The Cosmic Dimension of Global Diversity Management

Contents

Part 1
Expanding Human Intercultural Horizons
1. The ‘Culture-Cosmic Computer’
2. The Cosmic Dimension of Global Diversity Management
3. Reconciling Planetary Diversity through Transcultural Management
4. A Third Millennium Global Civilisation Formula: Integrating the Relative and the Absolute
5. Metropolism - Cosmopolitanism – Cosmism
6. Dimensions of ONE:
6.1 The Magic of the ONE: The One as the Regulator of Unity And Diversity
6.2. Summum Unum: The Diversity Of Life
6.3 Ut Unum Sint

Part 2
New Horizons of an Intercultural Management Science and Philosophy
1. A Resolution of the Timeless Dilemma of the Human Quest for Peace: “Si vis pacem para bellum” versus “Si vis pacem para pacem”
2. Review and Upgrade of the Intercultural Paradigm:
2.1 The State-of-the-Art of the Intercultural Art and Science: On Human Relativity in Intercultural Research
2.2 Enhancing the Intercultural Art and Science: Sources, Models and the Achievement of True Cultural Intelligence

Part 3

Terms and Concepts of Enhanced Cultural Intelligence Horizons

Annex: Synopsis of Inter- and Transcultural Management Instruments

Literature

Part 1 Expanding Human Intercultural Horizons

“Tout est une question d’optique.”

“Everything is a matter of ‘optic’.”

(I. Tsuda, anthropologist)

1 THE ‘CULTURE-COSMIC COMPUTER’

If the dire human condition of prevalent conflict, materially and mentally, across time and space was a mere matter of culture in the intercultural sense, it would be mere child’s play to manage it effectively, although deep cultural identifications may remain a challenge. It is, nevertheless, a far too limited approach and that limitation is the reason why cultural solutions in the sense of state-of-the-art intercultural approaches that pass by the cause-effect relationship of the crisis of culture in the shape of cardinal cultural virtues, virtues and ethical relativism that undermines the diverse cultural environments, are largely ineffective and non-sustainable.

The threat of war of diverse levels and forms and shapes of war has increased with the advent of intercultural research. Is it a problem of deficitary intercultural approaches? Is it imputable to the resistance to change of millennia old human patterns of being that can simply not be changed neither in the short nor in the long term, due to their endless reinforcement across time and space, in spite of equally millennia old religious and ethical teaching targeted at the control and containment these human patterns. Wars and strategic and transcultural economic failures have rather increased to such an extent that the threat of large scale wars and global scale economic disasters, along with a destruction of the integrity of creation, seem to threaten global society which we otherwise celebrate technologically and informationally as it allows us to communicate and interact globally in science, business, research, and other domains that are supposed to enhance the quality of human life worldwide.

The nature and the intensity of previously existing problems do not seem to have not diminished but, on the contrary, they seem so have increased. Hunger, poverty, injustice and killing world-wide by the old man in more treacherous and more technologically enabled sophisticated ways is what our global media inform us about incessantly and the latter do not seem to be able or willing either to contribute their share to the solution of ongoing problems for which solutions seem to be out of sight.

Culture in the intercultural sense plays a role in all this, but it is pure vanity by researchers that the core of these problems, which certainly has an important cultural aspect, can be understood and managed successfully by reductive cultural approaches the world over. The fact that most of the referred to problems exist across cultures at a global scale in variable shapes provides evidence for the fact that the problem transcends the cultural dimension of man by far. If interculturalism merely confines itself to describe the spatiotemporally diverse garbs in which the problems subsist without being able to make them subside or diminish, it is mere cosmetics, misleading man and thereby becoming accomplice of the state of affairs, a contributor to rather than a problem solver. And if the approach does not contribute to human sociocultural problem solving it is questionable and should either be upgraded or removed from academic and other internationally-oriented agendas .

The reduction of a free man with regard to doing good and evil cannot be captured in a few dimensions of supposed cultural difference, how statistically supported they may be. They rather tend to, on the contrary, create and deepen human conditioning and thereby create unjustified expectations and additional pseudo conflicts. They may create a pseudo cultural reality and a pseudo cultural battlefield with real effects rather than ending the battle fields of the world. It is time to really take stock of the prevalent cultural approach as far as is part of the cause of the problem rather than its solution.

This does, however, not mean that one should throw the baby with the water, both culturists and culture theory. Certainly not! One should rather refuse its status of another form of scientifically-based ideology that, as all ideologies, brings its own form of conflict with it, because it is incomplete, as all ideologies are. It is too tempting to collect loads of data and to form an ideology while it leaves out essential data about man that are the actual cause of culture conflict . The level of analysis dealt with by the intercultural approach does not cause cultural problems to the same extent as deeper lying human patterns of being cause sociocultural problems.

One of the deeper lying problems is that of ethics that is the actual driving force behind assumed cultural problems. Naturally, the cultural expression of the universal ethical problems can be shaped by culture as anything in this spatiotemporally relative design of the world is shaped by that spatiotemporal, culturally-relative diversity of contexts. Form and substance of the human condition must not be confounded. The core problem cannot be solved sustainably by trying to impact its forms. On the contrary the form of its expression can be impacted by impacting its substance .

The management of the core driving force behind supposed cultural problems can, however, contain its expression, whatever their forms. Neither cosmetics nor sophisticated intervention at the level of expression can do little beyond creating deception, however seductive, about the real nature of the organism, human or social, while its real state is hardly affected and the real problems continue all the more while the illusion of their solution has been created. They rather continue gathering momentum, while they are not addressed and their real cause is ignored: Irresponsible deception may be followed by sometimes irreversible impact.

Culturally diverse, unethical Intercultural scholars as opposed to ethical culturally diverse illiterates will never find any common ground. This highlights the impact of ethics as prevailing over culture with regard to creating and ending sociocultural problems.

The discourse of ethics has entered global management education in connection with the US Fortune 500 disasters, but it has not gained sufficient momentum in the global public arena so as to reset the needle of the compass of geopolitical and global business players to proactively bring about an ethical basis in society that could affect all its institutional and organizational environments the world over. On the contrary, ethical relativism has not been diagnosed as being the core problem generator and in analogy to the duality of form substance, one has not addressed the more formal issues without addressing the substance of the global, social condition of our era.

This omission has increased the challenge in the shape of human greed and fundamentalism, which have continued leading the world to the brink of disaster, politically as well as economically. And while the cause is not addressed, in spite of Davos declarations of intentions by leading global players about the creation of environments and platforms for the discourse on the issue, it can continue its work of undermining human society. Continuing unawareness and lack of attention to the core challenge, which can be called a crisis of culture per se, can only promote the silent destruction of the integrity of creation, man and culture.

