Peace Is You, You Are Peace:
Connecting Personal Health and World Peace

Dearest Friends

Fellow Travelers

Souls in Search Of Inner Peace and World Peace

Viva Santa Fe!!!

Never in human history have we seen so much human insecurity.

Our collective existence as a human collective is now threatened by a thick logic in private and public policy making, which is failing us everywhere.

Many examples illustrate the use of this logic taking us into a suicidal path. It tells us that

• “We must go to war in order to attain peace”
• “We must grow now and take care of the natural environment later”
• “We must focus on economic wealth first and do social justice later”
• “We must progress as a society sacrificing, and leaving behind, others”
• “We are superior to nature and thus we can do whatever we want with it, even destroy it”
• “We are superior to indigenous peoples and material progress may sacrifice them”

Like the inquisition punished those who thought the Earth was round, we are doing the same today to those who advocate for inner and world peace.

In public policy it takes a few days to get billions of dollars to go to war, while it takes years to get one dollar for peace.

What is going wrong!!

My Friends, In this new millennium we need new solutions to our complex challenges.

Old prescriptions have failed us, and will continue to bring more conflict, suffering and little peace.

A unique feature of this new millennium is that we live within a powerful form of collective existence.

The essence of that collective existence is our total interdependence.

• We are interdependent of each other in every sense.
• We are interdependent with nature.
• We are interdependent with all living beings.
• If you are sick, I am sick, we are all sick.
• If you are suffering from violence, we are all victims of that violence, even at the most subtle levels.

But, we do not seem to possess the best instruments to attain peace and enhanced welfare collectively.

Our values continue to be individualistic, materialistic and insensitive to the existence of others.

Many economic and business actions are violent, and the values dominating those activities flood our lives, with a pattern that does not benefit humanity as a collective.

Today, the richest consumes 87% of the total, while the poor only consumes 1.5% of the total.

This material inequity does not bring peace

This inequity destroys any hope for a better future

This inequity is a major source of violence

Our capacity to manage our world as a collective is weak and crumbling down.

The institutions that are supposed to be global are outdate and out of sink with our realities, and have little interest in embracing us as a collective.

They are dominated by governments that pursue their own individual interests.

They are dominated by governments that pursue their own individual interests.

More reform of these institutions is like pumping oxygen into a dead body and, then, hope that it will come alive.

• We need a new organizational architecture for world peace and prosperity.
• We need organizations based on a new value system.
• We need organizations based on human and spiritual values.
• We need organizations based on love and compassion, solidarity, caring and sharing.

If these were the values, we would not be debating about:

• Whether women should have equal rights
• Whether the children should go to school instead of being soldiers
• Whether the elderly has the right to a decent and prosperous life and security

A wise understanding and a set of effective practices to create a meaningful collective welfare are not yet here

This is one of the powerful reasons why we do not attain peace.

My Friends, Inner peace is the most solid foundation, and possibly the only foundation, to bring peace everywhere.

Peace is not an external phenomenon.

Peace is not a “thing” to be bought and sold.

Supermarkets do not sell peace.

No matter what level of material welfare you posses, how rich you are, this material element does not guarantee your personal or collective peace.

Peace is not the absence of war. That is just the absence of war.

It is essential that we construct a true culture of peace.

But such a statement has been said a million times.

Then, why is it that we do not possess the ability to bring peace?

Two important considerations:

First is our inability to self-realize those human and spiritual values that form the foundation of peace everywhere.

For the moment, we mostly advocate love and compassion.

We advocate peace.

But, this is not enough.

Advocacy for the sake of advocacy will not do.

Peace, love and compassion are states of being. They are states of our inner Being.

Thus, we must self realized them inside ourselves, if they are going to manifest outside.

There is no outer peace without inner peace.

In practice, in the Iraq and in Israel/Palestine wars, we are not attaining peace because those who negotiate for peace have never self-realized peace in themselves.

They are on a “blind date with peace”.

They do not really know what they are negotiating.

And, the best outcome they can attain is a temporary stop of existing conflicts.

Second, we do not have the real ability to reach peace in ourselves and collectively, because we live with very high levels of toxicity.

We are intoxicated with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and more.

This is revealed in how we spend our moneys. On an annual basis,

• For the poor we spend no more than $60 billions
• For alcohol and cigarettes more than $150 billions
• For drugs more than $350 billions
• For weapons $1 trillion

As we intoxicate ourselves, we lose the ability and wisdom of our senses, of our antennas with the external world.

We lose the wisdom of our audition, vision, taste, tact…

This is why we feel little about environmental destruction or why some people do not really care about the death of children in Iraq.

Today, it is like the drunk driver who says it can drive.

We live in drunken societies, with drunken politicians and decision makers.

World peace will never be an outcome of this situation.

But drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes are not the only forms of toxicity.

We have created inner toxicity with:

• Violent thoughts
• Violent looks
• Violent touch
• Violent love
• Violent sex
• Violent intent
• Violent talk

The time has come to change and to create new conditions for a better collective future.

Thus, we have to eliminate

• Violent money
• Violent economy
• Violent trade of women
• Violent dogmas
• Violent investments
• Violent media
• Violent medicine

Let us also take care of our

• Inner wars,
• Inner tsunamis,
• Inner fears.

Let us become fully aware that

• Destroying the environment is violent and taking care of it is peace making
• Killing people is violent and embracing life is peace creating
• Killing living beings is violent and taking care of them is peaceful living
• Poverty is a form of violence and that only shared abundance is peace giving
• Discrimination is violence and opening our hearts and souls is peace building

This is why it is essential to focus on our personal and collective health.

This is to say, our inner health and our physical health as well.

Health and peace are intimately linked.

Let us detoxify.

Let us detoxify

Let us detoxify.

My friends, An important condition to attaining peace, is also to heal our hurting world.

Our ‘container’ is suffering because of the conditions we have embraced to create material wealth and to benefit from such material wealth.

In most societies, particularly in those advanced ones, we see their attention to material growth without much spiritual growth. Thus, eventually becoming materially rich and spiritually poor.

We live in one world.

This is our world.

Poverty, hunger, violations of human rights, environmental degradation, destruction of biodiversity, global warming, ozone layer depletion, the spread of major diseases, the increase in the use of drugs, the many wars and conflicts, and so much more, are at the roots of this hurting world.

To heal the world is a condition for global peace. In order to heal the world, it is essential that we restore fundamental human and spiritual laws.

For example, these are the laws of spiritual space, the law of the feminine, the laws of karma, the law of total interdependence, the laws of collective identity, the law of simplicity, and so many more.

For now, these are often disregarded and misunderstood as esoteric, abstract, or impractical

It is through the restoration and application of these spiritual laws that we will be able to heal the world and to attain world peace.

Dear Friends, Nobody will bring peace on our behalf.

Peace is inside us.

Just knock the little door of your heart and soul and peace will welcome you.

Wake up to this reality.

We must wake-up peace within ourselves.

Inner peace is a mirror image of outer peace and vice versa.

We tried the outer, let us now try the inner. It works!!

My Friends, What should we do next?

The first step is to recognize that we are not at peace and make all efforts to create a new and embracing, universal culture of inner peace.

The second step is identifying very simple ways to creating a culture of peace. We need no money to love, contemplate, meditate, pray, and be in deep silence.

No governments, no United Nations and nobody will bring you peace, but us.

The third step is to think about:

• Peace as a form of empowerment
• Peace as a form of human ethics
• Peace as a form of human transformation
• Peace as a form of our collective destiny

The fourth step is to eliminate all forms of fears.

• Fear is the most powerful cause of violence
• Fear is central to human insecurity and human insecurity brings fundamentalism
• Fear is the destroyer of universal values and collective welfare, in favor of individualism
• Fear is the most effective vehicle to debilitate all processes of human empowerment
• Fear is the foundation of negative dimensions of our ego

The fifth step is to rebuild, and when appropriate, create new collective institutions, including

• The family
• The work place
• The neighborhood organizations
• The political systems
• The international organizations

The sixth step is to stop immediately existing wars. This should be a non-negotiable item. Stop now. Yes, stop now.

The seventh step is to have a new Marshall Plan to assist victims of war, those who are in camps, those who are homeless, those who have no medical or psychological assistance, and those who are abandoned.

Let us do it now.

The eighth step is to create new mechanisms to redistribute wealth, to create economic opportunities and to bring high levels of human security.

The ninth step is to disarm everyone.

This is not naïve.

This is not stupid.

This is not a utopia.

This is urgently needed.

Defensive postures are a major source of conflict.

Promoting human insecurity is a violent act. It is a criminal act. Let stop it.

The economy of war is a failure. It does not bring more economic growth, but only trillions in the hands of just a few.

The tenth step is love, love, love. Do not stop loving. Have no fear of loving.

Just love:

• Love yourself
• Love your neighbor
• Love your friends
• Love your enemies

Prevention of conflict demands living in love, compassion and diversity.

The most powerful practice you may adopt to bring peace, love and compassion is “to increase your ability to become the other without losing your own identity”.

This is the essence of peace.

This is the nature of your inner peace.

You will become yourself through the self realization of peace.

You must become walking peace everywhere you are.

Be a transformer, not a passive or indifferent being.

Learn to communicate.

Learn to communicate heart to heart.

Learn to communicate soul to soul.

Go home and let all people know that peace is not just ‘another option’ but our only destiny.

We come from Peace and we are to go to Peace. This is a call.

Make the first move: now, today.

Before I end, I have a gift of peace for you!!

Peace be with you.

Peace be you.

Peace is you and you are peace.

I love you.

Thank you.