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A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries--A Guide to Inner Work for Holistic Change
In the midst of today’s many global crises, many of us recognize the need for change, both in ourselves and in our social and political institutions, in order to build a truly sustainable future. In A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries, Terry Patten sheds new light on this issue, providing a practical approach to “being the change” that the world needs now more than ever.
In the most convincing terms, Patten illustrates how inner and outer transformation are entirely interdependent. In fact, the future of our very life-support system are utterly dependent on the quality, intelligence, tenderness, and courage that each of us can cultivate in ourselves. The book lays out the difficult, necessary, creative, and ultimately rewarding work we must each engage in to meaningfully address our most “wicked” problems.
Patten shows how we can come together in our communities for “conversations that matter.” And he describes new communities, enterprises, and forms of dialogue that have already created miracles that can be replicated on larger scales. The “new republic of the heart” is already coming into being, invisibly and quietly. More of us need to learn to animate our best qualities so that we can transform ourselves, our societies, and the planet.
In the most convincing terms, Patten illustrates how inner and outer transformation are entirely interdependent. In fact, the future of our very life-support system are utterly dependent on the quality, intelligence, tenderness, and courage that each of us can cultivate in ourselves. The book lays out the difficult, necessary, creative, and ultimately rewarding work we must each engage in to meaningfully address our most “wicked” problems.
Patten shows how we can come together in our communities for “conversations that matter.” And he describes new communities, enterprises, and forms of dialogue that have already created miracles that can be replicated on larger scales. The “new republic of the heart” is already coming into being, invisibly and quietly. More of us need to learn to animate our best qualities so that we can transform ourselves, our societies, and the planet.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 6, 2018
83 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Terry Patten
3 books8 followersTERRY PATTEN is a philosopher, activist, social entrepreneur, and author. Over the last fifteen years he has devoted his efforts to the evolution of consciousness by facing, examining, and healing our global crisis through the marriage of spirit and activism. As an author, he co-wrote the book "Integral Life Practice" with Ken Wilber and a core team at the Integral Institute. As a teacher he is the founder of the “Beyond Awakening” teleseminar series and Bay Area Integral. As a social entrepreneur, he founded Tools For Exploration, a consciousness technologies company. He led a team at the HeartMath Institute that developed their first heart-rate variability monitor. Currently, he's involved in restorative redwood forestry and fossil-fuel alternatives.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 17, 2018
I enjoyed this book, but am giving it four stars because the contents won't be for every keen nature lover. If you are more inclined to debate philosophy than science, want to sway your fellow human with discourse rather than charts, film footage and statistics, and enjoy expanding your vocabulary, this will be a great book for you. I'm rather more of a practical person.
I have no doubt that the author is sincere in his wish to enact positive change in environments small and large, personal, corporate and global. We are all in this lifeboat together. Lots of useful information is provided, with definitions of black swan events and such; but a strong basis in knowledge about climate science is assumed. If you know less than that but want to know how to help, you might do better to read a Tony Juniper book first, then come back and start debating the ethics by the light of your LED bulb. If you're studying philosophy or media you may wish to take up this book and see how environmentalism is portrayed and encouraged. Some beautiful passages await; and we can only hope that those who need to change will change.
The author kindly made an e-ARC available. I chose to read and review. This is an unbiased review.
I have no doubt that the author is sincere in his wish to enact positive change in environments small and large, personal, corporate and global. We are all in this lifeboat together. Lots of useful information is provided, with definitions of black swan events and such; but a strong basis in knowledge about climate science is assumed. If you know less than that but want to know how to help, you might do better to read a Tony Juniper book first, then come back and start debating the ethics by the light of your LED bulb. If you're studying philosophy or media you may wish to take up this book and see how environmentalism is portrayed and encouraged. Some beautiful passages await; and we can only hope that those who need to change will change.
The author kindly made an e-ARC available. I chose to read and review. This is an unbiased review.
April 24, 2018
“A New Republic of the Heart” is a 408 page book on the transformation of civilization in regard to our current global issues. To get the most out of this book, one needs to look at the background of the author. Terry Patten has devoted his life to understanding the evolution of consciousness by facing, examining, and healing our global crisis through merging spirit and activism. He is a philosopher, activist, and social entrepreneur. His written works encourage his readers to become activists in their own way, in their own lives.
