Michael West 2

Prof Michael West

Senior Fellow in The King’s Fund. Professor of Organisational Psychology at Lancaster University Management School, Senior Research Fellow at The Work Foundation, and Emeritus Professor at Aston University.  He was formerly Executive Dean of Aston Business School.

The mystery and wonder of our existence is often lost in our involvement with human affairs. Humanity, I believe, is rooted in a sense of wonder and gratitude for our existence. The SoH Forum is an opportunity individually and collectively to become more profoundly and enduringly rooted in Humanity.

It is clear that we and many species face the greatest existential threat of our history because of our activities that have profoundly damaged our planet. Courageously addressing the problem will require our deepest Humanity, and transcending the evolutionary limitations which have brought us to this point.

The basis of Humanity is (I believe) a conscious engagement with the enormity, wonder and beauty of our existence and that of all else. Beneath the diversity of human life, other life and the cosmos is a ground of Being that is experienced as love. Accepting and engaging with that Being, and continually experiencing the spiritual awakening it offers in every moment, is (I believe) must be our way forward.