This feature, originally published by Kosmos Journal (Volume V, Number 1, 2006), provides an intimate and revelatory account of the life and mission of Dr. Alfredo Sfeir-Younis. Described as a “renaissance man of our global future,” Sfeir-Younis shares his journey from a precise spiritual mandate to a distinguished 29-year career at the World Bank.

The text explores the transition from a success model based on individual initiative toward one of collective effort and shared responsibility. Sfeir-Younis argues that technological change alone will not solve humanity’s problems without a prior expansion of human awareness and coherence. Drawing on his experience as an environmental economist and human rights expert, he advocates for the “humanization of economics,” where spiritual and humanistic values are mainstreamed into the structures of political and business decision-making.

Since founding the Zambuling Institute For Human Transformation following his retirement, his work has focused on healing the gap between the material and the spiritual, advocating for an emerging planetary civilization rooted in collective wisdom and compassion.

We live at a time of momentous transition. Peace and abundance can now arise only through collective effort, as opposed to individual initiative. They are our collective responsibility. Our human interdependence and the interdependence between humanity and all living beings are now at the core of all processes of human transformation and destiny. The meaning of ‘collective’ is no longer simply the arithmetic sum of separate and independent contributions, based on personally defined aims or goals. Our collective future is much greater than the sum of its parts in quantity, quality and distribution.

In addition, this is a moment when the traditional material and external instruments and solutions to our collective challenges have reached their limits in effectiveness and availability. Technological change, as we have conceived it for the last several centuries, no longer provides adequate solutions to people’s problems. Banking on technology without first creating a major expansion of human awareness and coherence is not only inappropriate but also possibly the cheapest ticket to human suffering and self-destruction. Inner development, the union between our material and spiritual natures, and human self-realization form the foundation for the architecture of our future.

It’s valuable to look at this new foundation from the angle of economics, finance and globalization. Today, our economic and financial systems are an outgrowth of our individualistic values and tendencies, while globalization demands that we act for and by the group welfare. This is why I have devoted my professional life to changing the approaches in economics and business and to mainstreaming spiritual and humanistic values into their structures and thinking. As an environmental economist and an expert on human rights in economic development, I have pushed the frontier of the debate in these fields to the limit. These arenas deeply influence our shared human experience and well-being. They have also provided a huge school for me and for the refinement of my possible options and priorities. I have most certainly learned that the human and spiritual dimensions of the environment and human rights are One.

My mission is about humanity as a whole. This implies a need to dissolve the many barriers that are now at the center stage of economic, social and institutional development at all levels of decision-making. For example, everyday we see the barriers created by national boundaries and misunderstandings about national sovereignties.

In 1947, the Council of the Supreme Spirit allowed me to return to earth. This was not a unanimous decision, but I insisted so much that they let me come. I was not the only one who attended the meeting of the Council; my four siblings were there, too. It was a group decision and all five us engaged in intense negotiations. We all felt that Chile would be the right place to be born this time around and we became part of the same family. We chose the same parents—Alberto and Ines—who came to earth before us for many important reasons. As a result of the negotiations, one sibling decided to precede me and the three remaining ones were born after me. All of these deliberations might have happened thousands of years ago.

Was it the right choice to make and the right time to come? It must have been, though in many ways, I am still figuring this question out. Only recently I began to remember the content and scope of the Council’s discussions. Specifically, the Council members sent me with a clear and precise mandate that incorporates a large array of goals, events and directives for this lifetime, including the healing of humanity. However, after being on earth only a short time, I became pre-occupied with other interests and concerns. This was neither good nor bad. It was just a choice.

In my adopted path, I was supposed to speak, dress and behave like the elite. Thus, my parents sent me to one of the best schools in Santiago (1954-1965), after which I attended the school of economics at the University of Chile (1965-1970). My desire to assist the poor and the needy was the engine that kept me going during my studies, which I completed when I got my Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin (1976). I came from a family with almost illiterate grandparents, and all of these studies were supposed to be an integral part of becoming socially and politically functional among my country’s elite.

This initial path also included playing soccer (I was well known as goalkeeper), fishing, farming and athletics (I specialized in disk throwing and shot putting). Dancing, working the land, loving all animals and being close to nature andthe Great Spirit were always part of me. In addition, from the time I reached adolescence, I always took immense satisfaction from assuming positions of leadership in the neighborhood’s social and religious associations, academia and politics. Consequently, when I was quite young, I was elected president of the Youth Catholic Association and president of the University of Chile School of Economics; later on, I became a democratically elected regent of the Catholic University of Valparaiso. In that senate, I exercised many functions, including that of budget chairman.

