World Peace should be the priority of our time. As I grew up in the Viet Nam era, my neighbor was drafted into the war. When he came back, he was a different man, and eventually harmed himself which left a scare on my mind and heart. I always wondered what had made him change from a friendly, kind person to a recluse who dressed in ragged clothing and never kept him self clean. His poor mother finally put him into an institution, which I later found out to be a VA hospital for those suffering from vial effects of war.
Below I have included people who speak about the need for a Peaceful World and practice what they preach.
More Priceless Wisdom for Achieving World Peace in the Modern World.
The Dalai Lama's Message on the Commemoration of the 1st Anniversary of September 11, 1 September 2002.
The 11th September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were deeply shocking and very sad. I regard such terrible destructive actions as acts of hatred, for violence is the result of destructive emotions. Events of this kind make clear that if we allow our human intelligence to be guided and controlled by negative emotions like hatred, the consequences are disastrous...
In today's world expectations of war have changed. It is no longer realistic to expect that our enemy will be completely destroyed, or that victory will be total for us. Or for that matter, can an enemy be considered absolute. We have seen many times that today's enemies are often tomorrow's allies, a clear indication that things are relative and very inter-related and inter-dependent. Our survival, our success, our progress, are very much related to others' well being. Therefore, we as well as our enemies are still very much interdependent. Whether we regard them as economic, ideological or political enemies makes no difference to this. Their destruction has a destructive effect upon us. Thus, the very concept of war, which is not only a painful experience, but also contains the seeds of self-destruction, is no longer relevant...
What we need today is education among individuals and nations, from small children up to political leaders to inculcate the idea that violence is counterproductive, that it is not a realistic way to solve problems, and that dialogue and understanding are the only realistic way to resolve our difficulties.
Read more http://www.oneworldonepeople.org/articles/World%20Peace/lama_Sep11anniversary.htm
A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.
We must become the change we want to see.
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.
Non-violence is the article of faith.
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Hatred can be overcome only by love.
I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.
Poverty is the worst form of violence.
An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
By Paul Sinclair (One World One People) 11/9/06
This week, starting on the 11 September 2006, marks the centenary of the birth of Mohandas Gandhi’s South Africa long struggle to prove non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of humankind. The movement he was instrumental in forming was named ‘Satyagraha.’
Throughout his lifetime Gandhi successfully applied the practice of non-violence to defeat and overturn unjust laws that oppressed Indians in South Africa; liberate India from British Rule; and peacefully end numerous violent uprisings during the partition of India. He claimed, ‘I have been practicing with scientific precision non-violence and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years. I have applied it in every walk of life - domestic, institutional, economic and political. I know of no single case in which it has failed.’
His statements would seem vindicated as ‘the science of non-violence’ as Gandhi often called it, was later used by Martin Luther King to win civil rights for African Americans in the United States and by Nelson Mandela to end apartheid in South Africa, without bloodshed...‘He who seeks refuge in God ought to have a glimpse of the Atma (soul) that transcends the body; and the moment one has a glimpse of the imperishable Atma one sheds the love of the perishable body… Violence is needed for the protection of things external; non-violence is needed for the protection of the Atma…”
‘It is the acid test of non-violence that in a non-violent conflict there is no rancour left behind, and in the end the enemies are converted into friends.’
According to Gandhi, non-violence in its purest form is a soul-force and has behind it the power of the Universe’s Creator. Next in part two we must ask what principles and laws need to be adhered to in order to produce soul-force and who is qualified to use it?
Read more..http://www.oneworldonepeople.org/articles/World%20Peace/Gandhi_Satyagraha.htm
and ...........http://www.oneworldonepeople.org/articles/World%20Peace/Gandhi_Satyagraha_2.htm
Martin Luther King's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964 Oslo, Norway
I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice... Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama, to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity...I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.
"And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."
I still believe that we shall overcome.
Read the entire speech at ...http://www.almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-nobel.html
