After having served as the main gateway programme to the educational work of the Institute for the past 15 years, Being-in-Action has been retired in favour of a new transformational programme - i Evolve - that builds upon the earlier work and offers a new engagement with life that is at once redemptive, yet at the same time acts as a springboard to catapult our lives into the unknown of evolutionary possibility.

It is our contention that human being exists within an immense field of possibility, but one of which it has little knowledge and even less access. This state of affairs reminds us of the Japanese proverb which asserts that "a frog in a well cannot comprehend the ocean". Human being has "fallen" into a narrow world in which the rules of the game have already been set, the pathways laid down, and the winners and losers already chosen - or at the very least - understood.

We are each of us dealt a particular hand in life, that is, we arrive at birth into a unique set of circumstances that belong to us alone, which include among other things our family, our town or village, our culture, our ethnicity, as well as a religious and historical context.  At first, we dwell in a kind of original innocence or indifference which can last for several years. Then, inevitably, we are educated in the “rules of the game”, i.e. are given a description of the world and are taught how to conform to what is expected of us at home and in the world. The majority get with the programme, a few rebel, and still fewer attempt to create a new game. Yet all options take place in the same well.

Accordingly, we begin to lose that original wholeness and innocence. A general dissonance or separation arises between our inner and outer realities, and over time this leads to an estrangement or alienation. A character or personality begins to take shape whose job it is to deal with all these expectations, as well to resolve the discord, heal the alienation and restore the original wholeness -- literally to fix what’s wrong with either itself (me), the others (them), or the world (it). That becomes the game. It mesmerizes us to no end and captures our awareness, usually until we die.

In the i Evolve programme using concrete examples taken from our lives, we examine the ontological structure or dimensionality by which we come to know our self and our world. For the frog this would be acquiring the ability to distinguish its particular worldhood (the well) and sense of self (frogness) given by that world.  What becomes apparent in this inquiry is that the time has come to leave the “well”, not merely as some philosophical speculation, but really...experientially. It is time for an evolutionary leap.

The evolutionary process, as we see it, occurs not in any smooth progression but in a non-linear movement or leap that propels us from one worldspace or dimensionality to another. It is our premise that human being has arrived at such an evolutionary threshold. i Evolve is designed to facilitate this next step. It is what the late Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti, once referred to as “freedom from the known”.

In terms of results, participants who have completed the programme credit it with providing them with a new level of vitality and aliveness, a new ease in self-expression and dealing with others, a greater level of effectiveness in one's professional life and a lifting of the shadow of resignation and cynicism.

Course details
Fee: £350 (deposit: £100, non-refundable)
Wholefood lunches and evening meals are included
Location: Central London

2010 Dates
April 16, 17, 18 & the evening of April 21