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The future beckons … a new millennium …

This paper aims to define a capability-based sustained/total human development, after reviewing both the concept of “Surplus in Man” as the source for achieving the Vedântic ideal of transcendence, and the capability approach to human development.

The capability-based sustained/total human development has been defined by integrating the Vedântic concept of “Surplus in Man” and the deontological theories of morality into the basic approach to capability-based human development.

An answer to the question: “How to apply a holistic approach to our daily life?” is outlined.

An example is provided on the role of yoga and meditation as the key initial bridging forces between the Western and Eastern concept of mental health. Also, the recent trend in a morally demanding lifestyle of a section of people in the Western societies for moving towards a galloping spiritual pluralism has been exemplified.

Role of responsibility of an individual human being along with his or her right has explicitly been emphasized in the approach to capability-based sustained/total human development.

There are two central questions determining the pedagogy of teacher education: (a) What are the essential qualities of a good teacher; and (b) How can we help people to become good teachers? Our objective is not to present a definitive answer to these questions, but to discuss an umbrella model of levels of change that could serve as a framework for reflection and development. The model highlights relatively new areas of research, viz., teachers’ professional identity and mission. Appropriate teacher education interventions at the different levels of change are discussed, as well as implications for new directions in teacher education.

Spirituality at work is an idea of revolutionary potential that requires more clarity and theoretical understanding. Popular authors like Thomas Moore enrich our appreciation of the magnificence and depths of the human spirit. Several dimensions of spirituality, when integrated into the workplace, can greatly enhance personal well‐being and creativity, organizational harmony, and long‐term business success. These are ultimate values, optimal human development, the art of transcendence, and spiritual psychologies, both ancient and modern.

To those concerned with challenges and challengers to conventional wisdom, the entirely credible perception of ours as a planet in the midst of a deep environmental crisis offers fruitful grounds for analysis. Crises stimulate those who have, in the existence of the crisis, firm proof that the wisdom which girds the status quo is deficient and/or those who apply it are. This is particularly true when the crisis is perceived to be grave and dread‐laden. Skin cancer due to the depletion of the ozone layer is on the increase. Large, at times devastating, climate changes are loose upon the planet. Whether given quasi‐ scientific names like the “greenhouse effect” or lumped together in a melange of “acid rain”, “toxic waste” and “industrial cancers”, the result is the same. Rational citizens of the everyday‐person‐on‐the‐street sort feel threatened. The threat is given shape and substance by the mass media. The environmental crisis is a credible crisis. One need not list radical political activism as one's vocation to list the environmental crisis as one of one's fears as we enter the 1990's.

While spirituality and religion in work (SRW) as an inquiry field has been gaining interest in the popular press, it has only recently been recognized by the academic community. Consequently, its relevance to important research and its legitimacy in contributing scholarly work is not ensured. Part of the problem is that many SRW concepts resist being tested with “approved” positivist research models. This paper explores the tension between relevance and legitimacy, focusing on research methods, models, and traditions that may serve both well. It suggests that many methodologies and traditions that support such work already exist. It discusses some of these methods and offers operational blueprints for alternative forms of excellent research. It argues that combining such methodological underpinnings with experimental models and new forms of data representation allows for scholarly work to emerge, thus facilitating SRW's desire to stay true to important research questions while respecting sound research traditions.

This analysis examines the influence of varying levels of consciousness on the problem solving effectiveness of chief executive officers (CEOs). Specifically, it applies the original work of Ken Wilber, considered one of the most important theorists in the field of consciousness studies of our time, to executive leadership. The paper proposes that as CEOs move to higher levels of consciousness, their problem solving capabilities become more effective for their situational contexts. The argument set forth is that CEOs at higher levels of consciousness will be more effective problem solvers for their organizations and experience greater levels of self‐fulfillment than CEOs operating at lower levels on the Spectrum of Consciousness.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the therapeutic benefits of a community-based creative artists support group. The author is also the participant/facilitator of the group, which has been ongoing for the past eight months. The relevant experiences of three participants in the group have been chosen, to briefly illustrate the diverse kinds of social and therapeutic value that people with creative artistic inclinations may benefit from.

The philosophy of the author's facilitation of this creative artist support group is based upon the humanistic psychology foundations of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, as well as the author's previous work on the relationship of the creative artist to mental disturbance and mental health.

The pragmatic illustrations of therapeutic benefit from participation in this creative artist support group are directly related to the humanistic supportive atmosphere that is described in this paper as a cornerstone of the Artistic Theory of Psychology.

This paper is highly original in the context of the author's description of his Artistic Theory of Psychology, which utilizes the foundation for the “successful creative artist” as being successful in both one's chosen artistic realm as well as making a satisfactory adjustment to day-to-day life. It should also be noted that this paper has been written in the context of a “brief case study” as discussed in August 2013 with the Journal of Public Mental Health editor.

In this chapter, I will draw upon East-Asian wisdom traditions, quantum, transpersonal, and integral theory to posit consciousness as fundamental. In doing so, the relationship between Self and reality will be articulated as nondual. I will argue that knowledge about the nature of Self is both an educational entitlement and learning process. Such understanding is generally thwarted by the impact of scientific materialism and behaviorism on educational orthodoxy, which instead promulgate a separate sense of self with destructive individual and collective consequences. Moving from philosophical theorization to application to teacher education, I will argue that a massive program of deconditioning and unlearning is necessary within education and show how a module I teach, “Responding Mindfully to Challenging Behavior,” attempts to do some of this work via a focus on “discipline.” The focus of the module invites us to question the nature of Self when difficulties arise. As explored, this is often a conditioned self with automatic reactions that can shift toward a “witnessing consciousness” when experiential learning and contemplative practices are integrated with theories of human flourishing.

The paper aims to rediscover the subtle heart and discuss its importance in relation to conversations regarding sustainability.

Based on the imaginal approach of the author’s doctoral research, this paper is informed by the discourse of transpersonal psychology, attempting to open a space through which it becomes possible to perceive the heart differently.

This paper discusses the idea that knowledge as generated through the heart has been rendered subservient to knowledge generated through the mind/brain through a dominant/medical narrative (Bound Alberti, 2012). This means that the heart’s wisdom and the heart’s benevolent qualities cannot gain traction at the level at which decisions are made in society.

While the heart is not unproblematic, and can carry notions of moral superiority, this paper is written as an appeal to create safe enough spaces to bring the heart back into conversation at the level of political discourse.

This paper suggests that it is the approach of the heart, the qualities and characteristics that the heart embodies, and the different way of being in the world that the heart makes possible, which could play an important role in guiding us towards a more sustainable world. When taken seriously, the heart offers a way of engaging with, and thinking about, ideas of relationship, wholeness and interconnection – all of which have been identified as important by numerous scholars in relation to engaging with global challenges (de Witt, 2016).

This paper suggests that it is the approach of the heart and the different way of being in the world that the heart makes possible, which could play an important role in guiding humanity towards a more sustainable world.

Since the late 1900s, scholars have been calling for creative thinking in relation to engaging with the myriad of issues facing our planet, and this paper is written as a response to that call – creating a platform for the heart to speak and making a case for its importance in conversations relating to sustainability.