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John Drew, President of EUROTAS gave this paper at Assisi in September. If you know of any person or any organisation interested in the subject, John would like to be in touch as there are many initiatives and we could benefit from knowing about one another.If you contact John on profdrew@eurotas.org please indicate your agreement to your contact details being put on the EUROTAS web where we are thinking of having dedicated pages to discuss the subject. European Spiritual University: Is a Fundamental Change Imminent? Professor John Drew, Assisi 6 September 2000 "It is very clear that many minds are now questing for deeper meaning and a new understanding of the great oneness of life…we may in a true sense be preparing for what might be called a ' University of the Spirit." Synopsis. There have been four fundamental developments in the idea of a University over the past 800 years and now some are asking whether there will be a fifth. This paper describes these models and the author offers as evidence of current changing attitudes, his experience of working with managers on their personal development during the last seven years. He believes that a deeper awareness and a different approach to personal development may be required to respond to the profound changes the next decades will bring to the three circles of our economic, social and inner lives. A closer and more sensitive integration of the three is becoming desirable and perhaps necessary in order to respond to the challenge. Having explored our outer and physical world during the Second Millennium, in Western civilisation at least, we may need to explore more our inner and spiritual world during the Third. Our role models - the family, established religions, the state, work groups, schools and universities - have weakened in recent years as sources of authority. But this vacuum is being filled by the rebirth of a personal, sometimes spiritual dimension to our lives. It is random and uncoordinated at this stage, but could lead to individuals attempting to better organise, direct and take responsibility for their own personal and inner development. The idea of a spiritual university is not new and we may ask why we need to consider it now. There is a felt need a framework for this discussion and perhaps that framework could be the university in the widest sense. This paper points to a few of the initiatives in the United Kingdom and the wide variety of individuals and organisations who are coming together across Europe to discuss the idea of a spiritual university. It may not, indeed probably will not be a university in the traditional sense of the word, but there is widespread discussion about providing new and incorporating existing programmes at all different educational levels. There is concern about the need to encourage mainstream education to take account somehow of spiritual and ethical values. There is discussion about ways of informing, researching, guiding and mentoring. Quality control, recognition, accreditation and co-ordination of spiritual activities will have to be considered. To have an effect on the world, the concept will need to be developed globally. It is important not to lose the gathering momentum. How to achieve this will be complex. The idea of a spiritual university will need to be kept fluid and simple and not be owned but shared. For the 21st Century, the idea of a University is not an important idea; it is the most important idea says Dan Hardy. Charles Handy believes that change comes from small initiatives which work, initiatives which imitated become the fashion. We cannot wait for great visions from great people for they are in short supply. When we drop our little mind like a stone into vast and quiet waters, the stone will disappear in the depths, but the circles will grow ever larger. How can we contribute personally? The idea of a spiritual university will develop only by little steps, but if there are enough steps it could build a ladder to a more spiritual future. The Idea of a European Spiritual University: Is a Fundamental change imminent? I. THE UNIVERSITY IN HISTORY Universities originated in the 12 and 13th centuries in Europe in such places as Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Padua and Naples, to mention but a few. They arose for a number of reasons among those seeking truth and practical training, free from external, especially ecclesiastical domination and control. They often replaced institutions such as the monastic schools and were committed to teaching and study and the pursuit of knowledge and truth. While the idea of a university has developed continuously, there were specific changes in the Middle Ages when their relationship to God, to the ecclesiastic authorities and their organisation and statutes were defined. Faculties of the arts, medicine, law and theology were established. The Early Modern University developed between 1500 and 1800 and was differentiated by a significant change in spatio-temporal awareness. The present was seen as 'new' relative both to Antiquity and the Middle Ages and was exemplified by empirical observation in the sciences, the emergence of the ideals of civility and civilisation and their recognition, often formally by the civil authorities, as places where knowledge was concentrated. While their purpose became more defined in terms of initiation into life, professional training and leadership, their curricula adapted to a changing world of experiment, critical examination and new advances in mathematics and physics. They became a network across Europe and also part of a wider higher education system, with emphasis on faculties and college communities. The Late Modern University which developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was characterised by increasing state interest, dissociation from theological orthodoxy and concern for the totality of knowledge, the combination of research and teaching and considerations of competitive examinations and rising standards of teaching. Two great reformers of the 19th Century, Wilhelm von Humboldt in Germany and Cardinal Newman in England, had a profound influence, both enabling modern changes to our traditional universities and facilitating the emergence of new universities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today's universities are direct descendants of this span of eight hundred years. They