World peace begins with inner peace.
What is reflected on the outer is merely a mirror
of what is on the inner.
Trying to change the world without working to change consciousness
is like trying to change the image in a mirror without changing
the object that is being reflected. The physical environment and
circumstances we experience, are merely a reflection of our consciousness.
Our consciousness is created by our thoughts -- the true creative
force. To change our consciousness we must transform all our limiting
thoughts. This can be done effectively by using the Free
Yourself process.
— Carol Hansen Grey, 1999
"We are not victims of the world we see;
we are victims of the way we see the world."
— Dennis Kucinich
US Congressperson (Ohio),
2003 recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award
The only safe way to overcome an enemy
is to make of the enemy a friend.
—Gandhi
We lose our freedoms at the altar of fear.
—Kahlil Gibran
"I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the
thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of
war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought
of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.
Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being,
restfulness and content.
Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship,
and happiness.
When soldiers of the world draw their swords to kill, soldiers
of God clasp each other's hands! So may all the savagery of
man disappear by the Mercy of God, working through the pure
in heart and the sincere of soul. Do not think the peace of
the world an ideal impossible to attain!
Nothing is impossible to the Divine Benevolence of God.
If you desire with all your heart, friendship with every race
on earth, your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread;
it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger,
until it reaches the minds of all men.
Do not despair! Work steadily. Sincerity and love will conquer
hate. How many seemingly impossible events are coming to pass
in these days! Set your faces steadily towards the Light of
the World. Show love to all; `Love is the breath of the Holy
Spirit in the heart of Man'. Take courage! God never forsakes
His children who strive and work and pray! Let your hearts be
filled with the strenuous desire that tranquillity and harmony
may encircle all this warring world. So will success crown your
efforts, and with the universal brotherhood will come the Kingdom
of God in peace and goodwill."
--Baha'i: Abdu'l-Baha: Paris Talks, Written in 1912 (pp 29-30)
There is no master race.
There is no greatest nation.
There
is no one true religion.
There is no inherently perfect philosophy.
There is no always right political party,
morally supreme economic
system,
or one and only way to heaven.
Erase these ideas from
your memory.
Eliminate them from your experience.
Eradicate
them from your culture.
For these are thoughts of division and
separation,
and you have killed each other over these thoughts.
Only the truth I give you here will save you:
WE ARE ONE.
Carry
this message far and wide, across oceans
and over continents,
around the corner and around the world.
~Neale Donald Walsch, Friendship with God, p. 359
What kind of peace do I mean?
What kind of peace do we seek?
Not
a Pax Americana enforced on the world
by American weapons of
war.
Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.
I am talking about genuine peace,
the kind of peace that makes
life on earth worth living,
the kind that enables men and nations
to grow
and to hope and to build a better life for their children
--
not merely peace for Americans
but peace for all men and
women --
not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
~ President John F. Kennedy at American University, 10 June 1963
Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense
a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds,
and it were necessary only to
separate them from the rest of us
and destroy them.
But the line dividing good and evil
cuts through the heart of every human being.
And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
— Benjamin Franklin
Wars can be prevented just as surely
as they can be provoked,
and we who fail to prevent them
must share in the guilt for the dead.
— General Omar Bradley
I have known war as few men now living know it.
Its very destructiveness on both friend and foe
has rendered it useless as a means
of settling international disputes.
— General Douglas MacArthur
The pioneers of a warless world are the young men
who refuse military service.
— Albert Einstein
(from the book Peacemaking by Conrad G. Brunk)
War is only a cowardly escape from the problem of peace.
—Thomas Mann
When we see God in each other we will be able to live in peace.
—Mother Teresa
The ultimate weakness of violence is that
it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...
Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In this world, hate never dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.
—The Buddha
The only enemy is injustice.
The only death is death of the conscience.
— Guru Granth Sahib
(Sikh holy book)
"Terror is in the human heart.
We must remove this from the heart.
Destroying the human heart, both physically
and psychologically, is what we should avoid.
The root of terrorism is misunderstanding, hatred and violence.
This root cannot be located by the military.
Bombs and missiles cannot reach it, let alone destroy it.
Only with the practice of calming and looking deeply
can our insight reveal and identify this root.
Only with the practice of deep listening and compassion
can it be transformed and removed.
Darkness cannot be dissipated with more darkness.
More darkness will only make darkness thicker.
Only light can dissipate darkness.
Those of us who have the light should display the light
and offer it so that the world will not sink
into total darkness."
— Thich Nhat Hanh in Shanghai, October 19, 2002
Kids can't see us bombing, and then listen to us
talking about getting guns out of the schools.
