Seven Practices for Peacemakers



How to end war

One person at a time



War is the plague that human beings bring upon themselves. It is also a plague we might be able to end. On any given day since you and I were born, some part of the world has been at war–in 2003 the total number of open conflicts was thirty. In the twentieth century at least 108 million people died in wars. Of the 20 largest military budgets on earth, 14 belong to developing countries. The United States spends more on its military than the next 16 countries combined.

That war is the major problem in the world is undeniable.

The need for a new idea is just as undeniable.

The new idea is to bring peace one person at a time until the world reaches a critical mass of peacemakers instead of warmakers.



"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." – Mahatma Gandhi



Why Ending War Hasn't Worked

Peace movements have tried three ways for bringing war to an end:

Activism, the approach of putting political pressure on governments that wage war. Activism involves protests and public demonstrations, lobbying and political commitment. Almost every war creates some kind of peace movement opposed to it.

Why has it failed.

Because the protesters are not heard.

Because they are worn down by frustration and resistance.

Because they are far outnumbered by the war interests in society.

Because their idealism turns to anger and violence.

Activism has left us with the ironic picture of outraged peacemakers who wind up contributing to the total sum of violence in the world.



Humanitarianism, the approach of helping the victims of war. Bringing relief to victims is an act of kindness and compassion. As embodied by the International Red Cross, this effort is ongoing and attracts thousands of volunteers worldwide. Every nation on earth approves of humanitarianism.

Why has it failed?

Because humanitarians are wildly outnumbered by soldiers and warmakers.

Because of finances. The International Red Cross's annual budget of $1.8 billion dollars is a tiny fraction of military budgets around the world.

Because the same countries that wage war also conduct humanitarian efforts, keeping the two activities very separate.

Because humanitarians show up on the scene after the war has already begun.

Personal transformation, the approach of ending war one person at a time. The prevailing idea is that war begins in each human heart and can only end there. The religious tradition of praying for peace is the closest most people will ever come to ending war in their own hearts. Most people have actually never heard of this approach.

Why has it failed?

Because nobody has really tried it.



"Can you be the change that you wish to see in the world?" – Mahatma Gandhi



Why War Ends With You

The approach of personal transformation is the idea of the future for ending war. It depends on the only advantage that people of peace have over warmakers: sheer numbers. If enough people in the world transformed themselves into peacemakers, war could end. The leading idea here is critical mass. It took a critical mass of human beings to embrace electricity and fossil fuels, to teach evolution and adopt every major religion. When the time is right and enough people participate, critical mass can change the world.

Can it end war?

There is precedent to believe that it might. The ancient Indian ideal of Ahimsa, or non-violence, gave Gandhi his guiding principle of reverence for life. In every spiritual tradition it is believed that peace must exist in one's heart before it can exist in the outer world.

Personal transformation deserves chance.



"When a person is established in non-violence, those in his vicinity cease to feel hostility." – Patanjali, ancient Indian sage

Seven Practices for Peace



The program for peacemakers asks you to follow a specific practice every day, each one centered on the theme of peace.

Sunday: Being for Peace

Monday: Thinking for Peace

Tuesday: Feeling for Peace

Wednesday: Speaking for Peace

Thursday: Acting for Peace

Friday: Creating for Peace

Saturday: Sharing for Peace

Our hope is that you will create peace on every level of your life. Each practice takes only a few minutes. You can be as private or outspoken as you wish. But those around you will know that you are for peace, not just through good intentions but by the way you conduct your life on a daily basis.



Sunday: Being for Peace

Today, take 5 minutes to meditate for peace. Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Put your attention on your heart and inwardly repeat these four words: Peace, Harmony, Laughter, Love. Allow these words to radiate from your heart's stillness out into your body.

As you end your meditation, say to yourself, "Today I will relinquish all resentments and grievances." Bring into your mind anyone against whom you have a grievance and let it go. Send that person your forgiveness.