now face two types of problem as they seek to adapt to a world which is changing faster than ever before in history. My concern here is not the first type, important though these are for society - the methods of funding, transmitting, regulating, providing and encouraging education and training at different levels and for different times in people's lives. It is rather with the second and more fundamental issue about the role of the university in matters of wisdom and in matters of ethics. II. The Three Circles and The Idea of a University. But before coming on to ethics, may I introduce you to three circles? They are relevant to us all and I would like to show why I believe they are relevant to the changes we will have to make to Universities during the next few decades. I work with managers on their personal development and in synopsis my thesis is as follows: " A deeper awareness and a different approach to personal development may be required to respond to the profound changes the next decades will bring to the three circles of our economic, social and inner lives. A closer and more sensitive integration of the three is becoming desirable and perhaps necessary in order to respond to the challenge that these changing times present. " We can be certain of few things except death, taxes and, during the next ten years, rapid, dramatic and often unforeseen changes in European and global civilization. These changes will be much more condensed in their speed and impact than at any other watershed of history. Now is a time of continuous action. Standing may not be a viable option. The personal and social challenge is enormous. How will we respond? Our civilization is becoming global but paradoxically at the same time, individual. This leads to a two way tugging at national roots – in one direction by steps towards European and global government and in the other by the demands of local communities and individuals for greater freedom of action. This trend can be seen wherever you travel across Europe. We experience this decentralization in Ireland and the United Kingdom through the development of regional assemblies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and power sharing agreements. We see in it Spain in the Basque region; in France in Corsica; in the way the Lander in Germany jealously guard their devolved powers; in Italy North and South. We experience the steps towards European and global government with the development of the Single European Market, the Euro and eEurope and the growing power of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations. I ask managers: " where did you celebrate the Millennium? with whom did you celebrate? what exactly did you celebrate? An answer might begin, I suggest, with three circles: 
Most of us have three circles in our life, the economic or earnings circle, the social circle which includes family and friends and the personal or inner circle which is what we are really about on this sparrow's flight from the cradle to the grave. Like all busy people, managers often find that the economic circle - their work life - tends to squeeze up the other two. It is only when they find space – on a residential course for example, that they have an opportunity to reflect. Yet a growing number of them seem to be are seeking permission to debate some of the "soft" subjects of management - personal development, ethical responsibility, creativity, innovation and intuition, while continuing of course to seek new ideas in the harder subjects such as strategy, financial control, accounting, marketing, information technology and production. What has brought about this change? The Millennium is a time of great challenge and opportunity. The move from 1999 to 2000 by computer clocks was not a world crisis, not even a disaster as embedded microchips in weapons, in nuclear power plants, in off-shore oil rigs and in aircraft control systems failed to crash through careful preparation or perhaps because the problems were not as severe as was expected. But the optimistic aspects of the Millennium are to do with new beginnings, with opportunities in a world, which is fast becoming global economically, with growing environmental awareness, with higher standards of living and a better quality of life. There will be rapid changes. Some feel we have explored our outer world during the Second Millennium and that we shall need to explore more our inner world during the Third. There are signs of this happening at business schools. In corporate life, we are finding more emphasis on personal development. We are beginning to accept ideas such as artists in residence in financial corporations, of poets working with top management in Boeing, of the verse of Irish poets woven into the fabric of aircraft seats on Aer Lingus or the President of Ireland opening a conference in County Clare a year ago where a thousand senior people from all walks of life asked: " Is there anything else? " The President of Coca-Cola recently laid out his own personal beliefs and inner development to the whole of his corporation worldwide. Some companies are encouraging yoga and meditation for stress relief and to improve creativity among their managers. How to explain this gradual change in attitude to the three circles? Even Chancellor Kohl failed to forecast the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of communism was as unforeseeable as is much of our future on this planet. After tens of thousands of years as hunter - gatherers in a civilisation whose structure was tribal, we spent only three thousand years in an agrarian civilisation whose society was feudal. The Industrial Revolution saw the development of the nation state and an industrial civilisation, which lasted for only about three hundred years. Now we find ourselves hurtling in three decades into an information, communications and technology based civilisation. We cannot often successfully forecast even three years ahead and software scientists talk of twelve months as the long term! Our society is becoming global, yet individuals seek freedom to develop their personal agendas uncluttered by the restrictive laws and customs of the past. We are moving at such a fast pace and the civilisations the world has experienced are now developing at breathtaking speed. In summary the four civilisations are as follows. Maybe there will be a further one during the next three years? What might that involve I wonder?