In his introduction, Patten talks about our need for guidance from a higher wisdom. He makes the very interesting observation that all of humanities highest wisdom traditions are in conversation as never before. He also asks: How can we “be the change that we want to see in the world”?
Patten talks about “whole system change”, a broad transformation of all human civilization. Constant transformation. Like it or not, we are all interconnected. Patten teaches us to turn what we see as problems into opportunities, to encourage conversation with those we agree with, as well as those that we do not agree with, and to form creative responses. He encourages all of us to be active agents of transformation. It can be scary, as we face both spiritual and political awakenings – and see how intertwined they are.
Patten has broken this material into four parts: Part One puts the material into a multidimensional consciousness. Part Two explores the integral understanding of the nature of individual and collective spiritual practice, purpose, social responsibility, and evolutionary activism.
The work that we do here is both inner and outer work. The writing in this book is clear and concise. While Patten talks about global issues, about issues that we face on a day to day basis, he speaks at a level that we can all understand, about subjects that have great depth. I liked the manner in which this material was organized – it describes the journey that Patten has taken, and allows us to take the journey with him. The problems that we are facing are termed “wicked problems”, because they are wickedly hard to solve. Patten notes that some people have categorized climate change as a “super-wicked problem”. Then there are the “black swan events” – transformation that comes about dramatically and suddenly, due to events that we could not have predicted.
I have to note here something that I was fascinated by, and that was the Four Quadrant diagram, where we are looking at interior and exterior, merged with individual and collective. The four resulting quadrants are Subjective, Objective, Intersubjective, and Interobjective. Quite the picture in words!
As core modules of individual practice, Patten lists Body, Mind, Spiritual, and Shadow Work. Under relational practices, he lists intimate relationships, work and creative service, and civic participation.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to transform themselves and the world around them. At the end of the book Patten presents a list of resources to help the reader implement this material into their own lives. I found this list to be comprehensive, and useable. There are some marvelous tools for change here! Another plus is that there is an index of names and terms, with a link to where they can be found in the book.
In his introduction, Patten talks about our need for guidance from a higher wisdom. He makes the very interesting observation that all of humanities highest wisdom traditions are in conversation as never before. He also asks: How can we “be the change that we want to see in the world”?
Patten talks about “whole system change”, a broad transformation of all human civilization. Constant transformation. Like it or not, we are all interconnected. Patten teaches us to turn what we see as problems into opportunities, to encourage conversation with those we agree with, as well as those that we do not agree with, and to form creative responses. He encourages all of us to be active agents of transformation. It can be scary, as we face both spiritual and political awakenings – and see how intertwined they are.
Patten has broken this material into four parts: Part One puts the material into a multidimensional consciousness. Part Two explores the integral understanding of the nature of individual and collective spiritual practice, purpose, social responsibility, and evolutionary activism.
The work that we do here is both inner and outer work. The writing in this book is clear and concise. While Patten talks about global issues, about issues that we face on a day to day basis, he speaks at a level that we can all understand, about subjects that have great depth. I liked the manner in which this material was organized – it describes the journey that Patten has taken, and allows us to take the journey with him. The problems that we are facing are termed “wicked problems”, because they are wickedly hard to solve. Patten notes that some people have categorized climate change as a “super-wicked problem”. Then there are the “black swan events” – transformation that comes about dramatically and suddenly, due to events that we could not have predicted.
I have to note here something that I was fascinated by, and that was the Four Quadrant diagram, where we are looking at interior and exterior, merged with individual and collective. The four resulting quadrants are Subjective, Objective, Intersubjective, and Interobjective. Quite the picture in words!
As core modules of individual practice, Patten lists Body, Mind, Spiritual, and Shadow Work. Under relational practices, he lists intimate relationships, work and creative service, and civic participation.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to transform themselves and the world around them. At the end of the book Patten presents a list of resources to help the reader implement this material into their own lives. I found this list to be comprehensive, and useable. There are some marvelous tools for change here! Another plus is that there is an index of names and terms, with a link to where they can be found in the book.
March 7, 2019
Whilst 'A New Republic of the Heart' is a comprehensive and seemingly all-inclusive commentary on personal revolution and societal change, it is a work that often struggles to deal adequately with the issues that it raises.