Monday: Thinking for Peace

Thinking has power when it is backed by intention. Today, introduce the intention of peace in your thoughts. Take a few moments of silence, then repeat this ancient prayer:

Let me be loved, let me be happy, let me be peaceful.

Let my friends be happy, loved, and peaceful.

Let my perceived enemies be happy, loved, and peaceful.

Let all beings be happy, loved, and peaceful.

Let the whole world experience these things.

Any time during the day if you are overshadowed by fear or anger, repeat these intentions. Use this prayer to get back on center.



Tuesday: Feeling for Peace

This is the day to experience the emotions of peace. The emotions of peace are compassion, understanding, and love.

Compassion is the feeling of shared suffering. When you feel someone else's suffering, there is the birth of understanding.

Understanding is the knowledge that suffering is shared by everyone. When you understand that you aren't alone in your suffering, there is the birth of love.

When there is love there is the opportunity for peace.

As your practice, observe a stranger some time during your day. Silently say to yourself, "This person is just like me.. Like me, this person has experienced joy and sorrow, despair and hope, fear and love. Like me, this person has people in his or her life who deeply care and love them. Like me, this person's life is impermanent and will one day end. This person's peace is as important as my peace. I want peace, harmony, laughter, and love in their life and the life of all beings."





Wednesday: Speaking for Peace

Today, the purpose of speaking is to create happiness in the listener. Have this intention: Today every word I utter will be chosen consciously. I will refrain from complaints, condemnation, and criticism.

Your practice is to do at least one of the following:

Tell someone how much you appreciate them.

Express genuine gratitude to those who have helped and loved you.

Offer healing or nurturing words to someone who needs them.

Show respect to someone whose respect you value.

If you find that you are reacting negatively to anyone, in a way that isn't peaceful, refrain from speaking and keep silent. Wait to speak until you feel centered and calm, and then speak with respect.





Thursday: Acting for Peace

Today is the day to help someone in need: A child, a sick person, an older or frail person. Help can take many forms. Tell yourself, " Today I will bring a smile to a stranger's face. If someone acts in a hurtful way to me or someone else, I will respond with a gesture of loving kindness. I will send an anonymous gift to someone, however small. I will offer help without asking for gratitude or recognition."



Friday: Creating for Peace

Today, come up with at least one creative idea to resolve a conflict, either in your personal life or your family circle or among friends. If you can, try and create an idea that applies to your community, the nation, or the whole world.

You may change an old habit that isn't working, look at someone a new way, offer words you never offered before, or think of an activity that brings people together in good feeling and laughter.





Saturday: Sharing for Peace

Today, share your practice of peacemaking with two people. Give them this information and invite them to begin the daily practice. As more of us participate in this sharing, our practice will expand into a critical mass.

Today joyfully celebrate your own peace consciousness with at least one other peace-conscious person. Connect either trough e-mail or phone.

Share your experience of growing peace.

Share your gratitude that someone else is as serious about peace as you are.

Share your ideas for helping the world move closer to critical mass.

Do whatever you can, in small or large ways, to assist anyone who wants to become a peacemaker.



The Best Reason to Become a Peacemaker

Now you know the program. If you transform yourself into a peacemaker, you won't become an activist marching in the streets. You will not be "anti" anything. No money is required. All you are asked to do is to go within and dedicate yourself to peace.

It just might work.

Even if you don't immediately see a decline in violence around the world, you will know in your heart that you have dedicated your own life to peace.

But the single best reason to become a peacemaker is that every other approach has failed.

We don't know what number the critical mass is--the best we can hope is to bring about change by personal transformation. Isn't it worth a few moments of your day to end 30 wars around the world and perhaps every future war that is certain to break out?



"War is like cancer: it will only get worse if we don't prevent it and heal it." Deepak Chopra



Right now there are 21.3 million soldiers serving in armies around the world. Can't we recruit a peace brigade ten times larger?

