WIE: What is the most important catalyst for the kind of change of worldview you’ve been speaking about?

Swimme: You know, that’s a great question. I wish I had an adequate answer. I’ve thought about it, and my conclusion is that there are multiple catalysts. For some people, it’s knowledge, just hearing about this new story of the universe—so that’s what I do in education. But for others, it’s personal tragedy. Or maybe having an early commitment to the beauty of a place, from childhood, and then coming back and seeing it destroyed. Some people awaken through varied forms of meditation; other people use drugs. I see multiple catalysts. I don’t have an adequate answer perhaps, but the catalyst for me was knowledge. It was just being completely amazed at what we now know. So that would be my own particular path, but I don’t privilege one over the other because I’ve met so many people who are beginning to get a sense of this and they come from a variety of directions.

WIE: You often speak about the importance of activating what you call “comprehensive compassion.” What do you mean by “comprehensive compassion”?

Swimme: Well, when we use words like compassion, we tend to limit them to the human world. And part of this goes back to what I said before, that we think of the rest of the universe as being stuff, and we don’t use words that are spiritual or warm or emotional concerning them. The scientific tradition has always called that “projection”—projecting your own qualities upon the universe as a whole or upon nature. And that’s supposed to be a terrible thing to do. But I think that’s breaking down as we begin to realize that it’s all one energy event. It’s one journey, one story, so that the qualities that are true of the human are in some way or another true of other parts of the universe. So I talk about compassion as a multilevel reality. It’s not just something that’s true of humans.

My interpretation is this. I think that gravitational attraction is an early form of compassion or care. If there weren’t that kind of care at the foundation of the universe, there would be no formation of galaxies—and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. This care or compassion begins to show up in the organic form when you have a bond developing between a mother and her offspring. You know, for a long time, there’s no bond. There’s no care—at least no visible way of seeing care—for instance, with bacteria. They replicate. There could be care there, but we haven’t recognized it yet. But by the time you get to mammals, two hundred and twenty million years ago, you have this bond between the mother and the child. That arrives as a genetic mutation. But because of that, the offspring have a higher chance of surviving. So that mutation then spreads and starts to characterize the entire population. That’s just the bond between a mother and an infant. Then other bonds develop between siblings, and they have a higher chance of survival. All of what I’m saying fits into Darwinian biology. This isn’t outside of mainstream science. What it says is that the dynamics of Darwinian biology favor the appearance of compassion. It shows up between mother and child. It shows up between siblings, and it even develops between kin groups. And it starts to spread.

Now the human comes into existence. We are the first species that actually has the possibility of caring about all of the other species. You see, chimpanzees are our closest relatives, and they certainly care about one another, but their care doesn’t extend over in any visible way to other species, even though they may share territories with baboons. I’ve asked naturalists if they’ve seen a chimpanzee take care of a baboon, and they haven’t. But with humans, suddenly you have the possibility, largely through the human imagination, of actually caring. I mean, I care. I care so much about the cheetahs. And I’ve never even been around a wild cheetah. My point is that the human being is that space in which the comprehensive compassion that pervades the universe from the very beginning now begins to surface within consciousness. That’s the only difference. We didn’t invent compassion, but it’s flowing through us—or it could. The phase change that we’re in seems, to me, to depend upon that comprehensive compassion unfurling in the human species.

WIE: You’re suggesting that throughout evolution, Darwinian natural selection has favored the formation of bonds of care and concern, but that now, in the human, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to extend that care and concern consciously beyond what is already genetically determined. In your video series The Earth’s Imagination, you say: “It’s terrific that you love your family members, but what about the species that are outside the reach of your genes emotionally? That’s the challenge. Doesn’t it seem ungrateful of us if we are just carried along by the emotional bonds that have been established by the past? What if we devote ourselves to developing a more profound concern for all species?” Can you speak about how to actually do this—how to extend the reach of our care and concern?

Swimme: My conviction is that the first step is just paying attention. What’s amazing is that, as humans, if we dwell on anything, after a while we become fascinated by it. It doesn’t matter what it is. The ability to dwell on things is uniquely human because we don’t have such fixed action programs as other species do. We can forget about everything else and just dwell on something. I call it the power of gawking. We can pay attention to whales or to the hummingbirds and just become fascinated by them. It’s noticing in a deep way, or contemplating, and my intuition is that as humans allow themselves to be fascinated by the other creatures, these species will awaken the psychic depths in the human that respond to their beauty. And then we become convinced that in some amazing way, they are essential to us. We can become amazed by how essential they are for our zest, our sense of well-being or happiness. Chief Seattle said that if the animals were not here, we would die of loneliness. I think that a deeper feeling of care begins with allowing ourselves to move into awe—with all of the different creatures, no matter which ones we’ve picked. If we would attend to them, we would see their colossal grandeur. Abraham Heschel said that awe is the first step into wisdom. You can just sit and watch fish and think of how they’ve developed over hundreds of millions of years and imagine what they’re experiencing, and after awhile you’re sunk into contemplation of ultimacy. This is what I think is the first step toward compassion.

WIE: Many spiritual traditions speak about transcending self-centeredness and expressing profound care for others as being the whole point of the spiritual path. Changing our fundamental motivations and making the leap from fundamental self-concern to a condition in which one’s life is based on genuine care and concern for the whole of life is quite a radical transformation. Spiritual paths committed to this kind of transformation usually involve enormous dedication, and often years of extensive spiritual practice. Yet the situation that we’re in now on this planet is critical. Do you think that it is still possible for enough people to make this leap quickly enough to see us through our current crisis?

Swimme: Well, I think the universe is carrying this out. But we get to participate in it consciously. And in a real sense, it’s very important that we participate. At the same time, it’s important to remember that we’re not doing it. I mean, the universe has been working on this for a long time, and right now, it’s exploding within human consciousness. But we’re not in charge of it. So I haven’t got the slightest idea if we have enough time. That’s almost a secondary question to me. It just seems so deeply right that we be thinking about this and working on this. But I think all of the spiritual traditions are going to be accelerated as they learn about this new cosmology and this moment that we face as a human species. There’ll be an amplification taking place. So, it could go very quickly. Or it might take thousands of years. I don’t know.

WIE: Your vision of spiritual awakening is an embrace of the cosmic evolutionary journey of the universe as ourselves and a shift from seeing ourselves as separate individuals to identifying with the universe itself as the greater Self. What do you think about the Eastern mystical traditions that direct us to solely look within for enlightenment, and about statements such as this one by renowned Hindu sage Ramana Maharshi: “All controversies about creation, the nature of the universe, evolution, the purpose of God, etc., are useless. They are not conducive to our true happiness. People try to find out about things which are outside of them before they try to find out ‘Who am I?’ Only by the latter means can happiness be gained.”

Swimme: I can only tell you my orientation. It’s just that there are so many things that we care about, that we carry in our hearts, that we want to help. People are suffering. Animals are suffering. So how can I interact in a way that would be helpful? That’s my focus. All that I think about is somehow related to that. Just to be responsible and to participate in a process that will deepen joy. That’s the only way I can put it. That’s my high hope. There can be such a tendency for the individual to focus on “my enlightenment” and so forth. But it just doesn’t seem to be what is really needed right now. Or it’s not enough.

Interview by Susan Bridle