In order to also introduce more fundamental variables into sociocultural analysis that transcend the prevailing cultural approach and encompass the actual deeper driving forces behind man who necessarily appears as culturally diverse, because anything in the world has a spatiotemporally relative appearance, which is an axiom of life from A to O and which is not an actual cause of conflict by itself alone, one has to enlarge the frame of reference of sociocultural analysis. Although it may seem to complicate the light cultural discourse, it can solve the core issues and thereby their cultural forms of manifestation.

Because the human mind gets caught in little niches, in the diversity of the numerous slots of a mighty cosmic computer, without its being aware of this interface and connectedness to the totality of life, which includes all cultural diversities in a gigantic all-encompassing unity of life, it is helpful to remember this interconnectedness to the whole with all its parts in order to integrate cultural diversity challenges. On the operating system level of the cosmic computer - whose operating system software can run all cultural programmers - to which cultural players can switch at will in the wink of an eye, as it is matter of consciousness, whose speed transcends that of light, all cultural programmes are accessible and manageable.

Global or planetary culture management requires its superordinate level of integration and control. IT, neurophysiologic and quantum metaphors among others point in this direction. First the mind has to expand so as to be able to accommodate the diversity of planetary cultures of global human civilization from its beginning to the present and right into the future. The cosmic dimension encompasses the totality of time, space and the mind with its spatiotemporal relativity. As it approaches the confines of its cosmos it transcends the mind with its cultural limitations and touches upon an unlimited sea of pure consciousness. There at the origin of all cultures at the unpolluted spring by culture-relative conditioning by spatiotemporal relativities, the weight of conditioning subsides and as a consequence the culture issue is rarefied to the extent of no longer representing any barrier or problem.

It is like flying far above the clouds and turbulences in a pristine sky where the infinity of space and time deploy before the physical eye. Similarly the mind can rise to a level, where the dark clouds of conditioning with their antagonizing constructs are no more and can no longer impact the activities of that mind. The diverse clouds are the clouds of cultural conditioning and identification, consisting of the human particles and forming cultural groups and aggregates. Those aggregates interact driven by the atmospherical conditions of their spatiotemporal context. That can result in all sorts of conditions from sunny and cloudy skies right to thunderstorms of big cultural conflicts. So, at this altitude or level of the mind there are bound to be constant changes and turbulences.

As there are no lasting intercultural solutions at that level as little as there is atmospherical stability and continuous serenity, the only solution to the sustainable management of the atmospherical cultural conditions resides in rising above those foreseeable dark clouds and turbulences that occur along with spells of serenity with a pretty predictable regularity .

How can the mind change its cruising altitude or its level? Well, unlike the aircraft that needs to actively employ energy to reach a higher altitude, the mind has to simply become aware of the fact of the issuelessness of the level of identifications with the clouds of culture and their instability. When it is aware of their logic and sum total of what they hold in store for man and realizes the issueless of this level in view of sustainable cultural solutions it suspends its activity at that level and thereby allows the higher cruising altitude to emerge. As a matter of fact it has switched form a specific cloud or application (or a number of them) to the operating system of the cosmic computer from which it can command the running of suspending of any mental cultural programming or software.

In the following I would like to show, how the human frame of analysis can be expanded to the point where supposed problems, in particular cultural problems’ solution can naturally occur as a consequence of their appropriate contextualization that also encompasses their deeper cause. And when the entire picture is understood the solution of the problem appears as a consequence of the correctness of its conceptualization, which is inherently problem solving per se. The insight leads to the solution as the manifestation of the problem follows its creation or defusion in the conscious mind. And by seeing things in their right order and interconnectedness the mind can end disorder of cultural and other type if it is willing. This willingness in turn depends on the depth and width of the insight.

To start with and on the assumption of the role played by the ethical dimension one might try to enhance the culture-analytical framework by a complementary and fundamental variable of ethics diagnosed across the world as a key core driving force in human affairs the world over in spite of the difficulty inherent in its quantification. The more complete the motivational map of man the better will be the orientation on the global roadmap. If one misses out major signposts one will go on missing the destination. It is an ultimate corrective in a culturally diverse world. Based on the principle of functional subordination and structural integration and its psychological translation such dimension seems to have an integrative function in the human psychological architecture.

An ethical core mindset will affect any cultural orientation by the special charisma contained in ethics as an altruistic, non-damaging way of human solidarity in view of the maintenance and fostering of the integrity of creation and man at large, whatever his cultural and personal identity. And this ethical outlook on life and man can be further contextualized in a wider, hierarchically superordinate dimension with its additional culture-integrative impact in turn as shown in the Transcultural Profiler Model. And, as one correctly represents in a scientifically consistent and experientially verifiable way the map of the human cultural mind and consciousness with its key components and cause-effect relationships the insight in the totality of its logic brings about a change in human approaches.

This way of conceptualizing man can be said to be built on two major scientific laws, albeit metaphorically, i.e. the twofold neurophysiological principle of functional subordination and structural integration and the metaphorical application and translation of the microphysical complementarity principle. While the complementary aspects of the latter reveal the complete image of man and his psychological make-up ever more completely until all the components and interdependencies of his design are revealed, the neurophysiological principle referred to can additionally inform the researcher about the command and control patterns within the hierarchically designed interdependent components of the whole. As human wholeness appears at the horizon culture will appear as a component of man that needs to be integrated in his natural wholeness in a way compliant with his overall design. This integration occurs by integrating it in human wholeness. Then it is conflict free within and without. If, however, culture is not integrated or allowed to integrate within the overall human structure it will remain a stumbling block for man.

This study is, on the one hand, about the integration of culture, which can remove its sting from human affairs, while the refreshing niceness of cultural diversity is maintained on the other hand and more deeply understood in view of the prevention its changing somehow, some day, into its opposite; a mechanism that is also thinkable, given the overall dualistic appearance of the human condition. Understanding man in his totality, as far as such lofty objective appears realistic, is the solution of the problem contained in the various areas of his being seen in isolation. Too specific scientific approaches therefore need to be complemented by approaches that emphasize synthesis and organic wholeness that reveal the laws that govern man, psychologically as well as physiologically. Thus, the complete map will indicate the way, allow man to set the compass to the destination of overall integrity of creation and enable him to reach his goal in spite of non-negligible historical evidence to the contrary.