A hundred times larger?

The effort begins now, with you.



"It is an illusion to think that military strength and weapons create security. Security and peace can only be obtained by those who are peaceful and defenseless."

Deepak Chopra

The Seven Practces For Peace (Deepak Chopra)
Translated into Portuguese by: Amitabah


Seven Practices for Peacemakers



How to end war

One person at a time



War is the plague that human beings bring upon themselves. It is also a plague we might be able to end. On any given day since you and I were born, some part of the world has been at war–in 2003 the total number of open conflicts was thirty. In the twentieth century at least 108 million people died in wars. Of the 20 largest military budgets on earth, 14 belong to developing countries. The United States spends more on its military than the next 16 countries combined.

That war is the major problem in the world is undeniable.

The need for a new idea is just as undeniable.

The new idea is to bring peace one person at a time until the world reaches a critical mass of peacemakers instead of warmakers.



"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." – Mahatma Gandhi



Why Ending War Hasn't Worked

Peace movements have tried three ways for bringing war to an end:

Activism, the approach of putting political pressure on governments that wage war. Activism involves protests and public demonstrations, lobbying and political commitment. Almost every war creates some kind of peace movement opposed to it.

Why has it failed.

Because the protesters are not heard.

Because they are worn down by frustration and resistance.

Because they are far outnumbered by the war interests in society.

Because their idealism turns to anger and violence.

Activism has left us with the ironic picture of outraged peacemakers who wind up contributing to the total sum of violence in the world.



Humanitarianism, the approach of helping the victims of war. Bringing relief to victims is an act of kindness and compassion. As embodied by the International Red Cross, this effort is ongoing and attracts thousands of volunteers worldwide. Every nation on earth approves of humanitarianism.

Why has it failed?

Because humanitarians are wildly outnumbered by soldiers and warmakers.

Because of finances. The International Red Cross's annual budget of $1.8 billion dollars is a tiny fraction of military budgets around the world.

Because the same countries that wage war also conduct humanitarian efforts, keeping the two activities very separate.

Because humanitarians show up on the scene after the war has already begun.

Personal transformation, the approach of ending war one person at a time. The prevailing idea is that war begins in each human heart and can only end there. The religious tradition of praying for peace is the closest most people will ever come to ending war in their own hearts. Most people have actually never heard of this approach.

Why has it failed?

Because nobody has really tried it.



"Can you be the change that you wish to see in the world?" – Mahatma Gandhi



Why War Ends With You

The approach of personal transformation is the idea of the future for ending war. It depends on the only advantage that people of peace have over warmakers: sheer numbers. If enough people in the world transformed themselves into peacemakers, war could end. The leading idea here is critical mass. It took a critical mass of human beings to embrace electricity and fossil fuels, to teach evolution and adopt every major religion. When the time is right and enough people participate, critical mass can change the world.

Can it end war?

There is precedent to believe that it might. The ancient Indian ideal of Ahimsa, or non-violence, gave Gandhi his guiding principle of reverence for life. In every spiritual tradition it is believed that peace must exist in one's heart before it can exist in the outer world.

Personal transformation deserves chance.



"When a person is established in non-violence, those in his vicinity cease to feel hostility." – Patanjali, ancient Indian sage

Seven Practices for Peace



The program for peacemakers asks you to follow a specific practice every day, each one centered on the theme of peace.

Sunday: Being for Peace

Monday: Thinking for Peace

Tuesday: Feeling for Peace

Wednesday: Speaking for Peace

Thursday: Acting for Peace

Friday: Creating for Peace

Saturday: Sharing for Peace

Our hope is that you will create peace on every level of your life. Each practice takes only a few minutes. You can be as private or outspoken as you wish. But those around you will know that you are for peace, not just through good intentions but by the way you conduct your life on a daily basis.



