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The meta-crises is a concept that is growing in usage around the world
It is developed in the western context with a Global North audience in mind, although in sync with Asian & indigenous wisdom traditions. The ingredients are coherent. But for an Asian audience it can seem dry, bland, and not very relatable. Like it’s missing a burst of flavour that animates your being.
So it was really refreshing and uplifting to sit down with Abhishek to learn what an Indic perspective and response to the Metacrises looks like based on 20+ years of lived experience of movement building in India.
Abhishek Thakore is the co-author of the soon to be released report "Bodhi Sangha: An Indian Response to the Meta Crisis" - a collection of 15 voices offering indigenous wisdom for our times.
With over 20 years of facilitation experience across 50+ organizations globally, Abhishek is founder of the Blue Ribbon Movement and co-founder of WisdomTree and the Bodhisangha ecosystem - one of India's most innovative mycelium-like networks.
His own work is inspired and informed by elders such as Vinoba Bhave, and which spans initiatives across levels—from hyperlocal to global—and approaches, including policy, programs, and practice.
Understanding the Meta Crisis Through Indic Eyes
The Indic mind sees our current crises — financial, Climate, social, health, etc. — as manifestations of inner spiritual decline. Therefore the root of the response must also begin here.
Seeing our present moment within the context of cycles (yug). This opens us up to ancestral wisdom, and codified messages passed on to us from religious texts and wisdom traditions.
Amidst the confusion and chaos of our time, rather than try to answer the question “what do I want”, we learn to find the Yugdharma, the calling of our times.
"The Indic mind at its surface level is able to hold paradoxes, deal with ambiguity, deal with chaos and so on. And I think the deeper layers of that mind are that the collective mind has had a long time to evolve."
Abhishek has helped build a sophisticated set of social technologies for movement building, social change rooted in relationships, and working with our egos.
Relational fields: the emergent power of high-frequency relationships between groups of people that can become space for a new consciousness to land and for new ideas that will be intuited through a web of relationships.
The ‘inner’-net: The power of relationships within community gatherings as a practise to better see our own egos at play and tune our inner-nets, and bring our spirituality from the temple into the muck of everyday life.
Forest-like Fundraising: An approach to fundraising relying on diverse sources of revenue going beyond the donor-recipient model that he’s honed from his experience with Blue Ribbon Movement and Bodhisangha ecosystem.
Chapters
00:00 Grounding and Intention Setting
01:55 Exploring the Meta-Crisis
06:47 The Indic Response to Crisis
12:24 The Indic Mind and Its Paradoxes
17:40 Cycles of Time and the Kali Yuga
23:21 Finding Hope in Crisis
26:51 Theory of Change and Relational Fields
28:09 The Ego Function and Its Impact
29:30 Relationships as a Testing Ground
31:18 Creating a Landing Pad for Consciousness
32:51 The Theory of Change through Relational Fields
35:28 Building Generosity in Ecosystems
41:09 Resourcing Ecology vs. Traditional Fundraising
45:09 The Power of Artivist Ashrams
47:37 Rediscovering Indic Roots and Personal Journey
54:56 The Journey of Self-Discovery
58:20 From Self to Society: A Shift in Perspective
01:01:07 Honing the Instrument of Change
01:03:46 The State of India: Youth and Challenges
01:09:56 Building Alliances for Change
01:12:59 Community as a Catalyst for Transformation
Connect with Abhishek