We demand freedom, which also means choice. Since the earliest times, we discovered our gods in animals, trees and rivers and our beliefs in the mysteries of the universe or buried in the shadow side of our souls. Over the last two thousand years, the great organised religions with their scriptural traditions - Judaic - Christian - Islamic - have proclaimed universal and eternal truths. They largely replaced the village gods of antiquity. The Enlightenment during the Eighteenth Century led to a gradual and partial revision of traditional religious attitudes caused by developments in the natural sciences, the growth of historical understanding and the widespread acceptance of critical thinking. Its effect has been to erode the influence of some traditional religions, leading to individual disappointment, disenchantment and dispossession. Our role models - the family, the church, the state, work groups, schools and universities and others have weakened as sources of authority. But this vacuum is being filled by the rebirth of a personal, sometimes spiritual dimension in our lives. It is random and uncoordinated at this stage, but could lead to individuals attempting to better organise, direct and take responsibility for their own personal management and inner development. Increasingly we shall need to look to our own values and those we ourselves perceive for society as a model for our working and living in these times of rapid change where nothing seems to be carved in stone anymore. This puts a considerable burden on the individual. How can we as individuals and managers respond to these challenges? We cannot just walk away from them. My personal view is that we should try to understand more the nature of change, to have some effect on the unfolding of events through studying the past, understanding the present and seeking a framework to discuss the future. We need to widen and deepen the debate and to thicken the thin veneer of the managerial stratum, which Jung described as being: " fairly intelligent, mentally stable, moral and moderately competent - but do not overestimate its thickness". Perhaps we can work on closer integration of our economic, social and personal spheres so that they look more like this: 
We need to understand the components of each circle and how they might vary from one part of the world to another and from one organisation, one individual to another: 
Perhaps ethics, even spirituality lies at the intersection of these three circles. Understanding change, widening the debate and thickening the veneer would go some way to managing that part of the future that we can influence. Rather like the tennis player awaiting a serve, we must train to be on our toes. The future is careering towards us like the serve coming over the net. We do not know at what speed it will be delivered or whether with top or back spin it will swerve to left or right. But being aware and keeping ourselves mentally on our toes would give us a better chance of managing change. St. Exupery wrote in The Wisdom of the Sands: " As for the future, your task is not to foresee, but to enable it". We could usefully reflect on our contribution to this process. Tolstoy suggested that all philosophy and life can be reduced to two statements - "how to live and what to live for" It may be that we, in the materially richer countries or those developing that way, are beginning to understand the "how to live aspects " which leaves the "what to live for" part the question uppermost in our minds and this is relevant to how we look at the changes which will take place in our concept of the University III. THE IDEA OF A SPIRITUAL UNIVERSITY. WHY DO WE NEED IT? We now we come to the third part of my paper. In the first part I described how universities got to where we are today and hinted at the great debate which will develop over the next two or three decades about the idea of a university. It will involve all the constituent parts of society in Europe and across the world. It is in the words of Tolstoy quoted above to do with the issue of " How to live?" - the economic and social circles rather than the "What to live for? " which is much more to do with the personal or inner circle. The second part of my paper discussed the three circles and showed how the social and family circle has been partly displaced by the economic or wealth increasing circle. It hints that even more has the inner or personal circle been diminished and we must ask ourselves why? We must especially ask ourselves why, because many if not all of us in this room, in this place, in this spiritual City of Assisi feel that the spiritual dimension which many feel lacking in our society today is not being nourished and honoured as it should. My thesis is that a major contributory factor and with the advantage of hindsight, was the movement towards the reform of universities in the 19th Century. In his Preface to " The Idea of a University" Newman states his aims and values for the university which: "is a place of teaching universal knowledge. This implies that its object is, on the one hand, intellectual, not moral; and, on the other, that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement." So in a phrase, Newman threw the religious, spiritual, moral, ethical, baby out with the bath water. This was well accepted by the children of the Enlightenment who wanted to get on with pure science and felt that the influence of religion had been too stifling. Newman did not want moral issues to be discussed at universities because he saw this function as part of the role of the Catholic Church. In the same preface we writes: " If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery, I do not see why a University should have students; if religious training, I do not see how it can be the seat of literature and science." … " such is a University in its essence, and independently of its relation to the Church." but… " it cannot fulfil its object duly… without the Church's assistance." Newman was writing for a different age, when the Church ("and to Catholics of course this Volume is primarily addressed ") was one of the great pillars of society and Universities were another. This was fine in Catholic Ireland where his first five lectures were given on the subject. But the world is wider now. There were and are other relevant religions besides Catholicism for Europeans and in a global world we may need to study other religions - Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, for example, and perhaps other formal and informal associations of like minded people concerned with the inner self, which may help us to better understand our ethical and spiritual dimension. Can we accept today that only one of the many formal approaches to spirituality is relevant to a global society? If we agree with Newman that universities are concerned with the intellect and their role is the diffusion and extension of knowledge, then should not considerations of spirituality, ethics, morality, societal behaviour, the inner self, be part of what a university offers or perhaps even demands through its courses and examinations? I do not mean that a university should tell us what to do, but that it should provide the knowledge and teaching to help us gain the wisdom to make up our own minds in these important areas. The problem arises today that the scriptural religions have not, for reasons beyond the scope of this paper, been able to play the role that Newman envisaged for them (in his case the Catholic Church) over the last century. Our role models - the family, the great scriptural religions, the state and others groups and associations have weakened over the last hundred years as sources of moral guidance and authority. Peer groups, the media, mega-stars have become through mass communication important influences, but we lack serious forums for the discussion of personal and societal ethical issues. There is today a spiritual, moral, ethical vacuum in many parts of our Western society. The conditions, which existed in Newman's day no longer, appertain as none of the traditional role models provide an effective and relevant framework in the way that they did or he hoped they would in his time. This vacuum is being filled to a certain extent by the rebirth of a personal, sometimes ethical or spiritual dimension to our lives. It is random and uncoordinated at this stage, but could lead to individuals attempting to better organise, direct and take responsibility for their own personal and inner development. I feel this intuitively and also from experience when I talk with groups about the Three Circles I have described in outline previously. I find many people at different levels seeking permission to discuss the Three Circles and their relationship. They are looking for a framework for this discussion. Could there be a new role for universities to provide a framework for discussing these issues? How economic success and social/family and inner values can come together in the interests of individuals and society? Can we bring the spiritual, (not the religious) back into university life? Could Universities take the study of spirituality, of the transpersonal, of ethics, of the cardinal virtues, of concern for the planet and the environment - all of these and related issues - into their framework - not to teach, not to preach, but to enable students to acquire in a cross disciplinary way the wisdom to address these fundamental issues? Newman perhaps did not distinguish sufficiently between religion and spirituality. He and others encouraged the detachment of religion from universities, little realising that spiritual considerations, ethics, consideration of the cardinal virtues, moral issues and related subjects might also find themselves detached and left drifting in space. Mary Warnock: " An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics." (Duckworth 1998) refers to the role of schools but her views are equally relevant to and certainly easier to develop at universities. " I want to try to show that ethics is not only possible, but essential to our lives…we can and must interest ourselves in handing on, from one generation to the next the idea of ethics… A good school will produce ambitious pupils who want to go on with what they have started… In ethical terms they will want to be good. Without this underlying private want, they cannot be relied on to try for the ethically best in the public sphere. The morality that lies behind all efforts to improve things in the world at large, to defend human rights, to pass generally acceptable laws, to seek peace and justice, is essentially that of private standard-setting and of private ideals to be pursued." What she is saying is that ethics and spirituality are personal. What I am saying is that if they are personal, then a context must be found for addressing them and that context could be the university. You have been kind enough to follow me through the history of our universities, the approach of the Three Circles and perhaps share some of my concerns that universities no longer see their role in spiritual, ethical, moral and related matters because these disappeared largely from the curriculum or from providing the background to student lives when religion became detached from its central place in the life and teaching of the university of former times. Will it or could it come back? I think that most would agree that religions except in specialist seminaries or courses or their equivalent would not be taught at most Universities. Neither will they in most schools, but could there be anything in the idea of a spiritual university? IV. THE IDEA OF A SPIRITUAL UNIVERSITY: WHAT IS BEING DONE? In this fourth part of my paper I want to share with you something very exciting. There are more developments taking place in this field than I could have imagined in the United Kingdom and I am sure in many other countries in Europe. I want especially to ask you in your country or in your experience whether there are similar initiatives which you know about and which could connect one with another? My thesis, I repeat, is that there is a spiritual vacuum which has occurred as a result of religion being taken out of the university context, because it was felt in the nineteenth century that it was stifling the growth of intellect which would better off freed from the influence of religion in all its departments and faculties. The reason for taking it out at that time was a good one - that learning should be free to develop and that wisdom would result. Unfortunately it was based on the premise that religion, especially the Catholic religion, would continue to influence the University through a coherent, articulate, organised system to which everyone would naturally subscribe, as they had done in the past. The Enlightenment changed all this and perhaps also matters