Sunday: Being for Peace

Today, take 5 minutes to meditate for peace. Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Put your attention on your heart and inwardly repeat these four words: Peace, Harmony, Laughter, Love. Allow these words to radiate from your heart's stillness out into your body.

As you end your meditation, say to yourself, "Today I will relinquish all resentments and grievances." Bring into your mind anyone against whom you have a grievance and let it go. Send that person your forgiveness.



Monday: Thinking for Peace

Thinking has power when it is backed by intention. Today, introduce the intention of peace in your thoughts. Take a few moments of silence, then repeat this ancient prayer:

Let me be loved, let me be happy, let me be peaceful.

Let my friends be happy, loved, and peaceful.

Let my perceived enemies be happy, loved, and peaceful.

Let all beings be happy, loved, and peaceful.

Let the whole world experience these things.

Any time during the day if you are overshadowed by fear or anger, repeat these intentions. Use this prayer to get back on center.



Tuesday: Feeling for Peace

This is the day to experience the emotions of peace. The emotions of peace are compassion, understanding, and love.

Compassion is the feeling of shared suffering. When you feel someone else's suffering, there is the birth of understanding.

Understanding is the knowledge that suffering is shared by everyone. When you understand that you aren't alone in your suffering, there is the birth of love.

When there is love there is the opportunity for peace.

As your practice, observe a stranger some time during your day. Silently say to yourself, "This person is just like me.. Like me, this person has experienced joy and sorrow, despair and hope, fear and love. Like me, this person has people in his or her life who deeply care and love them. Like me, this person's life is impermanent and will one day end. This person's peace is as important as my peace. I want peace, harmony, laughter, and love in their life and the life of all beings."





Wednesday: Speaking for Peace

Today, the purpose of speaking is to create happiness in the listener. Have this intention: Today every word I utter will be chosen consciously. I will refrain from complaints, condemnation, and criticism.

Your practice is to do at least one of the following:

Tell someone how much you appreciate them.

Express genuine gratitude to those who have helped and loved you.

Offer healing or nurturing words to someone who needs them.

Show respect to someone whose respect you value.

If you find that you are reacting negatively to anyone, in a way that isn't peaceful, refrain from speaking and keep silent. Wait to speak until you feel centered and calm, and then speak with respect.





Thursday: Acting for Peace

Today is the day to help someone in need: A child, a sick person, an older or frail person. Help can take many forms. Tell yourself, " Today I will bring a smile to a stranger's face. If someone acts in a hurtful way to me or someone else, I will respond with a gesture of loving kindness. I will send an anonymous gift to someone, however small. I will offer help without asking for gratitude or recognition."



Friday: Creating for Peace

Today, come up with at least one creative idea to resolve a conflict, either in your personal life or your family circle or among friends. If you can, try and create an idea that applies to your community, the nation, or the whole world.

You may change an old habit that isn't working, look at someone a new way, offer words you never offered before, or think of an activity that brings people together in good feeling and laughter.





Saturday: Sharing for Peace

Today, share your practice of peacemaking with two people. Give them this information and invite them to begin the daily practice. As more of us participate in this sharing, our practice will expand into a critical mass.

Today joyfully celebrate your own peace consciousness with at least one other peace-conscious person. Connect either trough e-mail or phone.

Share your experience of growing peace.

Share your gratitude that someone else is as serious about peace as you are.

Share your ideas for helping the world move closer to critical mass.

Do whatever you can, in small or large ways, to assist anyone who wants to become a peacemaker.



The Best Reason to Become a Peacemaker

Now you know the program. If you transform yourself into a peacemaker, you won't become an activist marching in the streets. You will not be "anti" anything. No money is required. All you are asked to do is to go within and dedicate yourself to peace.

It just might work.

Even if you don't immediately see a decline in violence around the world, you will know in your heart that you have dedicated your own life to peace.

But the single best reason to become a peacemaker is that every other approach has failed.

We don't know what number the critical mass is--the best we can hope is to bring about change by personal transformation. Isn't it worth a few moments of your day to end 30 wars around the world and perhaps every future war that is certain to break out?