The notion of mental software remains incomplete unless we can incorporate it in the entire system software architecture und learn to run its programs in a controlled manner. Albeit, we are using non digital terms to prevent the limited and somewhat deterministic translation of digital computer environment logic to the nature of the human mind and body. Man is less deterministic than machines. That is the difficulty and also the beauty in human nature.

It took man millennia to achieve diverse forms and growing levels of freedom. Who would dare putting him back in the straitjackets of darker ages? So, let us choose a non-curtailing scientific approach to man instead of one that conditions and bind him; one that rather frees him ever more in view of the realization of the integrity of creation of which he is part and which ensures his maximum good in a sustainable way.

If a science does not promote human freedom and integrity it loses its legitimacy and reason to be. It must grow or go. For, a key ethical assumption certainly is that things are there for man and not the other way round. This simple but powerful assumption can already reset the needle of the compass of sociocultural thinkers and players on the goal of human integrity, whatever may be the diverse cultural modalities of its implementation. The ethical imperative of human integrity with its complementary mental, physical and social aspects is not relativizable and negotiable beyond the limits set by the integrity of human nature, in whatever culture that principle is uphold. Cultural particularisms and possible ethical relativism are subject and accountable to core ethical universalism determined by human integrity, which is in turn embedded in in the integrity of creation.

The nature and quality of one’s relationship with others, oneself and the creation with its Creator would, irrespective of culture, be a strategy for an ethical analysis very much in line with the present season of Lent. Overall integrity can be practical benchmark in the process. Culturally diverse ethical systems are reducible to this three-dimensional conceptualization of ethics. Complementary and similar to more formal cultural analysis it involves the deeper qualitative aspect of this threefold relatedness. This notion of ethics underpins Western Civilization, which appears in the process of relativization. And the discontinuity in this civilization seems to cause a cultural crisis with tangible impact.

If the diverse human cultural constructs, attitudes, values and behaviours, are grounded in core ethical values, thy myriad cultural preferences can be said to be non-mutually exclusive but the ethical complement is rather bridging, preserving and integrative of any culturally diverse identity, for the core ethical dimension leads higher on the hierarchy of the psychological cultural edifice of man, where its integrative power of diversity augments and brings man closer to the awareness of a human familiy and human unity.

Complementary cultural-ethical approaches provide a global superhighway of universal understanding, cooperation and planetary integration - the smooth running of the planetary processor of the cosmic computer. The metaphorical cultural-ethical complementarity principle that highlights the human culture integrative potentiality, while the complementary neurophysiologic principle with its psychological analogy points out its mechanism, can be accessed and realized by any man of good will and awareness.

In the light of the impact of the cultural-ethical hierarchized interconnectedness cultural issues need to be embedded in the ethical dimension and that in turn in the cosmic dimension of man - the overall integrity of man - which can lead to the restoration of his natural terrain; ad integrum!

In the absence of suchlike integration of the human cultural variable the latter may turn against him and get out of control. There is ample historical evidence for it. But now we are in the position of understanding, formulating and therefore managing the cultural challenge more completely and sustainably awaiting man’s conquest of his true freedom, which also entails the freedom from his cultural conditioning as far as its divisive and conflict generating impact is concerned.

2 The Cosmic Dimension

Understanding the cosmic roots of man, expanding the vision macroscopically, helps us to understand the microscopic culture slots by establishing the connection between the macro-programme and the culture programmes via the culture slots. It helps us to understand and transcend cultural programmes, even civilisations past, present and future.

We have to start by understanding the rationale of diversity. Diversity is a necessity, simply a design principle of nature. Homogeneousness rather is a pre-creation, pre-cosmic, pre-big bang state of indifferentiation, of chaos. The time-space construct, which underlies our universe implies diversification for the purpose of materialisation, whereas pre-materialization and dematerialization stages both transcend "space-time" as well as diversity and are a return to unity: with the Creator, the entity that designed for some reason of dialectical growth the diversity principle, best suited for synergy in evolution, or with all consciousness of which different stages of materialization are only different degrees of condensation of this All Consciousness, the Unified Field of Time-Space-Consciousness continuum, or with nature, the world of particles or of waves. They are metaphors of the Highest Level Programme conceivable, The Ultimate Command and Control Platform, which according to recent Nobel Prize Laureate Ilya Prigogine (Nobel Prize Laureate of Chemistry, for instance) at the interface between, physics, chemistry and mathematics is neither deterministic nor aleatory but a medium path of creative probabilism. As the highest platform it, so to speak, controls and runs phylogeny and ontogeny, of which the civilisations of past, present and future and last but not least the cultures are the diversified aspects, with the highest differentiation of the individual entity, the individual identities (the individual entities with distinctive id-entities) Dialectics, materialization and differentiation are among the commands of this, metaphorically speaking, ultimate conceivable program, the game of involution and evolution. The Cosmic Dimension is a continuum with the two poles of evolution and involution. The spirals of this ladder are the various programming levels referred to. The command lines of the programmes execute the principles of differentiation in manifestation. The ultimate rationale is eschatological in nature.

So, this diversity is natural and an a priory inbuilt and necessary corollary of existence - its sine qua non. In this sense one may say that diversity is anti-entropic, because it fulfils the principles of the cosmic dimension, the principle of life. Homogeneousness, indifferentiation would therefore be entropic, the return to the source on the evolution-involution continuum. The biological and the quantum paradigms referred to in the exposés are simply the command lines, the active principle of the cosmic dimension.

Once diversity becomes thus self-evident one has laid the cognitive foundation for not fighting it, but rather to welcome it as it humbly fulfils that law of existence in the "space-time" of our part of the cosmos. Once, this is established as the sine qua non of existence, one may understand the imperative need of not fighting it, of not turning something natural into something unnatural and thus creating a false problem. Through this lack of knowing and understanding – the ancient scholars and sages called avidya (ignorance in Sanskrit) the greatest evil of man – through this primary false assumption with regard to the nature of diversity, man creates the greater part of his problems himself. The key is in man’s awareness and consciousness of this condition. This is the “condition humaine”, the human condition, which he can manage, while others are more difficult to control. Transforming the avidya into vidya (knowing in Sanskrit) with regard to the condition humaine has been paraphrased by the prophet of the Old Testament when he referred to the transformation of the weapon into the plough. Why? Because diversity becomes a fertile instrument of life giving synergy instead of a permanent cause of casus belli, due to the ignorance of the nature and function of the diversity principle. As natural as eating and drinking, why fight it and turn it into a weapon once you have seen the universal need for it?