How can we tell them to solve problems without violence,
if, in fact, we can't show an ability to solve problems
without violence?
— Representative Barbara Lee
I know there is anger. I feel it myself. But I
don't want my son used as a pawn to justify the killing of others.
We as a nation should not use the same means as the people who
attacked us.
— Oscar Rodriguez,
(whose son died in the attack
on the World Trade Center)
To do evil, a human being must first of all believe
that what he's doing is good...
Ideology — that is what gives devildoing its long-sought
justification and gives the evildoer the necessary
steadfastness and determination.
That is the social theory which helps to make his acts
seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes,
so that he won't hear reproaches and curses
but will receive praise and honors.
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn
That there are men in all countries
who get their living by war,
and by keeping up the quarrels of nations,
is as shocking as it is true;
but when those who are concerned
in the government of a country,
make it their study to sow discord,
and cultivate prejudices between nations,
it becomes the more unpardonable.
— Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man," circa 1792
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war
in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,
for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood,
just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch
and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed,
the leader will have no need
in seizing the rights of the citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry,
infused with fear and blinded by patriotism,
will offer up all of their rights unto the leader
and gladly so.
How do I know?
For this is what I have done.
And I am Caesar.
— Julius Caesar
The first step is to penetrate the clouds of deceit
and distortion and learn the truth about the world,
then to organize and act to change it. That's never
been impossible and never been easy.
— Noam Chomsky
In a time of universal deceit,
telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act.
— George Orwell
Our nation will become truly great
only when we learn to love our children
more than we yearn to control the Earth.
The world we risk with war is that of our children.
--Rafael J. González
A time comes
when silence is betrayal.
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I have come to the frightening conclusion
that I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess tremendous power to make
life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration,
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides
whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated,
and a person is humanized or de-humanized.
If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.
If we treat people as they ought to be,
we help them become
what they are capable
of becoming."
— Goethe
All attempts to bring order to the world through
force,
destruction, and fear of punishment are unacceptable.
The only way is to bring the peace from
within yourself into the world.
The only enemy worth conquering is your own fear.
Gradually, as this fear is reduced,
you will seriously recognize your inner
reality as being completely at peace.
This peace only wants one thing.
It wants to recognize itself in everyone.
So how can the World not end up being peaceful?
It's up to you.
(from a World Peace Participant and
Reprinted here with permission)
Evil is the absence of love
just as darkness is the absence of light.
The way to dispel darkness is to shine light into it.
The way to dispel evil is to "shine" love into it.
If we change the perception that evil is something
to be struggled against to a perception that
it is merely the absence of love,
it becomes our goal to respond to
EVERYTHING with love.
We can help put ourselves into that mindset
by saying the words Only Love Prevails
every time we perceive evil.
—Carol Hansen Grey
Co-founder, World Peace Experiment
[Return to Top]
contributed by
World Peace Experiment Participants
Click on the links below and enjoy the inspirational stories,
poems and writings that have been contributed to us by World Peace
Participants from around the world.
Only Love Prevails
(World Peace Experiment Theme Song)
written and recorded by Carole Isis (Manchester, England)
Focus and For
the Want Of by Ernie "LastManOut" Romanco
Energy Waves by Barbara Wolf of Global Meditations
Network
Thank you, Mr. Terrorist by James Paul Rabiola
Thy True Name by Catherine Garland
Keep Hope Alive by Carol and Edward Suchecki
How to Make Peace
by Don Beckett
A Positive Outlook
on Life by Jan Gosen (The Netherlands)
I Am, a poem by Dorothy Rumble (England)
The Core of Peace, a poem by Jane
M. Hamilton
Merlin's View, A Peace Story by Montana
Gray
The Gentle
Art of Blessing by Pierre Pradervand (Switzerland)
Good Earthkeeping by Tasha Halpert
Only Love Prevails, a poem by The
Lady Michal
Media Power, a poem by Marlaina Kreinin
Out of Balance in the Middle East,
a poem by Marlaina Kreinin
New Horizons by Devin Mikles, MD
A Prayer by Robin Silverman
Good Friday Meditation by Betty Lue
Lieber
Age of Empowerment by Matthew
Webb
Peace of Mind by Robert M. Hensel
Will You Follow Me by Karen Winston Wilson of Florida
[Return to Top]
Prayers
Prayer for World Leaders
by Carol Hansen Grey
Baha'i Prayer submitted by Eric Hellicar
Prayer for a New America by Will
Wilkinson
A Prayer by Margot Wolff from The
Netherlands
There is One Life, That Life is God
by Carol Hanson
There is No Order of Difficulty in Miracles
by Marianne Williamson
[Return to Top]
