Theme of the Conference

The over-arching theme of the conference every year is Education to Globalize the Human Mind. It also describes the purpose of the SHEN conference initiative, i.e. to explore education required to help us reach beyond our limited and finite individual identities to those of global human beings. Global human identities help us reach beyond our misguided “us” vs “them” conflicts and tribalism connecting us with common good of humanity as a whole.

Ancient Wisdom of Oneness and Wellness for Modern Living is the sub-theme of the 2017 conference. A sub-theme or tagline is meant to specify a particular modality of achieving the broad purpose indicated by the over-arching theme. This particular conference then will focus its light on education to help us cognize the underlying oneness of seemingly diverse beings in the universe. The underlying oneness of the diverse universe is the invaluable gift of ancient wisdom traditions around the globe.

Ancient wisdom traditions also realized the relationship between the cognition of oneness and the state of wellness of individuals, communities and humanity as a whole. Cognition of diversity without that of its underlying oneness promotes competing and conflicting relationships leading humanity to lives of fear and mistrust in a state of constant “fight or flight”. The state of “fight or flight” is known to rob us of physical health, mental health, thinking and learning ability, cognition of community, connectedness and belonging, emotional and spiritual intelligence. Evidence of the disastrous effects of living in fight or flight is so clearly visible today in the prevalent state of mental and physical health, human suffering, and senseless greed and violence around the world.