People who are more spiritually inclined, regardless of their religious identification, have a tendency to not be actively engaged in worldly matters. This is only natural since their focus on spiritual practice is often aided in its early stages by a relative withdrawal from familiar distractions. This is fine and understandable in the early phases of one's exploration into those intimate and expanded spaces of consciousness. However, there comes a time when a decision is required: to remain disengaged from worldly matters no matter what is going on, or to become engaged and utilize a spiritually informed discipline of discernment with compassion.

People who are less spiritually inclined and more oriented toward social-justice have a strong tendency to embrace an "us versus them" mode of judgment, seeking culpability and redress. The effect is a mixed message. Just as human rights, social justice and environmental justice are advocated, there is an implicit advocacy that the human species is at fault and is damaging the planet by its very nature. One could then argue this occupies one side of the same coin as those who advocate human domination over nature: nature should dominate over humans. Even "peace" becomes a questionable issue since the unspoken question is always: Peace, but for and to what end?

The IOOW-2000 study reveals that most Americans want to address spiritual growth and to be more aware of their personal connection to higher consciousness. For example:

• Over 80% of respondents who acknowledge the Earth as a whole is a living system carries profound implications for humanity's practical relationship with the biosphere. Fifty percent of people strongly agree with this.
• Almost two-thirds of all U.S. households want elected leaders to have moral and ethical values at a higher level than their own, and prefer to support businesses and media that support global awakening.