We have been starting out by saying that cultural programming begins from the cradle and before and that you have been given that one life via the two arms of the creator represented by father and mother. Involving the cosmic dimension is nothing neither more nor less than to consider the source and the destination, the whence and the where to. Intercultural science teaches us that one pole refers and points to the other. In this case the manifested is one pole, the non-manifested is the other. This is the continuum of life. Ignoring one pole may be considered, again, single principle imperialism, ignoring one part of the conditioning equation, the visible and the invisible, the cultural and the universal, nay the cosmic. Involving the cosmic dimension is then a logical need for holistic understanding of the two aspects, the synergies of life itself, which can be tapped by integrating the two programs, the visible and the invisible, the roots and the tree, the rivers and the ocean, the entire cycle of existence. Looking at one pole only, looking at a fragment of the entire field and space of existence there is only diversity and often incompatibility through mismanaged diversity, which often translates as inter-factional strife. But diversity is the sine qua non of the time-space manifestation of life.

One certainly also needs the cosy likeness of similar identities to enjoy but above all to confirm and assert one's uniquely diverse identity, which is one’s true identity in order to interface effectively, without losing this uniquely diverse identity in the interfacing with other diverse identities. Otherwise there would be chaos, regression, indifferentiation. Thus identity - spatiotemporally defined as the 'continuity of the Self in time and a place in the community with regard to the others ' (Delahaye 1977) resides in diversity and diversity is the principle of the master plan of nature. Diversity and unity (likeness), the potential diversity contained in unity and the potential unity contained in diversity again constitute a holistic continuum with two poles, which are integrated by default in the very master programming we referred to. Do we perceive and comply with this supposed master plan or programme of principle? The answer to this question decides about the quality of interpersonal and intercultural relationships.

Indeed, the Oneness principle of nature itself is the synergy of sameness and diversity into oneness. The continuum of Oneness presupposes the Diversity-Unity complementarity. So, nature teaches us the very lesson of the interdependence between the poles of likeness and difference, the awareness of which human cultural conditioning has limited and disenabled the correct reading, because some components of the software have taken undue predominance and polarized the entire mental space: the motive of power and greed obscured it to no longer perceive it by sacrificing all mental resources to the pursuit of the interests of collectivities in the political arena for example. This disenabled the law of synergy and created chaos. The alienation to the synergy principle has created a vicious synergy cycle, which competes with the positive synergy cycle. That’s where ethics comes in again as the decision between the two strategic synergy options, positive or negative, creative or destructive.

Thus, by perceiving the consciousness or unity pole and the integration as Oneness and synergy, one can transcend the logic of the fragment, which does not perceive the whole. And by not perceiving the whole, the fragments remain irreconcilable. By seeing the whole the fragments integrate into it. As in the quantum paradigm, the key to the understanding of the material world lies in the immaterial world of the perceiving consciousness or the extension of it to its instruments, the key is in the holistic perception, the correct representation of it on the retina of consciousness. This correct representation integrates the subject and the object in One Continuum. And where there is only ONE who should fight who, if there is only One. Because in the integrated continuum there is no antagonist, not even a complement. This was an uncertain perception. Unity is the key to diversity, the latter conditions unity. They are necessarily interconnected interdependent and synergized as the dimension of cosmic oneness. This synergy, which we consider as a result, was the Urzustand (initial state). Out of that one emerged two, out of the two came the many. The one is constantly at the background of all the diverse manifestations. This is confirmed in Daoism and in Christian Cosmology and eschatology “Before the world was I am”. Daoism presupposes an impersonal self-regulating dialectical system. Christian Cosmology presupposes a personal Creator that actively created the world. One is more active, the other more passive, one personal the other impersonal, framed according the cultural value preference of the two civilisations, Eastern and Western. Ultimately we can model oneness as a QUINTESSENTIAL STATE OF SYNERGY OF

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This ONENESS IS our cosmic man, the cosmic dimension, the Christ Man, who was before, the source, template and destination of that one life in all its myriads of diversity.

THE COSMIC MAN IS THE ONE MAN, the archetype of archetypes: In the cosmic dimension, the universal consciousness dimension of ONENESS, the inner outer, the source and the manifestation, time-space-cause differentiation are integrated into a magic ONE. Knowing about the cosmic dimension of culture, about cosmic culture one can live in our culture slot(s) more comfortably. This awareness allows you to access the cosmic dimension instantaneously, at the speed of consciousness, which is beyond time and therefore beyond the speed of light, which is at a lower level of time-space and therefore slower.

Culture as we know it is a very restrictive phenomenon indeed if we do not perceive its cosmic interconnection, out of which (the former) one has to evolve; it is an evolutionary necessity for the fledgling diversifying life in its "space-time" contextuality. Instead of cementing culture members into little pigeon holes, into culture slots, evolution summons us to emulate the flight of the eagles – at least at the awareness level – to conquer ever wider inner space and higher dimensions, to become, ultimately, in higher and higher cultural awareness, knowledge and growth loops, ONENESS, of which cultures and culture member are reflections. Thus culture experts must also perform the function of 'evolution midwifes', one might say, to terminate the abstractions by referring to a profession working at the source, the primal scream phase, when the conditioning and evolution process starts. Evolution midwifery is necessary until the cosmic man consciousness dawns. The cosmic-cultural-individual continuum constitutes the complete identity.

3 RECONCILING PLANETARY DIVERSITY THROUGH TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT

MANAGING

NORTHERN

WESTERN SYNERGY EASTERN

SOUTHERN

PHYSICAL UNIVERSE

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Source. The Universe; Wikipedia.

The universe is the sum total of all existence as far as we know it. It is part of the integral Creation with a Creator that exceeds conceptualization. Cosmos which means order integrates all. Order, that of physics and that of consciousness, are part of the overall order. A key governing principle of it is that of hierarchical integration in both universes, the material and that of consciousness.

As our planet earth is positioned in a cosmic order, so does the planet itself need its order to survive. A physical cosmological hierarchical order, where the sun is the key to life in our planetary system maintains life of the system as a whole. Order within and between hierarchical levels characterize the physical universe as a whole. The human, the physical as well as the consciousness cosmology are part of the totality of the universe. The Ancients have understood this principle and called it cosmos which means order. It is a hierarchical order, where the sun presides over the physical order in our solar system which in turn is hierarchically integrated in a galactic and those in turn in vaster systems. The various inner and outer cosmologies are part of the one life with its material and immaterial aspects and integrated, interdependent, hierarchical and synergistic order characterize it. This quality of order reigns between and within macro- and microcosmic planes. The continuity of them ensures the continuity of life. The biological, the physical and the consciousness cosmologies are diverse aspects of existence of life as a whole.

