This weekend, I attended a working discussion attended by spiritual leaders and technologists, who gathered to explore the role of technology, consciousness and the future. Convened by the good folks at the Contemplative Alliance, we sat in a circle, and were guided by the occasional gong to invite pause and reflection.

Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee opened with a powerful idea - could the internet be a new model of universal consciousness? When seeing the Internet through it's symbolic and sacred potential, he saw a blueprint similar to the plane of self he experienced during enlightenment - where all knowledge is present and accessible, and where all people are inter-connected in global oneness. Technology may just be the gateway on a physical plane so more people could carry the light, unify in consciousness, with dynamic energy and power to completely rearrange our world. When I read this amazing story about how Matt's lost phone created an unbelievable cultural connection and friendship, I couldn't help but be in awe.

With that, there is also an opportunity to restore the wisdom of the "mystery schools" of the past, where architects of society were taught the connection to the sacred and the earth.

This idea comes at a critical time where technology holds the potential to do both harm and good. The Singularity may come faster than we expect and could either have very good effects or mean the extinction of the human race.

In the two days, I found myself sitting with these questions:

+ Is the universal access to knowledge helping us grow in understanding, or designed to increase our tendencies for confirmation bias, reading only the things that we already believe in?

+ Is our connectivity facilitating deep connections and giving voices who those who are marginalized, or is it taking away from our human-to-human connection?

+ Is the cloud making us less attached to material things, or is technology fueling our insatiable need and speed to consume more and more, see Jevon's Paradox to the Green Revolution. While I find myself hoarding less books, amazon's seamless delivery makes it easy to need more!

+ Is the speed of technology giving us more freedom and time, or simply making us distracted from the things that truly matter? Apparently our average attention span has decreased to 8 seconds, just 1 second less than the attention span of a gold fish.

What new responsibilities do we bear, as the designers and consumers of technology?

In the grander perspective of time, it felt very much that humanity and technology are like a teenager and sex - it's new, it’s messy, it's confusing, we're experimenting... but the creative, moral and behavioral crises might be necessary to build its experience and wisdom.

Yet in the quiet corners of the internet, some are already designing calm technology, wearables that bring awareness to your breath, platforms that are giving women a global voice, organizing smart engineers to serve humanity, and building other transformative technologies. These people deserve a hand as they are inventing the adult future of technology, not doing what is easy, but what is right.

What emerged for me was a call to deepen my own practice. As designers, our intentions, biases, and blind spots often get amplified in the technologies we create, and there exist a greater call to cultivate our own consciousness. May we cultivate the infinite patience to give transformation the time it needs, remove the ego from our work, and find the courage in our hearts to defy systems with great love! 

Special thanks to Birju for the invitation and continued inspiration :)