were changed by the failure of scriptural religions to change their style, rather than their content. As a result we find ourselves at the beginning of a new millennium - and during a decade or two of the most profound changes in society the world has experienced in millions of years - without a spiritual framework. Many attempts are being made to fill the vacuum, but they are uncoordinated, stem from our deep spiritual beliefs and feelings, sometimes grow out of existing religions, sometimes take the best from different religions, but in a world where small is beautiful and decentralisation and delegation are the key words, it is difficult for what is becoming a widespread and widefelt movement to be recognised for what it is. I now want to tell you of a most interesting initiative which has begun in the United Kingdom and perhaps elsewhere. Many of you will have know of Sir George Trevelyan who followed a mystical path from being an agnostic to becoming one of the leading visionaries of the 20th century. In the early days of his journey he said: " It is very clear that many minds are now questing for deeper meaning and a new understanding of the great oneness of life…we may in a true sense be preparing for what might be called a ' University of the Spirit.' " Since his death his thoughts have been impressing themselves on many of his friends and followers. One group has been meeting regularly in London to meditate on his vision and in July of this year, a Round Table was held for more than 30 representatives of centres and organisations involved in re-integrating the dimension of spirit into the field of learning, to explore the kind of framework that might best serve this impulse, the values, beliefs and criteria that will underpin it and the kind of programmes and projects it might incorporate or develop. It is not possible to tell you of all the wonderful organisations and people who were represented, but the titles of a few of the associations will give you a flavour: The Quest - open learning in spiritual and personal development; The Findhorn Foundation and its week long Soul in Education Conference to be held in October; the Triangles in Education Network; Schumacher College; Representatives of 3 Universities running transpersonal degree programmes; The Global news education trust; The Institute of applied Ontology; The Wrekin Trust; The Institute of Psychosynthesis - the list goes on. What was of great interest to all of those present was to see how much progress was being made steadily on so many parallel fronts. All were already involved in one way or another in the integration of the spiritual dimension into educationally related fields. All present were agreed on the need for reflection. In some ways the title "University" is perhaps pretentious, but if we only talk about " a learning network," it lacks visionary impact and is unlikely to inspire. The words "spirit " or " spiritual" if was felt mean so much that they almost encompass everything there is. But we cannot always go back to semantics and our definitions of transpersonal for example vary enormously. I am almost ready to agree that "transpersonal" means what you feel it is for you and leave it at that! But what was clear is that most of us present were reacting against the ' culture of accountability' with its emphasis on vocational and technological competence, with teachers as technical enforcers and testers of centrally determined teaching regimes. We agreed on the need to bring into education such qualities as development of human consciousness, spiritual intelligence, a holistic and integrated world view which includes awareness of spirit, spiritually based values and ethics, inner- or self directed and self-organised. We were seeking to discuss a context for education within the journey of life, the soul's journey or perhaps the hero's journey and of course not necessarily and certainly not exclusively at University level. It encompasses such qualities as love, empowerment, mutual support, the transpersonal context, holism, self-reflection and faith as reflected in ethics and values. The Findhorn Foundation Community Studies Programme - living in an alternative community is a case study of the sort of thing which might be achieved. Our meeting reminded me of words quoted by Tanna Jacubowicz-Mount a previous speaker this morning: " When we drop our little mind like a stone into vast and quiet waters, the stone will disappear in the depths, but the circles will grow ever larger. " or Charles Handy in his book, The Empty Raincoat : " Change comes from small initiatives which work, initiatives which imitated become the fashion. We cannot wait for great visions from great people for they are in short supply at the end of history. " So what is the way forward as we begin to look at the idea of a spiritual university? It might well involve functions such as:
Some of the visions put forward were that those involved seek to work towards a culture that; sees inner development as important, recognises there is a conjunction of eastern and western approaches - of the rational analytical and the imaginative intuitive; crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries; encourages the spiritual and ethical dimensions of all courses; is a la carte and wide ranging in its choices; is non-hierarchical in structure and that helps people find their own spiritual path. The interface with mainstream religions would need careful thought. Partnerships and collaborative efforts are fundamental There would in general seem to be three ways ahead as we look at the idea of a spiritual university; 1. Encourage the successors of Newman and Humboldt to discuss the issues and take a lead in different parts of the world. 2. Recognise, collect and disseminate the work already being done by different organisations and individuals. So they recognise they are not alone and develop courses and materials outside the university . 3. Encourage the development of the ethical, moral and spiritual aspects of all university courses and all teaching and learning. Jean Monet, one of the founding fathers of Europe said "Europe se fait par des petits pas" and if it is true for Europe it is even more so for European spirituality, that it will be made by small steps. But important ladders can be built from small steps and strong bridges have been built from countless stones.
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