Saturday, October 07, 2006

Why War Ends With You

Peace Is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End (Chopra, Deepak)

This information is taken from the Peace is the Way website. This book, by Deepak Chopra, I highly recommend. It was part of the inspiration for this blog.

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

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great post...and oh so true! If folks could just learn to nurture peace and nonviolence in their own hearts and communicate that to others, what a great world this could be. Peace, like love, joy and any good or bad thing does begin within each of us. Then it is spread to others within our sphere of infuence. What kind of day we have each day is up to us...how we respond to outside stimuli is up to us...how we treat people and animals is up to us. When we go to bed at night, if we have made someone smile, or feel good about themselves in some small way, or lifted their spirits, or even in the smallest way made them glad about something, then we can go to sleep peacefully. The only thing we can't control in our lives is whether or not we wake up in the morning...the rest is up to us. You have made me happy to have made your aquaintence. I wish peace and joy for you and yours.