“Metanoia” is the latest addition to the Chivalry-Now Concepts – perhaps its most important.

In the original Greek, metanoia means “changing or elevating the way we think and perceive reality.”

The Chivalry-Now quest is a journey for self-development based on personal freedom. The 12-Trusts and CN Concepts serve as moral and intellectual catalysts rather than mandates for that very reason. The goal is to produce our own metanoia, a wonderful, life-enhancing change in the way we think and the values we hold. We believe this a natural part of human advancement which we need to voluntarily adopt.

Metanoia is a liberating process, an awakening that increases consciousness by freeing us from the slavishness of mechanical thinking. Done correctly, it can be described as a metamorphosis of the mind that produces a new state of being. Think of a butterfly awakening from it chrysalis.

This new being does not see moral responsibility as an imposed obligation, but as the natural impulse of humanity’s advance. Courtesy, thoughtfulness, spontaneous helping, indeed, all the qualities promoted by today’s chivalry, become genuine rather than contrived – rooted in the single vision of being a force for good.

To make these virtues real requires a change in the way we think – more succinctly, the way we were taught NOT to think. The final goal is a liberated, personal transformation of rejuvenated life.

As human beings, our species must continue to evolve – and needs to. Thanks to endemic greed and our ability to hurt others for our advantage, the path forward is often tainted and haphazard, leaving us caught in an evolutionary quagmire.

How do we change that?

By choosing to focus on doing what is right and good, instead of selfishly toying with what we can get away with…

…by dedicating ourselves to higher standards of civilized conduct, instead of fostering barbaric resentments…

…by uniting under the aegis of reason and conscience, instead of sowing seeds of discontent that hold everyone back… a whole new stage of humanity begins.

This starts with the personal growth of each of us, just as it should.