On I Cannesn’t Go For That (No Cannes Do): But Karl Can

fille_a_paris and I are going to Cannes next week – it’s particularly exciting because our flight on Thursday morning is so early that we’re having to spend Wednesday night in a hotel in Luton, so it’s like two holidays in one. I decided to visit the “What’s On…Out ‘n About” page of Luton Today to see if there were any exciting events lined up for our one night in Luton*, but all I found was a meeting at the Central Library where Luton’s Baha’i community are going to discuss “spiritual solutions to economic problems”. Well that’s not really my kind of thing.

 http://wardytron.livejournal.com/215835.html

 The gentleman (and his girl) didn’t go to the meeting, but Karl did, as he was the one to give the presentation. How did it go, Karl? -gw

I have just returned from giving a presentation on ‘Spiritual Solutions To Economic Problems’. I had an interesting conversation with members of the audience (including a Sikh and Hindu gentleman). It was heartening to hear the common agreement on the need for a new economic paradigm based on spiritual values. One of the quotations I used was from a message from the supreme governing body of the Baha’i Faith, The Universal House Of Justice. It reads- 

‘This unprecedented economic crisis, together with the social breakdown it has helped to engender, reflects a profound error of conception about human nature itself. For the levels of response elicited from human beings by the incentives of the prevailing order are not only inadequate, but seem almost irrelevant in the face of world events. We are being shown that, unless the development of society finds a purpose beyond the mere amelioration of material conditions, it will fail of attaining even these goals. That purpose must be sought in spiritual dimensions of life and motivation that transcend a constantly changing economic landscape and an artificially imposed division of human societies into “developed” and “developing”.