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Foundational Quests
There are three foundational quests: the quest for knowledge, the quest
for consciousness and the quest for meaning. In the quest process groups spend
three to five days in inquiry, dialogue, self reflection, study and conversation
to gain deeper insights into themselves and to better understand our
organizations and the world we live in. Sessions are informal, with small group
breakouts for specific tasks, full group discussions, short lectures, and
presentations of results. Experienced, knowledgeable leaders/facilitators ensure
effective inquiry through open communication, dialogue, and mutual respect.
Significant time is set aside for use of the 14,000 volume library, meditation
through the Labyrinth, self-reflection, social interaction, and relaxation.
Each person's journey will be different, because each of us travels our own
path through life. The underlying theme is to better know ourselves, others, our
situations, and the world around us. Each of these realities give us both
insight and opportunities. As in many explorations, we expect more questions
will be raised than answers found. However, the journey itself may well be the
answer.
- The Quest for Knowledge
(path to high performance)
- As the pace of our lives quickens and the work environment becomes more
dynamic, uncertain and complex, our greatest strength is our knowledge, our
capacity to understand and take effective action. This Quest focuses on
knowledge: what it is, what it means to each of us, and how to find, create,
share and apply it. We can all improve the way we learn, how we manage our
own knowledge and use it to make better choices and decisions in our
personal and professional lives. Managing and leveraging our own knowledge
to help ourselves, others and our organizations may be the greatest challenge
we face. By exploring knowledge, its strengths, limitations and
possibilities we can learn about ourselves and how to manage and apply
knowledge to grow and become more competent. By exploring such processes as
conversation, listening, reading, dialogue, discussion, reflection,
relationships, networking and inquiry we can improve our capacity to create,
leverage and apply knowledge. By exploring the strengths and limitations of
logic, analysis, reductionism, mathematics and science, we can better assess
their value limitations and applicability to understanding and solving
problems. By exploring how our experience, intuition, judgment, knowing, and
unconscious mind can help us learn and understand we open other avenues for
learning and sharing and using knowledge.
- The Quest for Consciousness
(window to the world)
- This journey is an inquiry into the nature and meaning of consciousness
and its impact on our lives. Consciousness is essentially the window through
which we understand and relate to the external world. Thus consciousness,
the brain, the mind, the unconscious, intuition and feelings are what we
have to work with in sensing, interpreting and acting on the world. Other
subjects discussed include the mind/body problem, maintaining a healthy
brain/mind, altered states of consciousness, lucid dreaming, knowing,
hemispheric synchronization and heart-math. Understanding consciousness is
an age old problem and an active area of current research and debate.
Nevertheless, as an inquiry into possibilities, this Quest looks at
consciousness from the viewpoint of how we can use what is known and what we
learn through introspection, study and dialogue with others to help
understand ourselves and thereby become our own agents of change and growth.
- The Quest for Meaning
(roots of wisdom)
- The deepest questions we can ask usually relate to the purpose and
meaning of things. Whether we are contemplating the meaning of the Universe,
the purpose of Life, the meaning of our own lives or the significance of
some event to us or someone we love, we are continuously trying to
understand our world and our place in it. While there are few, if any,
definitive answers to questions of meaning, many people have thought through
the possibilities and there is much to be learned from them. Gaining an
awareness of what science, philosophy, religion and spiritualism say about
the meaning of things can help each of us seek and understand and appreciate
our own place in the Universe. Seeing how other individuals have found
meaning in their lives and learning how to assess a situation for meaning
and purpose will provide a broader perspective for our own search.
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- Thinking about what is really important to us: truth, beauty,
goodness, love, our family, wealth, power, etc. will allow us to better
understand ourselves and perhaps to gain the knowledge and wisdom needed to
make decisions and help others we care for. This exploration offers many
ideas--if they come at all, the answers must come from each of us personally.
The quest provides an atmosphere, a process, and an opportunity for study,
reflection, dialoguing with others with similar interest in interpreting and
understanding our world. Potential topics for discussion include scientific
and religious explanations of the origin of the universe, sense-making,
wisdom, the roles of art, rituals, music, signs and symbols and architecture
in finding meaning, and how others have found meaning in their lives, work
and religion.
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