The type of observation which leads to discovery of living centers: seeking tradition and seeking the new

Certainly the majority of these patterns from Lima were rooted in observation. We did not invent them. We saw them. We extracted them, as we thought, from the situations we saw around us, and in the people we were with.
Yet we were looking at people with charmed eyes. We asked ourselves, like psychiatrists, what was best in them, what were the things about the people we were with that were most deeply rooted, in which these people felt anchored. What conditions — we asked ourselves — did create for the people of Lima a condition in which they felt most whole, at peace with themselves? Of course, the answer to that question is bound to be both traditional and modern.

What we are looking for, in our attempt to find patterns NOW, for our lives, for our age, for new kinds of centers which will come about by unfolding from the wholeness of the present situation, are these deep patterns, half-existing, and yet carrying forward from the present, the truth about the present wholeness, preserving its structure, yet making themselves consistent with the new age.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/13 Patterns#