"War is like cancer: it will only get worse if we don't prevent it and heal it." Deepak Chopra



Right now there are 21.3 million soldiers serving in armies around the world. Can't we recruit a peace brigade ten times larger?

A hundred times larger?

The effort begins now, with you.



"It is an illusion to think that military strength and weapons create security. Security and peace can only be obtained by those who are peaceful and defenseless."

Deepak Chopra

Sisters and Brothers of and in Light, the Luminosity is growing, the connections are right, more ME's are comming and the future is Bright.

Namaste'he

Amitabah

What would you like to accomplish in 2006 please make all who read this aware! and it may be that this Year
your life will change for ever. I want to help others to realise their dreams.

Namaste'he

Amitabah.

An in depth portrait of John Lennon, told through the original audio of Jann Wenner's seminal 1970 New York interview with Lennon for Rolling Stone magazine. The most famous interview Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner ever did was an extensive interrogation, on tape, of Lennon shortly after the Beatles had broken up. Lennon and Ono had already given the magazine a blessing of sorts by posing nude for its first anniversary issue in late 1968. Theirs was a relationship of trust. An edited version of Wenner's interview went to press in 1971, and the two issues in which it appeared both sold out overnight. The Lennon interview remains one of the most important ever done with a popular musician. Lennon himself regarded it as definitive. It documented the Beatles' career and split with painstakingly emotional (at times excruciating) detail, and served as a major, and controversial, point of exorcism for Lennon in his coming to terms with the '60s, the legacy of the Beatles and particularly his ruptured relationship with Paul McCartney. He holds forth throughout on the subjects of art and politics, his own musical genius, his love for Yoko, drugs, primal therapy and mysticism. It was the last interview in which he spoke with such candour. He's on terrific form - acidly sharp, furious and funny, philosophical, exuding confidence, at times disarmingly vulnerable. The audio archive for the programme centres exclusively on Wenner's own tapes. It also contains new interviews with both Yoko, who sat beside John throughout, and Jann, who look back on the interview and Lennon's state of mind at the time. Part of the BBC's John Lennon season. Followed by News.

Hi to all at TIG. I had a great Birthday and thankyou
for remembering. I liked the greeting card

Long Live TIG

Namaste'he

Amitabah.

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

"The mere absence of war is not peace."

"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."

"Peace does not rest in charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of the people."

But peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.

"Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames."

"Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others."

"World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor -- it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement."

"Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

One man can make a difference, and every man should try.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.

In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves.

Hi Do you think a (global) Peace festival is a possiblity and would anyone like to work on this as a project?

Please let me know what you think?
Namaste'he

Amitabah

Hello Beautiful people,

I found this poem on the above site and it has stayed in my mind. I would like to share it with you all.

And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the Piper will lead us to reason
A new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.
(enjoy)

Namaste'he

Amitabah

Hi everyone we have set up another group where
John Lennon fans and those who respect John's
contributions to the world' can post and blog
their own tribute and share information.

John Lennon would have been 65 on October 9th and
we wish to celebrate this day by asking everyone to
play Imagine at 12.00 noon GMT and consciously pray
to your god to bring Peace. If you are a meditator
connect to your higher self and join with us.

On December 8th we are organising a special Memorial
Concert if you would like to organise something where you live please get in touch

More will be posted as the group developes.
Love is all you need

Q)Who is your working class hero? or the person that
you think has made the greatest contribution to the human race.

Desperate times for the people of New Orleans.

Let's send them all our love and angels of peace to look after
them.

I'm asking my groups to email all there American friends giving there support and to ask every rich person that owns a helicopter to fill it with food, water and medicine and bring back people
who want to leave

People are dying because all the water is polluted.

If you have rich contacts in America please do same.

Namaste'he

Amitabah

This just arrived 1 minute after I posted the above.Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.