In order to ensure the integrity of the planetary cosmology with its physical, biological and consciousness components cosmic order needs to be maintained. In order to ensure microcultural order the macrocultural planetary system needs to be understood, for based on the principle of hierarchical integration, there can be no planetary intracultural order unless the planetary cultural order is established. The transcultural order which encompasses the totality of cultures has, in line with cosmological principles, an integrative function for the diversity of cultures. The transcultural order of the macro-system as a natural hierarchical integrator of the cultural micro-systems needs to be ensured and operationalized so as to naturally lead to planetary cultural order at the various local, regional, national and global cultural levels.

Therefore it is useful to look at the macrocultural order of the planet as in the north-south-east-west diagram with the transcultural synergy principle at its quintessential center that integrates the four cardinal directions. That transcultural principle is the psychological sun comparable to the sun of the solar system. Both ensure the viability of their respective systems, of the physical or the consciousness cosmos. The sun of the psychological cosmos can be called the cosmic, noetic or transcultural dimension. It is modeled in the top levels of the transcultural profiler below. They integrate the entire human cultural universe based on the principle of hierarchical control and integration. Profiler levels ethics and evolution lead to the sun of the universe of consciousness which enlightens the human spirit so as to naturally integrate planetary cultural diversity. The noetic or transcultural level of the profiler provides the key to all planes of the planetary cultural system. It is represented in the following.

THE TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER

OR

DOME 12 D TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL

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A SHORT EXPLANATION OF THE 12

TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER LEVELS

D1 Cosmics

The absolute of consciousness silences all cultural relativities. It is the superquantic dimension of the source - timeless, nameless, and absolute; beyond the mind and the diverse aspects of matter and energy. It integrates the aspects of the real in a transcendent reality.

The unitary structure of the lantern in the DOME architectural metaphor symbolizes that singular unity; the highest level of integration.

D2 Noetics

Is the transcultural level that presides over the quantum optical consciousness and has three major characteristics:

It integrates the totality of the subjacent edifice.

It can alternatively work with intercultural consciousness which deals with the diversity of cultures and it can work with transcultural consciousness, i.e. diversity transcending unity.

In the cupola (and lantern) the twelve arcs of the DOME architectural modeling of the psychological edifice converge. Here the intercultural diversity and transcultural unity are bridged.

D3 Operationalization

Translates the superquantic and the quantic culture consciousness into the cultural dimensions of the edifice rather than sufficing itself in its transcendence and remaining aloof. In physical terms it can be considered as an energetic potentialization-actualization dynamism leading to the cycle: Consciousness- energy-waves-values-behaviors.

D4 Ethics

Ethics is a stepping stone that enables access to the consciousness of the superordinate dimensions. Personal egoism corresponds to cultural ethnocentrism. Both need to be managed for growth into the transcultural dimension. The relative particle must become aware of its being part of a dynamic of an interdependent field and become committed to and accountable for it. Ethics is a cardinal dimension on which any further evolution hinges. They are interdependent and ethical attitudes and behaviours in the sense of the unconditional respect of any culture member are the sine qua non of viable interpersonal and intergroup relations. Love of God and fellow man is the fulfillment of ethics, of the entire law according to the Christian optic. It can unlock all doors and remove all barriers on the way to all encompassing consciousness. The absence of this dimensional virtue is the negation of human culture and civilization in the original sense and poisons all relationships, interindividual, intergroup and intercultural.

D5 Evolution

Diagnoses the phylogenic and the inter-/transcultural evolution of the cultural players. They are progressive enablers of superordinate cultural capabilities. As the cultural player masters the two sets of evolution completely transcultural as opposed to intercultural consciousness unfolds. Upon reaching the universal stage of phylogenetic evolution the threshold to the superior dimension can be crossed.

D6 ICP Individual Culture profile

The specification of the cultural players’ individual cultural profile impacts the potential for the achievement of higher dimensions of culture consciousness. The various affiliations/layers can pave the way or impede (culture) consciousness evolution.

D7 NCP National Culture Profile

The aggregate models of culture consist of 12 dualistic dimensions and illustrate the dialectics of the cultural mind. It is the realm of dualistic culture consciousness: the domain of time, mind, conditioning and antagonism; of cultural strife. The dialectics of its structural duality can be sustainably redeemed by the non-dualistic levels of consciousness, which merge the cultural waves into their source or the destination of the ocean and form but a circle. The intercultural optic of the quantum cultural optic is only aware of the momentary manifestation of consciousness without contextualizing it in the totality of the field of consciousness which redeems the waves of culture in the ocean of consciousness with its integrative and renewing dynamic; its creativity.

D8 Communications Profile

While the previous 2 dimensions are important structural elements, which is insinuated by the architectural term “shoulders” - they provide structural information about a person or/and an edifice -, the communication styles dimension can structurally be connected to walls and windows, which allow us to build up barriers or to create relationships and permeability with regard to the environment. Cultural diversity of communication styles is culture consciousness in inter(action). According to Hall culture is communication. Here we additionally conceptualize it, based on the quantum cultural optic as waves which translate as the music of consciousness resulting behaviorally as communication styles preferences.

D9 Corporate Management Profile

The organizational cultural environment grounds management in a combination of physical and psychological culture imperatives which determine horizons of managerial and HR consciousness in addition to the three other more general cultural profiles. They determine corporate consciousness, corporate culture consciousness. Corporate culture consciousness, societal culture consciousness, individual culture consciousness and transcultural consciousness will have to result in a powerful accord in musical terms and need to be based on a good foundation, if the company is to perform well; a blending of the organizational cultural, the intercultural and the transcultural, integrated by the latter.

D10 Intercultural management competencies

As an individual professional intercultural profile they complete the individual and other culture profiles and contribute to enhancing the accord between diverse cultural players in terms of business interests.

D11 Trust

Trust being the basis of all human relations it is as critical a dimension as the ethics dimension, intraindividually and interindividually. I can harmoniously tune relationships between diverse cultural players and foster a spirit of cooperation.

D12 Planetary interface

Physical culture and global governance variables constitute the interface with the global environment. The various levels of global consciousness evolution will impact choices.