These were the times of the socialist revolution in Chile and I was very involved in many related activities and processes. One of the most interesting projects gave me an opportunity to train indigenous people in business and economic skills to support their agricultural and small-scale enterprises. However, my academic responsibilities (researcher, teaching assistant, assistant professor) took the lion’s share of my life. In all of the above, I met many people walking their own paths, including some who were on the Council. Of course, no one wanted to reveal this.

One of my first jobs as an economist was in the Central Bank of Chile. Later, in 1972, to be part of an eventual Ministry of the Sea, I was sent to study marine resource economics at the University of Rhode Island. At that time, I strongly felt my professional interest becoming much closer to the original path delineated by the Council. I had begun to remember! In this respect, I committed myself strongly, once again, to address issues such as poverty alleviation, environmental protection and management, human rights and social justice, spiritual economics and public policy/business, peace, humanity’s union, etc. These are humanity’s shared, primary collective concerns.

While in the US, the fear of an eventual loss of citizenry forced me to apply for jobs in a few international organizations. This process led me to become a full-fledged economist at the World Bank in May 13, 1976. (I remember this date because it was the same day and month that I landed in the USA in 1972.) I devoted nearly twenty-nine years to the World Bank. A combination of operational projects, field missions, policy design and monitoring, advice and evaluations and a large number of institutional positions filled my life there. These positions also allowed me to interact intensively with the elite sector of society and government, both in the international and global spheres, and within the many countries I visited and with which I worked.

However, the richest part of my jobs was always the interaction with the poor, dispossessed, disabled, children and young adults, women, farmers, entrepreneurs, religious and union leaders, local politicians, village chiefs, shamans, indigenous peoples and so many more. They became the mirrors of my mission and established firm grounds for what is to come.

Over the years, I was asked to write many policy documents on topics and in areas that were considered cutting edge at the time, including fisheries, forestry, water management, renewable energy, land conservation, small-holder agriculture, small-scale mechanization, food and nutrition, biodiversity conservation and management, desertification and many more. I also had the opportunity to serve as the World Bank Special Representative to the United Nations, both in New York and Geneva. During this period, my mission was completely consolidated and aligned with the terms created by the Council.

While at the UN (1996-2003), I developed a new framework for understanding human rights and responsibilities. This experience led me to my last position at the World Bank, senior adviser to the managing directors. If I had been on the frontier in the past, this position moved me beyond that frontier, and I experienced a corresponding increase in institutional resistance to the changes and viewpoints that I represented.

During my stay at the United Nations, I fully advanced one essential part of my mission: the humanization of economics and business, or what I have called the reconciliation between economics and spirituality, between the material and non-material dimensions of human life. The receptivity was immensely positive and rich. I was able to introduce the angle of spirituality into public and private decision-making and this strongly influenced a large number of people at the UN and elsewhere.

Many things flowed from that period. First, I retired from the World Bank on March 1, 2005. Second, I created a new organization, The Zambuling Institute For Human Transformation. This institute is devoted to mainstreaming spirituality in the domains of economics, business and public policy. It focuses on three broad areas leading to human transformation: human rights and responsibilities, spirituality in public policy and business, and inner and outer world peace and human transformation.

Everything I have just described has been strengthened vigorously by the spiritual practices of both the East and West, and the deepening of my inner development, assisted by the cosmovision of indigenous nations. The alignment of the spiritual and material spheres in my life is rapidly taking place: The inner and outer conditions in my life are in synch. The material and non-material are in a process of deep reconciliation, and my body, mind, soul and spirit are walking the path to unity and its multiple collective dimensions.

Silence and meditation are and have been powerful instruments in self-realizing certain values (love, compassion, justice, security) in my life and in the collective consciousness. Prayer and contemplation are critical to my understanding of inner transformation. The transmission and integration of the messages in my path are embedded in spirit. The healing of humanity and Planet Earth, which are needed to advance in that transformation, is the self-realization of compassion.

In a time of worldwide fear and insecurity, we must all embrace a new genetic code of wisdom: the commitment to our shared peace and well-being, our collective future. I am committed to facilitating humanity’s shift towards compassion-based life and devoted to world peace and human transformation.