Do you ever wonder what keeps people apart, why humanity is split along innumerable lines such as religion, community, culture, race, color, gender etc.? Do you want to build bridges to build cohesive and loving pluralistic societies and the global village that the world has now become?
In the opinion of Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (SHEN), the main reason of the current divisiveness is the lack of education in our schools, colleges, and universities in matters dealing with our underlying unity, interconnectedness, shared values and their spiritual roots. Our goal is to close this gap. SHEN plans to reach its goal by promoting, developing and undertaking research and education in spiritual heritage of humanity.
It is our position that religion unites people into communities; while spirituality is all inclusive and unites the entire humanity. Besides, spirituality also unites humanity with nature. Spirituality is totally inclusive and unifying and it knows no boundaries. It lies at the core of all religion; see the Figure below showing a graphical representation of the Anatomy of Religion.
Why then is there divisiveness and historic identity savagery? We attribute them to a lack of discernment between core spirituality and the surrounding religious doctrine. This lack of discernment is wide spread today and it is primarily responsible for the current human and environmental crises. We hope to address its underlying causes through the proposed education in spiritual heritage of humanity.
The core spirituality is equally meaningful to people of faith and of no faith. It also is didactic in nature and its validation lies well within the jurisdiction of today’s humanities, social, natural and life sciences. We aim to develop integrated multi-disciplinary multi-religious curricula focusing only on the inclusive core spirituality. We regard it as the most suitable vehicle to transform deep human consciousness to address the crises humanity faces today.
We need young people with open minds to help define education in shared spirituality and moral values in a diverse setting. We envision the work to be inter-disciplinary and inter-religious. We require it to be all-inclusive, irrespective of faith or the lack of it. Our goal is public education to enable the perception of our essential oneness.
SHEN is aware of the magnitude of their educational mission. It is not something that any selected group of people, in any particular time and/or place can achieve once and for all time. It is a process that we seek to initiate; a process which will evolve and expand to include people of diverse experiences, cultures, perspectives, religions, philosophies, etc., but who share the common desire to encourage and to facilitate a deep probing of the human spirit and its relationship to the universal spirit, both for themselves and for all other interested persons.
To this end, we seek volunteers for various roles:
- to take charge, make policy and guide;
- to advise on legal, copyright and risk protection;
- to administer, coordinate and manage;
- to research and develop courses;
- to fill various bibliographic and library functions;
- to teach and/or support the teaching process;
- to write and/or edit;
- to lobby and promote integrative education;
- to reach out to the community;
- to fundraise;
- to provide secretarial and office assistance;
- to fill book-keeping and accounting roles;
- And for numerous other roles.
If our vision inspires and its potential ignites your imagination, we need to hear from you. Please get in touch with us by e-mailing:
Seeking for a Volunteer Position
Hello,
I am a 3rd year Economic student in University of Waterloo. I am very interested in doing some volunteer jobs in Shen. Do you still need some volunteers ?
Thanks
Ming Du
In reply to Seeking for a Volunteer Position by mrdu
Let us meet
Thank you for your interest in helping us. We do need help. Please e-mail me at info@spiritualeducation.org to arrange for us to meet.