4 THE THIRD MILLENNIUM GLOBAL CIVILISATION FORMULA.

INTEGRATING THE RELATIVE AND THE ABSOLUTE

The sea of live is in perpetual change and movement. There never is a standstill. Man tries to find a quiet point, a harbour, in the vastness of the ocean. The more he tries the more waves he creates which in turn increase the turbulences he seeks to escape. This is so because it is the nature of the ocean to be in movement and perpetual change.

Culture is a means whereby man hopes to create a form of stability on the sea of life. Yet, the more he affirms his culture in order to increase his psychological security, the more cultural waves he creates which unsettle the desired stability, because the cultural waves he creates through the affirmation of his own culture sets in motion cycles of waves of culture. They may become powerful waves which can threaten life in the entire field of the ocean as well as on land: the culture clashes and wars.

This means that the solution to cultural problems is unattainable through cultural means alone. It is their very nature to set in motion the waves of culture. They can only be stopped if he sees that that by which he tries to solve the cultural challenge actually tends to create the problem. If the problem cannot be solved sustainably at its own level, the solution must come from somewhere else, if there is any solution at all.

This is so, because culture is part of the mind and the very nature of the mind is to trigger waves which in turn create cycles of waves. The waves sometimes become tidal waves and destructive.

Similarly, the cultural identification sets in motion cycles of competitive identifications, self-perpetuating and never ending dualistic loops which, depending on their intensity, may escalate into major conflict unless the waves created by cultural identification and affirmation can subside. Once the cycles of waves are set in motion they assume a dynamic of their own beyond human control. That is how conflicts surge cyclically and somtimes get out of hand once cycles have been set in motion through the over-affirmation of one or more cultural players. They can set in motion the entire see of life. Ironically, the search for stability on the ocean of life, which has a natural dynamic of its own, leads to the very opposite, to major turbulences.

If that which one seeks turns into its opposite by virtue of its very search one has to look into another direction to find that which one seeks; seeking to achieve it in a non-counterproductive way. If the goal becomes elusive the more one tries to attain it one has to examine whether and why the search does not yield the expected result.

The answer is based on the dualistic nature of the mind which contains culture. Any mouvement creates pendulum-like a similarly strong reaction. The resulting instability is greater than the initial instability which one thought to further stabilize and consolidate. So, one might have been better off, if one had not started to set in motion the cultural game of action and reaction. This would have required the insight into the consequences of cultural self-affirmation, which in turn requires the understanding of the cycle of events an attitude or act such as cultural over-affirmation may trigger.

If whatever one undertakes at the cultural level, which is the mental level, because the latter contains the former, can only inadequately lead to the desired stability one hopes to find in cultural self-affirmation - beyond the maintenance of imperative personal integrity -, if one sees that all action creates more problems one stops action and examines the situation:

First there was the intention of consolidation through cultural affirmation.

The action produced counterproductive results.

The observation of the cause and effect cycle explained the situation.

One drew the consequence to stop all action of that kind due to its counterproductive results.

Now one starts to seek in different directions to attain the goal on other routes.

All routes seem to tend to produce similarly counterproductive results.

One stops all action.

The situation improves.

One further examines why that is the way things are.

One concludes that all mental activities are dualistic and dialectical, also all cultural measures which are part of the mental realm and therefore follow the dialectical logic of the mind.

The cultural path or the mental approaches are no longer considered as offering any perspective of reaching a sustainable consolidation neither for oneself nor for others.

Therefore one distances oneself from the cultural and the mental logic. On the ocean of life, culture and the mind itself are the actual cause of instability.

Here one stops searching on the horizontal plane.

Now one enquires into the vertical plane by penetrating to the very depth of the matter.

If one penetrates deeper into culture and the mind towards the ocean bed one can find a stability which, however, is not necessarily permanent because nature knows no absolute stability in the long-term. The tectonic, hydraulic and atmospheric conditions do also impact the deeper layers of the ocean. So, wherever I turn within the known there is no sustainable solution to my search of a definitive harbour of peace and stability. There seems to be neither a solution within cultural measures nor within the reach of the mind as a whole. All solutions display experiential evidence of incomplete solutions. “All measures are non-measures…”, Zen partriarch Eno of the 9th century might comment.

Now one also stops the inquiry into the deepest recesses of the mind because they cannot offer the complete solution to my question of how to achieve sustainable identity and stability.

On further investigation of the vertical plane I realize that the more I let go of the mental and cultural search, the freer I feel from the weight of culture and the mind. On letting go the cultural and mental mooring I approach a degree of serenity and freedom which eluded me in my cultural-mental inquiry.

Progressively, a horizon of another shore dawns, I have never known before. As it takes shapeless shape, formless form, I follow the beacon of that shadowless light.

I resolve to dissolve my attachment to the shore of the known of the mind and set my compass on the beacon of the unknown shore. The relative, dualistic, changeable and insecure of this side vanishes as I absolve myself and loosen the ties of this shore of the incompleteness of the mind to approach the complete of the absoluteness of the other shore. As I position myself there the previous has no more impact on me. I feel free from it. Its relativity is at a distance. I perceive it as incomplete.

I have solved the dilemma by absolving myself from the limitation and incompleteness of the relative and by adopting the vantage point of the complete and absolute. The anchoring in this optic is fulfilling, complete: absolute. I try to anchor myself in this optic.

I am free from the constraints of culture and the waves it stirs. On this shore it has no sway on me. This freedom from culture is a state of freedom and liberty t foreshadowing a potential civilization of freedom. The waves of culture are no more. And this ushers in peace and serenity. Along with the waves of culture the waves of the mind have subsided. The ocean is still. The cultural and mental pursuits are still. In this stillness that which I hoped to find in vain through cultural means abounds.

To be systematic, the roadmap of rescue from the turbulences of the psycho-social, organisational and institutional environments of the ocean of life requires its complete understanding: The mental-cultural diversity clashes appear from horizon to horizon, horizontally. In order to understand it more completely one has to inquire vertically into its very depth and into the height. There the horizon widens so that two shores delineate themselves with their beacons. One is the beacon of the mind which by itself remains on the horizontal plane.

Suffering, learning and insight are the milestones of the roadmap towards the other shore. Its beacon illumes my search. On reaching it the entire field unfolds and I can see the totality of the sea of life in its true perspective. And it appears as follows:

One shore’s beacon illumines and leads to the other shore’s beacon illumines

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And I realize that without the two there is no ocean, no ocean of life. So, the two, the cultural and the universal, the mental and the metamental, time and atemporality, movement and stillness, dualism and peace are indissociable and part and parcel of life.

