The spiritual renaissance and the rise of steward leadership

The fall of intellect, the descent of spirit

Civilisations do not collapse because of a single cataclysm. They rot from within, eroded by the slow decay of human character, clarity, and spirit, until the moment of collapse feels sudden.

We are living in such an age. The evidence is everywhere: ecosystems collapsing, natural events augmenting in magnitude and global expansion. Democracies falling apart giving way to dictatorships led by the dumbest of the dumb, perverts, bullies and rapists, economies engineered to extract life from the very systems that sustain it. But beneath all these symptoms lies a deeper crisis “the fall of the human intellect”

The renowned Vedic Scholar Swami A. Parthasarathy called it the greatest tragedy of our species. The intellect (our capacity for discernment, reasoning, and critical thought), has been diminished and obscured by the compulsive sway of the uncontrolled mind, ruled by emotions and desires. We are no longer guided by reasoning and understanding but driven by impulses. We consume what we cannot afford, pursue what we do not need, and seek validation instead of truth.

When the intellect is displaced, the spirit follows. Without a compass grounded in self-knowledge, we drift, pulled by greed, indolence, heedlessness, and the illusion that endless acquisition will quiet the endless dissatisfaction we carry. We run faster in the hamster wheel without noticing it is fixed in place. In such a state, extinction is not a distant risk; it is the logical conclusion.

This is not merely a political, economic, or technological problem. It is a spiritual crisis in the deepest sense: a loss of clarity, discipline, care and purpose. Until these are restored, every plan for change will be sabotaged by the very minds meant to carry it out.

We have learned to live among ruins; not only the ruins of forests, coral reefs, or glaciers, but the ruins of the human spirit. The skyscrapers, highways, and fibre-optic cables of modern civilisation mask an unprecedented poverty: the poverty of meaning and purpose. We inhabit spiritual slums while believing ourselves to be at the peak of progress.

This poverty is not accidental. It has been manufactured and industrialised. Marketing agencies create cravings, supply chains deliver distractions, and debt traps keep the cycle intact. We have lost the ability to distinguish between need and desire, or between sustenance and exploitation. 

Disconnection is the most profitable business of our time. Entire economies are built on keeping humans unrooted; from the land that feeds them, the rivers that carry their stories, and the lineage of knowledge that once taught them to live a thriving life within planetary limits. A rootless population is the perfect consumer: always searching, never finding.

We have been trained to forget the taste of pure food and clean water, the scent of unpolluted air, the sound of uninterrupted silence, the feel of soil between our fingers. Modern capitalism thrives on this engineered amnesia. It blurs the line between need and desire, sustenance and exploitation; and in doing so, ensures the wheel keeps turning.

Lifting the veil: returning to the pursuit of knowledge

The antidote to this spiritual poverty is not another technological innovation or another reform in the halls of power. It is the return to the most fundamental human task: the pursuit of true knowledge. Not academia. Not information. Not opinion. Not the endless scroll of distraction that mistakes volume for wisdom.

Knowledge, in the deepest sense, has always been a path to liberation. The Vedic tradition called it vidyā - that which illuminates. Indigenous philosophies across the world, shaped by centuries of direct relationship with the land, understood that to know is not to possess, but to live in alignment with the laws of nature. These traditions recognised the human as a participant in a larger order, never its master.

Modernity treats such wisdom as quaint, obsolete, or unprofitable. But it is precisely this quiet dismissal that has left us wandering in a fog. Without these grounding philosophies, we mistake our compulsions for our needs, our greed for our growth. We have forgotten that the health of the soil is inseparable from our own health, that the cycles of rivers and seasons mirror the cycles within us, that the mind must be controlled by the intellect before the world can be changed.

The first step out of this fog is not technological, but philosophical. It requires a patient and consistent lifting of the veil of ignorance; questioning the narratives we have been trained to accept, discerning between the transient and the eternal, the necessary and the indulgent. Ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions have always provided these tools: frameworks for self-inquiry, disciplines to steady the mind, principles to live in harmony with the limits that reality imposes.

This is not nostalgia for a lost past. It is the recognition that in the ruins of the modern mind lie the blueprints for a different future, one that draws upon the tested clarity of the ancients to navigate the turbulence of the present.

The steward leader of the future

The leaders of the coming age will not be those who accumulate the most wealth, command the largest armies, or dominate the loudest platforms. They will be the invisible weavers, the humble yet courageous stewards; men and women who have mastered themselves before seeking to influence others, whose authority rests not on position, but on the integrity of their being.

A steward leader is not swayed by the tides of public approval, nor seduced by the fleeting victories of personal gain. They are anchored in a clear understanding of human nature, capable of discerning when emotion clouds judgment, when desire distorts truth. Their compass is the intellect, strengthened through discipline, study, and reflection, and their vision is informed by a spiritual awareness that sees beyond the narrow horizons of individual ambition.

Such leaders understand that regeneration is not a department or a strategy; it is the organising principle of life. To regenerate is to participate in the cycles that sustain the living world, cycles that demand reciprocity, patience, and humility. In this vision, every policy, every business model, every cultural decision must pass a simple test: does it enrich the systems on which life depends, or does it diminish them?

But stewardship also demands courage. The steward leader does not merely plant trees or restore rivers while leaving the machinery of destruction intact. They actively fight to transmute and dissolve the old systems that reward exploitation and extraction, creating the conditions for new, life-affirming systems to emerge. This is not reform at the edges; it is transformation at the core.

To lead in this way is to reject the hamster wheel of endless consumption and the political theatre of false choices. It is to cultivate clarity in an age of confusion, to model discipline in an age of indulgence, and to embody purpose in an age of distraction.

The fall of the human intellect brought us to the brink. The rise of the steward leader may be our only way back, not to the past, but to a future in which the intellect and the spirit are once again in command, guiding toward a remembrance of what being human means.

The Renaissance we need will not come from policy summits or market incentives. It will come from a reawakening of the human intellect, illuminated by spiritual awareness and anchored in the wisdom of those who have lived in harmony with the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. It will come from leaders who are not seduced by shiny objects like monkeys, but who see beyond it and are willing to stand in defence of life, even when it costs them.

The future belongs to those who can think with reason, act with integrity, and love with the understanding that they are part of something infinitely greater than themselves.

The choice is stark: remain in the spiritual slum we have built, or step into the renaissance that awaits.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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