General Information
Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (SHEN) is an organization based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is dedicated to the promotion, development and delivery of education in the spiritual heritage of humanity with a view to engendering human integration both locally and globally.
Modern science and technology has turned the world into a global village, but the human mind is still out of sync with this development. To close this gap, SHEN is proposing that an all-inclusive universal spiritual education curriculum be incorporated in the global educational systems. SHEN hopes that such an initiative will help integrate fragmented humanity into one human family living in the wider world community.
SHEN is of the opinion that the present educational systems whether secular or religion-based have not only failed to globalize the human mind but also contributed to an exacerbation of human fragmentation and it must be modified as follows to bring humanity within the global village metaphor:
- Peak spiritual discoveries of all prophets, sages and seers testify to one ineffable spiritual reality underlying the universe and all its beings, animate or inanimate.
- This reality defines the spirituality that lies at the core of every religion (core spirituality) and is inclusive and unifying, excluding none.
- Spirituality is the ability to perceive this underlying reality and celebrate our differences in its light.
- Understanding of this reality is didactic in nature and well within the scope of today’s humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and life sciences taught with spiritual meaning and purpose.
- Understanding and living of our core spirituality can address the grave human and environmental crises of global proportions that humanity faces today.
- Fragmentation of humanity results from the historical exclusive development in isolation of cultural and linguistic communities with their particular imagery and metaphors, social and legal organizations, and political and economic aspirations.
Education to globalize the human mind involves integration of knowledge and understanding of all disciplines whether secular or religious to clearly highlight the principle that this universe comprised of the animate and the inanimate is one indivisible whole as a result of it being the manifestation of one unseen reality which pervades it through and through. In addition to the conceptual understanding, the curriculum must include contemplative and meditative theory and practices for personal assimilation, insights and discovery in order to live our spiritual reality.
Towards this end, SHEN plans a series of meetings to focus on the promotion, development and delivery of the curricula with unifying objectives. First such meeting was timed to mark SHEN’s 10th anniversary year in 2010.