The light of the beacon of the left shore, however, throws a powerful shadow in whatever direction one turns, the beacon of the right shore is pure, shadowless light. The struggle in the domain of the left shore and the part of the ocean it directs is due to the dualistic nature of this light whose nature it is to produce a shadow. Its nature is to produce dualism and its dialectical struggle. But the integration of the shadow doesn’t either lead out of the realm of this beacon's light. The other shore’s beacon's pure light instructs an intelligence which transcends the left shore’s light and intelligence. It produces neither shadow, nor duality nor the resulting dialectical struggles.

The light of the right shore’s beacon’s intelligence outshines that of the left shore’s beacon’s, while the left shore’s beacon cannot outshine nor darken the right shore’s beacon’s intelligence.

On seeing and understanding the entire field of the ocean of life, man can, by positioning himself mentally, determine what shapes and forms the ocean takes. If he adopts the left hand side perspective he produces the left hand qualities on the ocean of life, if he adopts the right hand perspective it results in the right hand column (see table above) attributes of the ocean. The mental stance determines the state of the sea of life. The behaviour of the sea has its origin in the intelligence provided by one or the other beacon’s light: the mind’s or that of the spirit or encomapassing consciousness.

On perceiving the totality of the picture one notes that one has been searching in the domain of the mind what lies in the domain of the spirit; stillness in the world of turbulence; the absolute in the relative. And such search is bound to remain fruitless.

The expansion of the reference frame from the relative cultural and turbulent to the absolute, universal and peaceful allows accessing the resources of the totality: here the dialectics of the accustomed shore are complementary and distill the best of the alternative, diverse cultural approaches, while their antagonisms can be controlled through the awareness of the absolute in the management of the relative.

The quality of man’s mind and consciousness decides along with the actual needs where man positions himself on the continuum from the cultural towards the absolute universal. It is questionable whether this continuum can be said to be a dilemma because the absolute and the relative highlight a certain discontinuity a qualitative change which is a change not within but beyond the continuum onto higher plane. One could also argue that it is one and the same light of consciousness which shines more brightly at the absolute level and dimly at the relative level, because man’s ego produces an obstacle (a combination of avarice, individual and collective ego beyond a healthy measure which create dualism and antagonism) and therefore casts a shadow. Or rather, man’s Ego casts the shadow. Shadowless light casts no shadow, unless in the sense of a shadow of comfort and protection. The magnitude of the shadow depends on the size of its cultural and personal ego.

When his awareness dawns that he is himself the author of the dualism and dialectics as a consequence of the shadow his personal and cultural ego produce he can gain the insight that he can himself remove the shadow with its antagonistic features and reflect the totality of the shadowless absolute. The key again lies in his mind and consciousness. The totality of the light of the absolute is always there. Man’s ego erects a barrier against the full light of the absolute. When he stops doing so he is on the other shore.

The two shores are, at the level of consciousness, present in man. He has access to both at any time and can therefore partake in both them. The art of accessing the absolute and universal rather consists in not doing what impedes it than in using methods, resources and processes to reach the other shore. The two shores of the ocean of life are potentialities in the human spirit that can choose the relative or the absolute perspective. The absolute perspective is reached by not adopting the relative. What is left is the absolute. This puts the relative perspective in a new light in the sense that its antagonisms are resolved by the absolute perspective.

The superior performance in the management of the relative through the light of the absolute will induce him to want to permanently transfer his main focus from the relative to the more absolute and anchor himself there rather than in the sphere of the relative and cultural where he was anchored preciously; simply because it is more sustainable, less turbulent, more efficient etc. It makes the totality of man’s resources available which actually allow integrating the shadows of duality.

Once the awareness - through suffering, questioning, searching, analyzing and through grace - has dawned that the world of relativity is contained in a vaster, absolute world and that the latter has a redeeming impact on the relative, the question arises how it can be accessed and its benefits leveraged while existing in the relative. The two worlds exist within one and the same consciousness. It is therefore about freeing the vaster consciousness so as to naturally integrate the more limited; enhancing human wholeness, structures and functions; overall integration. Once the instruments of awareness are tuned so as to operate in both dimensions, the relative and the universal, they no longer need to produce the cultural and personal shadow which are due to an obstruction of the vaster; the shadow is man-made, through unawareness of the whole which is shadowless light and as has been said at the beginning, man tends to reinforce the shadow by his attempts to resolve it and this creates vicious spirals of man’s interacting shadows. Individual and cultural diversity produce no shadow when they are not disconnected from the universal; they are mere difference aimed at benefitting the whole. When they are disconnected from the whole, the universal and absolute, differences appear as antagonisms and pose the challenge of their integration which causes the diversity struggles and cultural conflict.

Technically it is about the awareness and the convergence of two worlds, whereby one has a lead function for the other. In leveraging the one with the lead function and enhanced capabilities the other can be successfully integrated and managed. The key to all this is in man, in the human spirit, whose wholeness has to be recovered as it has been fragmented by multiple interests in multiple ways. The wholeness of consciousness reestablishes man’s wholeness. This wholeness does not function in fragments of culture and ego and can therefore view things in the light of the absolute or wholeness. Action in the light of the whole is complete. A complete action which does not antagonize the whole causes neither reaction nor shadow nor conflict.

We have started with the ocean of life metaphor, its two shores and lights and capabilities which are but one and contained in the human spirit and consciousness. Perception and action from the stance of the absolute is different form perception from the perspective of the relative; the former tends to produces no shadow of antagonism, while the latter tends not to produce the shadow of antagonism. As man acts form the background of the relative alone he will promote and antagonize other relativities. Perceiving and acting in the light of the whole and universal does not trigger the dialectics of the relative.

In the Christian religion Christ mediates between the absolute and the relative, He redeems man form the vicissitudes and dialectics of the relative. What I have called viewing things in the light of the whole has to be called viewing things in the light of Him who incarnates the Absolute. If man in the relative follows his example and commandments his thoughts and actions need not produce any shadow, because then they are tuned a priori to the shadowless light and integrity of the absolute; they are in tune with the law of the absolute. Here the mediator through his salvation work has mediated the absolute and the relative; He has redeemed the relative. All one needs to do is to faithfully follow His example. In the previous approach, the mind and consciousness analysis-based approach is far more demanding and complex. Man has to work it out alone and the anchoring is never permanent, whereas the spiritual anchoring can by more permanent if he resolves again and again to remain anchored in the personalized absolute of Christ. Diverse cultures may attribute the absolute in diverse ways, but in monotheism we assume that there is no second option, but only one with regard to the absolute, personalized or impersonal.

