to long-term benefits. This is why we are destroying the Amazon, this is why we are destroying bio-diversity—and the market is not providing the right signals for this to really change its course.”

Lesson #3: Sfeir-Younis states, “I think it’s also important to listen to what is it that nature gives us. This sounds very basic, but most people really don’t see too many benefits of a tree—the tree is something that is there; maybe we cut it to burn some wood or build furniture or build a house, but they don’t see intelligence in nature and when I learned from them what was there and when I practiced with them what was there, I really began to understand that if we are going to live in this planet in a way that is sustainable, that is to say economically sustainable, socially sustainable, and environmentally sustainable, we have to have a different understanding of natural law. And I think these people have a tremendous role to teach us.”

Sfeir-Younis’s knowledge about these lessons from indigenous people comes from direct experience. Over the years, he has become increasingly involved in learning about the holistic views of the Mapuche, Maya, Kuna and Lakota peoples. In fact, he is a Mayan priest. Worldview’s Jerome McDonnell asked him about this aspect of his spiritual journey. Sfeir-Younis was invited to study with Mayan priests during a visit to El Salvador where he was giving a lecture for Earth Day. His first experience with Mayan spirituality was with the Maya fire, one of the five elements of life (the others are earth, water, wind, and space). He explained his journey to Mayan priesthood:

“So, I began to learn. You do what they tell you about nature, about knowledge, about practices. And it’s something that they give you this title. It’s not that you go to school and sit there in a classroom. You just go around and begin to find wisdom in the elder, wisdom in nature, wisdom in the children, wisdom in the grandmothers and grandfathers of this planet. And I have learned a lot. It has really brought to me tremendous wealth of knowledge into my economist career and also as president of the Institute.”

It is through the Zambuling Institute that Sfeir-Younis works to put his ideas into practice. For example, his is giving back to the people who shared their knowledge with a proposal to create a Bank for Indigenous Peoples and also by spreading the word about the importance of developing appropriate recognition of indigenous peoples’ wisdom and of providing them with educational systems appropriate to their cultures.

My Advice: In our hearts, we all know that this advice from the indigenous peoples is not only correct, but also vital to our survival. Also, one of Sfeir-Younis’s beliefs is that silent meditation is a key instrument for healing the world and attaining everlasting peace. Find out why at the Zambuling Institute for Human Transformation website (http://silentpeacemeditation.com).

Mary Montgomery is a certified web author and developer. Her company, Montgomery Media Enterprises (“Freelancing with Finesse!”), specializes in public relations, writing projects and web authoring, development and publicity, especially in the non-profit sector. Ms. Montgomery has a Master’s Degree in religious studies from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) and is working on a Ph.D. with a focus on the new scholarship of Unlimited Love and the Other Regarding Virtues. She is also in the process of completing the Morris Pratt Institute Course on Modern Spiritualism. Contact her via e-mail at monty764@sbcglobal.net.