The Five Flavours of Wholeness that we discussed in the last issue reminded us that a HOLISTIC person possesses a broad vision of life, works in synchrony with others for a common purpose and contributes meaningfully wherever one is called to serve. The obvious question at this point is, “How can we generate these five flavours of wholeness?” Tom Atlee, who described the Co-intelligence theory in great detail, enumerated six facets that can help us in generating wholeness. These six facets were; Unity, Diversity, Relationship, Uniqueness, Context and Interiority.
Although these facets seem to be six totally different elements, they manifest a very special dynamic among them. This special dynamic can be understood well when we make them into three pairs: Unity & Diversity, Relationship & Uniqueness, Context & Interiority. While each of them describes a facet of wholeness, when they are paired as above, they incorporate two seemingly opposite entities. While one of them manifests integration, the other manifests differentiation. For example, Unity stands for integration and Diversity stands for differentiation. In the same way, Relationships are a form of integration and Uniqueness is something that differentiates one person from another. This process of incorporating these seemingly two opposite entities can be called dynamic coherence.
We would understand this concept well when it is perceived in the context of religious life. Seen in this perspective, both the opposite entities would take precedence over the other depending on the time and situation. Let us look at each of these three pairs one by one:
Fr Joseph Jeyaraj SDB
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