The reason for this is that it is a book of concepts; one with a strong sense throughout its pages that it has been produced by a thinker and which is aimed primarily at fellow thinkers. The result is, to my mind, that many of its ideas fail to translate into a more tangible context or to relate to the more practical approaches to personal and planetary transformation most activists are taking.
On a positive note, academics and philosophers will probably gravitate more enthusiastically towards the books central ideas as well as engage with its challenging commentary.
Whether you enjoy this book or not is solely determined by your own specific approach to the challenge of forging a new form of humanity and community out of this decaying world. However, if you are looking for specific signposts and guidance to lead along the way of our current evolutional path, 'A New Republic of the Heart' will challenge and stimulate you.
The reason for this is that it is a book of concepts; one with a strong sense throughout its pages that it has been produced by a thinker and which is aimed primarily at fellow thinkers. The result is, to my mind, that many of its ideas fail to translate into a more tangible context or to relate to the more practical approaches to personal and planetary transformation most activists are taking.
On a positive note, academics and philosophers will probably gravitate more enthusiastically towards the books central ideas as well as engage with its challenging commentary.
Whether you enjoy this book or not is solely determined by your own specific approach to the challenge of forging a new form of humanity and community out of this decaying world. However, if you are looking for specific signposts and guidance to lead along the way of our current evolutional path, 'A New Republic of the Heart' will challenge and stimulate you.
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September 27, 2022In "A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries--A Guide to Inner Work for Holistic Change", the author, Terry Patten, puts forth the idea of the need for heart-/spirit-centred approaches and practices performed individually and collectively for enacting holistic change. While admitting the profound ecological, social and economic challenges of our time, he instils hope in the readers by promoting wholistic, heart-centred and we-space inner practices and outer activism every one of us is called to attend and participate in. Admirably, the author, Patten, has referred to many related works from various historical and current scholars, practitioners, individuals and groups to highlight the need for conversations and dialogues involving open hearts and minds, resulting in intersubjective consciousness of cocreation, for finding solutions to the challenges faced. The emerging research evidence on compassion, heart rate variability (HRV), biofield healing and coherence and the existence of neural networks in the heart and gut that complement the brain add more weight to the notion of heart-space-directed social transformation.
The integral consciousness or worldview is presented insightfully as the evolutionary process required for the holistic, heart-centred social and cultural transformation the highly interconnected planet needs to improve the existing human condition. It is a different approach to the past traditional, modern and postmodern systems of consciousness or worldviews. In the past, each evolving system of consciousness claimed to be better than the previous one. For example, modernism's reason-focused, scientific and objective worldview was outthought by the more subjective postmodern worldview supporting more creative, diverse direct experiences while mostly disregarding the value of reason-based approaches of the past and their unique and significant contributions.
One key difference of the integral worldview is that we honour all previous systems of consciousness, appreciating the evolutionary reasons for them to be dominant at specific times. We can conjecture one reason for their existence in their respective periods: ease of information and knowledge exchange. By using computing and communication technologies, the ability to exchange subjective and diverse information electronically with ease, economy and speed made us inclined to appreciate the more inclusive and flexible postmodern worldview. The integral consciousness prompts us to take a broadened perspective of widened circles amidst massive, global, macro- and quantum-level interconnections, as increasingly evidenced by research. The problems we face, whether ecological, social or spiritual divides (as presented in Theory U), are common, vast and have a planetary scope, requiring collective attention of such scale from various parties to yield the best solutions. For example, we may rely on hundreds of years old, directly experienced, holistic and intuitive ancestral, indigenous and other diverse cultural information and knowledge to meet ideal ecological solutions by using them as complementary and integrative to the possible scientific remedies.
The integral evolutionary worldview in the present moment is a more open-hearted, open-minded, co-sensing, coevolving and conciliatory approach to seeking solutions to the so-called wicked problems of the current world. We attempt to see and integrate information and knowledge from diverse sources – old and new, eastern and western philosophies, close to us and cosmic, inner and outer, holistic/divine and specific/scientific and religious and secular. However, it is no easy task as individuals are called upon to attend the much-needed inner work of reflection, introspection, meditation, contextualisation and recontextualisation over long periods to break open their hearts and minds to embrace diversity, inclusivity and different perspectives. The challenge for us is to develop genuine openness with empathic listening skills, humility, vulnerability, emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility while distancing from the notions of the existence of an isolated self and hubris. The goal is to benefit from the resulting opportunities of intersubjective consciousness and cocreation directed towards outer compassionate actions. Another aspect of integral consciousness is that it integrates the resulting inner growth with respective outer actions. Simply, one of its critical premises is to be the wholistic change we like to see in the world: wholistic development in physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual domains.