Whatever approach to the absolute may be chosen, personal God or impersonal consciousness analysis-based, man is conditioned to be motivated by the personal and collective ego together with avarice. They tend to cloud the light of the absolute. Therefore discernment, resolution and ethical determination are indispensable to remain anchored in the absolute once it has been recognized.

True religion is the mediation between the absolute and the relative, the reconnection of the relative to the absolute in such a way that existence in the relative is made whole and holy and potentially shadowless to foreshadow the absolute of the divine. It is up to man to accept this grace and to act accordingly. It is up to his free will to decide whether he accepts the redemption from the dialectics of duality, of conflict and the world of shadows of the relative. It is always easier to follow a perfect personal example and anchor oneself in it than to anchor oneself in impersonal principles.

The paradigm shift which conditions weal and woe of the third millennium consists in changing perception towards the perspective of the absolute so as to mitigate and pacify the myriad interfacing diversities of the relative world in the light of the whole which can remove the shadow of conflict. If that can be achieved the future can be peaceful.

Finally, I would like to present the Holistic Transcultural Management Model and explain how the absolute can be operationalized in a global management environment:

The transcultural management model or transcultural profiler is on the next page, followed by the part of the legend which is required in this context. Complete information on this profiler can be found in the writing Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management or Interkulturelles Management – Intercultural Management by the author of this study.

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12D Transcultural Management Model/Profiler

Review of the Transcultural Profiler

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection. The biological and mental roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Operationalization. The One (absolute) steps onto the stage of the human mind. It is the interfacing of the absolute awareness with the concrete reality. It remains the absolute engaging the relative world of diversity. As operationalized Oneness it engages with diversity while it remains what it essentially is, i.e. Oneness which precedes the diversification into the other levels of the infrastructure.

This 12 x 12 dimensional transcultural profiler is a model of the totality of the psychological architecture involved in managing across cultures: The relative world of management is covered by dimensions D 4 through D 12. The world of the absolute it covered by dimensions D1 and D2. At level D3 of the profiler the absolute engages in the word of relativity. It is operationalized. The absolute as a superordinate category reigns supremely and can remain in its own world of absoluteness. That may befit the saints, yogis and holy men who can remain in a state of pure consciousness, ecstasy or Samadhi, those who are mukta, i.e. free while alive. If someone needs to fulfill his duties as an international manager and wants to leverage man’s highest resources, those of the absolute, because they are the only ones to be able to sustainably manage global diversity for instance, the absolute needs to step out of the glory of its infinity and independence and to engage in the finite, relative world. In a way, it has been operationalized, but the international manager who perceives the range of his options and those of his colleagues and business partners in the light of the absolute, will take his decisions in the light of the absolute. At the level of the absolute they tend to produce no or less shadow, they do not set in motion the dialectical cycles of cultural waves for example. Faced with myriad forms of diversity he perceives the one behind the diverse appearances. And in that one there is no or less antagonism. As humans we all have ages of conditioning and a human nature which sometimes wants to have its own way. Therefore it is appropriate to be less categorical. In that sense “no or less” should be understood. Any ideological, fanatical conception of the absolute is in the domain of the relative which wants to instrumentalize the absolute and is therefore part of the shadow.

Although one talks of the category of absoluteness, human nature requires compassion and tolerance. The absolute, rather than being intransigent and hardened probably tends more to love which itself is an aspect of the absolute.

Finally, after the consciousness-analytical approach, the religious approach and the managerial approach, I would like to add a fourth approach of the convergence of the absolute and the relative; a triad in which in particular the East-West cultural interfacing can be solved. To introduce it I would like to proceed in three steps:

- a quotation by Rudyard Kipling from my writing on Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management
- my Sino-Western Culture and Cosmology Model – and its Integration
- explanation

In the following I would like to attempt to find and answer how the cultural distance between East and West can be bridged. Rudyard Kipling in his days said:

'Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's Great Judgement Seat;'

These are the lines which are usually quoted. However, an Indian Maharajah and former Indian Ambassador to Washington D.C. I spoke to a few years ago correctly added the following lines, which are

'But there is neither East nor West, Border, not Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

Though they come from the end of the Earth'

and he interpreted the two “strong men” as”

When two strong „minds“ meet

Sino-Western Culture and Cosmology – and its Integration are modeled on the following page.

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DAO: ONE CHI RO:

THE WAY I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND LIFE

SINO-WESTERN CULTURE AND COSMOLOGY MODEL

Source: Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management by G. Deißler

Rudyard Kipling’s famous verse assumes that, except for the bravest and strongest of men, there can be no true intercultural encounter between East and West. The above referred to former Indian ambassador to Washington, who as an Indian Maharaja, is culturally at home in the East and in the West, pointed out that “strong men” refers to “strong minds”. The strong mind is precisely that which can move in the worlds of the two dimensions, that of the relative and that of the absolute. Then nothing stands in the way of a heart to heart, mutually enriching and understanding encounter. Here the example of China is considered which is perceived as being culturally even more distant from the West than India, which has been colonized by the West and therefore highlights a range of similarities with the West, above all the English language.

The model of models of Chinese Culture and Cosmology is the Heaven-Man-Earth triad. The model of models of Christian Civilisation similarly is the triad Heaven-Christ-Earth. Both imply the encounter of heaven and earth, their reconciliation which can be translated as the interfacing of the relative and the absolute. This threefold cosmology in both civilizations provides a platform for an understanding and a reencounter of both civilizations highlighted in the axis which connects the convergence points of the relative and the absolute in both models which culminate beyond all previous expectations to the contrary in a quintessential center (cross with concentric circles) which even unites both civilizations: the East-West cultural and cosmological integration.

The Western Christian perspective, in any case can, in spite of R. Kipling’s reserve, mediate the East-West reencounter, as this side naturally draws on the absolute with its naturally integrative features. To what extent it can be reciprocated will depend on the other side’s evolution from cultural-mental relativity towards the all-encompassing universal and absolute. It reminds us of the two shores metaphor with their respective relative and absolute light and capabilities.

Finally, we may conclude that intercultural issues are determined by the following formula, formulated as a question: To what extent can (culturally) diverse people integrate the poles of the continuum of the socio-cultural, mental relative and the absolute, universal?

If the absolute or universal can be leveraged anything can be integrated, because everything is contained in it. It is everything, at diverse levels of manifestation. And as all men are, irrespective of their cultural diversity, more or less consciously, sons and daughters of that absolute, although they may live in the relative, there are as many avenues to it.

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