Axial 2.0: From Ego to Soul
The Foundational Programme Axial 2.0: From Ego to Soul is a project that emerged out of the personal, academic and professional experience of its founders. It aims to provide resources to begin to develop a new relation with ourselves, with others and with the world. To do so, it draws on the wisdom of the Axial Age and the contemplative core of the axial religions, the findings of modern science, the insights of contemporary integrative philosophy and metatheory and the interventions of modern therapy and psychotherapy.
The essential goal of this programme is to open a process whereby our identity begins to shift from the ego (understood as our separate self sense) to the Self or soul (understood as our essence and true nature). For an outline of our approach to the ego and soul click here.
The foundational programme has three levels.
Level One is organised around three fundamental questions that lie at the heart of philosophy: Who are we? Where do we come from? and where are we going? We approach these three questions from both a macro / philosophical perspective and a micro / therapeutic one. The macro perspective takes a more philosophical approach to the three questions, focusing on what the self consists of, our emergence out of the cosmos, and where the cosmic ‘creation story’ or ‘big history’ seems to be leading us. The micro perspective takes a more personal approach, focusing on building self-awareness, on exploring and healing our personal history, and on cultivating well-being and the unfolding of our unique potentials.
Level Two then expands on the theoretical and practical base set up in Level One, focusing on three core practices: self-development, Self-healing and Self-leadership. Self-development involves the construction of an accurate self-image, the promotion of self-ownership and personal responsibility, and the awareness and activation of the ‘evolving self’. Self-healing entails listening to, accepting and reparenting unbalanced or wounded ‘parts’, or aspects, within our psyche, using therapy and the Self to reintegrate them and enable them to take on more constructive and balanced roles. Self-leadership involves gaining ever-greater contact with, and leadership from, our true nature and deeper essence and to cultivate awareness of the ground of being that is hidden by obscuring structures, both social / cultural and psychological.
Level Three will expand and deepen on themes addressed in levels one and two.
We offer a short introductory course / workshop that provides an overview of the whole Foundational Programme, which we recommend to all those interested in doing the full programme. For more information see events.