The integral consciousness or worldview is presented insightfully as the evolutionary process required for the holistic, heart-centred social and cultural transformation the highly interconnected planet needs to improve the existing human condition. It is a different approach to the past traditional, modern and postmodern systems of consciousness or worldviews. In the past, each evolving system of consciousness claimed to be better than the previous one. For example, modernism's reason-focused, scientific and objective worldview was outthought by the more subjective postmodern worldview supporting more creative, diverse direct experiences while mostly disregarding the value of reason-based approaches of the past and their unique and significant contributions.
One key difference of the integral worldview is that we honour all previous systems of consciousness, appreciating the evolutionary reasons for them to be dominant at specific times. We can conjecture one reason for their existence in their respective periods: ease of information and knowledge exchange. By using computing and communication technologies, the ability to exchange subjective and diverse information electronically with ease, economy and speed made us inclined to appreciate the more inclusive and flexible postmodern worldview. The integral consciousness prompts us to take a broadened perspective of widened circles amidst massive, global, macro- and quantum-level interconnections, as increasingly evidenced by research. The problems we face, whether ecological, social or spiritual divides (as presented in Theory U), are common, vast and have a planetary scope, requiring collective attention of such scale from various parties to yield the best solutions. For example, we may rely on hundreds of years old, directly experienced, holistic and intuitive ancestral, indigenous and other diverse cultural information and knowledge to meet ideal ecological solutions by using them as complementary and integrative to the possible scientific remedies.
The integral evolutionary worldview in the present moment is a more open-hearted, open-minded, co-sensing, coevolving and conciliatory approach to seeking solutions to the so-called wicked problems of the current world. We attempt to see and integrate information and knowledge from diverse sources – old and new, eastern and western philosophies, close to us and cosmic, inner and outer, holistic/divine and specific/scientific and religious and secular. However, it is no easy task as individuals are called upon to attend the much-needed inner work of reflection, introspection, meditation, contextualisation and recontextualisation over long periods to break open their hearts and minds to embrace diversity, inclusivity and different perspectives. The challenge for us is to develop genuine openness with empathic listening skills, humility, vulnerability, emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility while distancing from the notions of the existence of an isolated self and hubris. The goal is to benefit from the resulting opportunities of intersubjective consciousness and cocreation directed towards outer compassionate actions. Another aspect of integral consciousness is that it integrates the resulting inner growth with respective outer actions. Simply, one of its critical premises is to be the wholistic change we like to see in the world: wholistic development in physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual domains.
January 24, 2021
Much as I enjoy Patten's optimistic, at times ethereal style, I found parts of this frustratingly simplistic. The evolutionary world view is beguiling and empowering but it feels glib without any reference to older world views centred by a profound connection with all life forms. This world view, unless I am merely being sentimental, was a feature of the spirituality of indigenous peoples all over the world. Likewise, the destructive role played by colonial takeovers is glossed over as a good thing as it enabled scientific advances. As an autistic reader who finds hope and strength in a series liminal yet precise interactions with the natural world, I was disappointed that this atypical and archaic yet timeless natural conversations are barely touched upon. Any evolutionary theory needs to have a more grounded and multiracial experience as part of its power.
April 7, 2018
I was delighted to read this book. Terry is lucidly integrating many streams of consciousness that I feel passionate about, Consciousness, spirituality, science, social and ecological responsibility. Yet loudest is his respect for the Mystery. He is willing to face reality with clear eyes and a humble open heart. I sense a kindred spirit. We don't yet know the answers, but Terry lives fully into the questions. He is also articulate and shares a deep, many faceted elucidation of our profoundly complex challenges.
April 18, 2018
For those despairing about what's happening in the country and around the globe socially and ecologically, this book provides a reasonable way to step forward into a greater possibility for us all.
April 12, 2019
While not everyone is up for a book on Integral Systems, I loved it. My favorite inspiration for 2018. I want to help create more "We Space".
September 11, 2020
really good. colleague of Ken Wilbur.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews