It’s Time to Clean Up Our Earth in Peace

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai, December 31, 2006,
Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Germany

The video footage of this new-year discussion is available for streaming or download from this page. (Scroll down to 247 and 246)

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So, the time is right that everyone should push for peace now, at any price, because without peace we cannot build anything up. There are more pressing matters now than killing, my God! There’s global warming; there’s ice melting. And it’s not just the warming: after it has warmed it might get cold. And that’s even worse. If it’s warm, you can jump into the water, but if it’s too cold I don’t know if you have enough things to keep you warm when it’s freezing all the time. Because of the changes in the atmosphere, it might get worse and become freezing even, after the warming period. Sometimes the pollution damages the ozone layer and then maybe all the heat escapes. Then after a while we won’t have any heat, because then maybe too much pollution covers the sun and with too many changes then everything will get so bad and it might be freezing. That’s even worse also.

 

Start Now to Implement Life-sustaining Solutions for the Planet

I watched on one of the British channels before, there was a very scary documentary. They said that along with the global warming, the sun is also getting cooler somehow. So warming and cold: it’s too warm in some parts, and then some parts will be too cold. Or after the warm will be cold, and if it’s too warm then the ice will melt and then we’ll have floods. And if after that there’s no ice left to balance the things anyway, either the planet will become very heated or it could be very cold, because of too much cover or the ozone layer being broken.

 

So, many things can happen, and they could happen soon. Several decades are not long. So right now it’s time that all the people of every country should get together and think of the solutions quick, like biofuel or something with sustainable energy like solar power or wind power. You can install it in your home if you can afford it. Or, you can put money together and install one home at a time, OK! For instance, two of you could pitch money together and install it in your home. Draw a lotto to see who’s house gets installed first, so it’s fair. And then next time, pitch money together and install it in her home. When I lived in the, in the cave in the mountains I lived only with solar energy. I charge my phone with solar energy. I watched TV with solar energy. My fridge ran on solar energy. It’s a little complicated but you can learn. To save lives, we must learn. To save the planet, it’s worth it. It’s complicated but it’s not un-doable, you know. It’s simple enough to do it. You have to capture the solar energy into some batteries, and then you connect with those batteries to use it to run your household. At least you can save energy, and you save money in long run anyway. You can even sell it back to the government. In Spain it’s like that.

 

There’s wind power also; it might be difficult, but you can install a small wind mill. (D: A turbine, or wind mill.) A wind mill, the old fashioned way, it also does work. The turbine takes a longer time and a lot of money and maybe it’s not so ‘in’ yet, so you can’t get it so easily. But you can do that. Do what you can, OK? And go together in one car to work or go shop together, in one car. It saves money and saves energy. And if you can, buy a hybrid car,. They’re not that expensive. I got one; maybe it costs you in the beginning, but later it saves you a lot. It saves your life, too, and saves the life of everybody else! But you can check on the Internet to see which car is cheaper and more convenient for you. And soon in the future we will run it on biodiesel and biofuels like corn fuel, sugar cane or garbage. We can recycle garbage. And maybe we don’t even have to do that if they push the wave energy program! A long time ago in Norway they began that program, to use ocean waves as energy. That would be limitless. You can use it forever, just like the sun.

 

Energy is free everywhere actually. You can even harness power from thunder and so on. And that would be limitless, limitless! There would be no cost for anybody. It should be free for everyone, the basic things in life, like water and electricity – should be free actually, yeah! And it soon will be free. All this money that’s put into war, my God we could build a paradise on Earth! It’s about time everyone should know about this. So if you know of any of government important persons, you can remind them by writing or doing something. Do something in your power. Or, if you know how and where, just write. Write to the government. Remind them; help them; support them. Support their idea of environmental protection.

 

If we don’t act now, we won’t have any Earth left to even fight over with each other: no land to possess, no land to put the guns on or to install the cannons. It’s about time; my God, it’s the 21st Century already and we so called civilized humans are still fighting. I cannot believe it! Sometimes when I sit down, I don’t know how it’s possible. It’s not possible that we live in an era in which humans kill humans. How can we do that? How do you train such a beautiful, pure, handsome, strong, heroic young man to go into battle and just shoot someone like that? There was no quarrelling and no cause before, except the ‘big one’ somewhere behind telling him to go and do it: "That guy is an enemy; you go and shoot him for me." That’s it.

 

War Is Never a Solution

This is wasting human resource also. These soldiers are the most brilliant generation of our time! They’re there to pass down better DNA for the new generation. They’re not to go there; they’re not born to die. I don’t care if it’s to die a hero or die a what; it’s the same. It’s a waste of resource! Do you know how much money it costs to grow a man like that? At least a million dollars until he grows into maturity. Growing men is not like growing trees: it’s not cheap. And he has so much love from the family, so much friendship from companions, so much teaching from the teacher and the school – so much affection going on around him. He’s not just ‘nobody’ – he is somebody. He has family; he might even be married and have children already. But he is forced to go out there and shoot someone he doesn’t even have any enmity with. Isn’t that ridiculous? This is crazy, and we live in it!

 

My God, what kind of the world is this? It’s about time they stop all this – just stop it! We cannot tolerate this. It’s incredible that humans can kill humans! Even animals don’t do that. They might kill one for some reason, but they don’t go out and kill a whole mass like that. For the sake of whatever, I don’t care. I don’t care who is right, who is wrong; it’s all wrong.

For example, even now, I read in the media or saw on television that the number of deaths of American soldiers is exceeding the number of victims from 9-11. And that’s not counting the other people: the women and the children, the victims of war, the innocent bystanders. So war is never a solution. The more war, the more death; the more death, the more enemies; the more enemies, the more war, and so on. It’s a vicious circle, and there is no end to it. So we just have to stop. We just have to shake hands and forgive each other and then let’s go on with our lives, because there are so many pressing matters now. With all the money that’s spent on war, can you imagine? Africa would become like Europe if they used all that money on Africa, on one continent alone. And with all the money that’s still going into the war, we could build space ships. We could have more time, more energy and recruit more talent. Instead of all these young men dying, they would become living bodies of the future, building houses for the needy.

Let There Be Soldiers of Peace

If all the soldiers changed their jobs, we’d have soldiers of peace: buildings soldiers who bring medicine to the sick and build homes for the homeless. They are able-bodied, intelligent, strong and handsome. They are beautiful beings; it is a waste that that they go there and just die like that. Just one bullet like this. (Master gestures to show the small size of a bullet) Can you imagine? It can go anywhere from anywhere and kill one handsome, beautiful, aspiring, pure, energetic, young human being – just like that. Can you imagine? And it costs millions of dollars even, to raise him, and so much love from the family and friends so that he grows up like that. We cannot teach him hatred when he grows out of love. You cannot change that into hatred; this is not right.

 

You should continue to nurture the love that he has in him, the trust that he has with his family and friends, and with the nation that he’s born into. You cannot change that love into hatred and tell a young man who has been loved all his life until now, to come out and turn into a hateful person – and then use a gun to kill another person who has also grown out from the love of a mother and father somewhere, and who has somehow has been nourished and nurtured all this time like a beautiful flower in the garden with all love and care, attention and hope for the future. And then – boom, just like that – with one bullet, finished. Such a beautiful dream is gone, collapsed.

 

How many more generations until we can cultivate many young beautiful men like that? They are at their prime, and they are so inspired by heroism. We cannot use that to turn it into hatred for any reason at all, because it is wrong; it’s wrong. You who have children, you know that! You nurture your children up, not to just to die like that. Can you imagine all these mothers, all the fathers and all the loved ones, all his friends, even his neighbors – it’s terrible! It’s time we have to stop all this nonsense. Anyone with intelligence cannot tolerate this, cannot continue to support this kind of world, can we? (Audience: No) One doesn’t have to be a Quan Yin practitioner or a Zen monk to understand this. It’s just common for a human being to have this knowledge, this understanding that humans are born to live.

God’s Gift of Life Is for Love, Not War

 

There’s nothing worth dying for. Nothing! God doesn’t give birth to you so that you have to die for something. Except to find God, there is nothing really worth dying for. People should be given hope, inspiration to live, not to die. Remember in one of my poems, I said that I don’t ever want to grow up to be a hero, to keep the war and die? It’s not my job, is it? It’s nobody’s job. You’re not born to grow up just to keep a war and then die for it. Isn’t that ridiculous? We should never have a war anyway; we’re so backward. If it hadn’t been for you, the Quan Yin practitioners who grace this Earth, who bless the atmosphere with love and universal energy, this Earth would soon be ‘kaput’ (meaning "ended") already. So, we’re just holding it and waiting for humankind to wake up more and do something. If not, it has to go. We can leave it sooner or later anyway; we don’t care. But it’s such a negative way.

 

Suppose the Earth became kaput now, we could go up to a higher level. We are already there and we already have our ’security card,’ but the people out there, if they die like that, they will be living in shock in such a state of stupor, for a long, long time – thousands of years – before they wake up. And then their atmosphere will manifest in another kind of world again, and they’ll war with each other again, because they haven’t finished their thinking process. They haven’t gotten to the understanding about peace and "Love thy neighbor." They haven’t done that. So if they wake up again from their stupor after thousands of years, they’ll do the same thing again.

Peace Costs Far Less than War

 

I therefore really hope that this is the time they understand this very simple concept. Even a child understands peace at all costs. But peace doesn’t cost anything: that is the thing. Only war costs something. War costs human resource, war costs emotional upheaval, war costs tremendous financial resource and every other resource of humankind. All this equipment they build for war could be used to build houses, to build railways for the tram, to build underground train stations or build bridges for the poor countries.

 

And all this money – billions of dollars – something like $7 million per day or week in Iraq, for example, and how many weeks or years have already gone by? Do you understand how much that is? You don’t because it’s too much. It’s too much for us to even want to think about. It’s just too ridiculous when people are hungry or starving and don’t even have the basic things like clean water to drink. And we spend tons of money and tons of human resources, tons of world metal resources or any resource just to build a killing weapon. This is beyond imagination! No wonder our world is lagging behind, compared to all others in the galaxy.

 

But mind you, be happy. Our Earth is getting better of course, number one. Number two, our Earth is still better than many other planets. There are worse planets. There are planets whose people are evil, just pure evil. And they will harass you day and night. Some of the warlords have been born there; I don’t know how much longer; I don’t want to see. It’s terrible. Even if they repent, they don’t even have time to pray. Can you understand that? That’s why they have to stay there forever, because they don’t have time for anything. They’re just running and running, running and hiding, running and hiding, all day long, with no time. It’s such mental torment that hell even sounds better. So at least we’re born on this planet, where it’s half-and-half, and we’re pushed to go nearer to God. But even then I don’t know if I could ever get used to the kind of people who go out and kill each other like that. I mean, if you want to be a soldier, you have to have instilled in you the hatred; otherwise how can you kill? Just killing at random like that, killing as ordered. There’s no turning back. If you turn back, then you are killed too, by your own people for betraying your country.

Use Earthly Resources to Build and Help Others

 

We should use all this money and intelligence and time and resource to train people to love and to build. This makes more sense, yes? We should use it for a peaceful purpose. The soldiers are so strong and healthy and in the prime of their life, and they also very idealistic. When we are young, we are very idealistic; we are heroes. We want to do good for the world. So this good and pure energy and enthusiasm has to be used for a peaceful purpose, for building the world and for helping the needy. That is the kind of heroism that the young people love to spend their energy on; they will love it. Suppose any government tells the soldiers, "Look here: no more war, you go out and build houses," they’d be very, very happy. They would be relieved. They would feel that this is really what they want. I bet you that’s what would happen. Any soldier – you ask them – they would want to do that.

 

We can retrain them. There’s still time. Because they are young, they can learn fast. What I mean is that their youthful inspiration and heroism and idealism should not be misused. It’s a waste. The young people are the best. You tell them what to do, and they will do it. They are so eager to serve, they’re eager to learn, they’re eager to do something good because they’re full of energy. If they are used for war, it is a pity. It’s a misuse of their purity and their idealism. So it’s better to use the soldiers for peaceful purposes. We can keep the army. Keep it and use it to build things up. In the Philippines, they are trying to do that. That is a very good idea, and I hope they will. Maybe the Filipino soldiers should do that first, and everyone else will follow. We have to start somewhere.

 

Our world would have been a paradise a long time ago if we did not have so much war going on, which is wasting a lot of the energy, finances and resources of the Earth. There’s no need to believe me; you know it yourself. This is terrible; so now I hope that all signs of peace are coming our way. It is coming, and I hope more will come. The true peace really must come, because that’s the only way to survive on this planet, my God. We must use our time now, to change the course of history; otherwise we’ll all die together. The good and the bad, the powerful nations and the weak nations, will all be gone.

 

Being gone is no problem; the problem is that not all of the people on the planet are ready to integrate into paradise. After they’re gone they’ll still stay in shock or in misery. And that state of mind will keep them for a long time in a hellish existence, worse than this planet’s. They’ll be warring with each other in that kind of existence and then wake up and become human again, warring with each other again. Have you heard of those stories that in some of the big major battlefields, sometimes those who have psychic power can see that the soldiers in their astral forms are walking around and trying to fight each other still? Or, looking for the fighting or thinking that the war is still going on, because if you’re not enlightened now, you won’t ever be. Not after you die; you just suffer more, because you can see more. With a body you can shield yourself from some of the emotional distress, and recover or don’t see the suffering. But without the body you’ll see more; you’ll see the naked misery in hell and you will suffer more and more. And this is terrible.

Making a Model for the World

So the question is not whether I care that the planet is still alive or not, it’s just for the people who live in it. They have to know this concept; they have to awaken to this peaceful solution, to the real human purpose, to build up the peaceful atmosphere, to find God or to remember God at least, and to be at peace with each other, just like God wants us to be, like one time paradise. Otherwise if they die like this, they will suffer more than what they do now. You understand me? That is the reason why they have to stop the war and begin to build peace now. Otherwise if they die, it would be terrible: more terrible than being alive, more terrible than the war in Iraq, more terrible than 9-11, more terrible than any terrorism can ever cause you to feel.

 

So that’s the reason we practice hard, we really pray for peace in our way, and we’re pushing for it inside our hearts. And then peace has to come; people have to stop. Just stop like that! Just shake hands, with no conditions. There shouldn’t be any condition for peace at all because both sides will gain. Maybe you lose one piece of land but who cares? If Noah and the flood ever come again, you’ll lose everything. You’ll lose the whole land, not to talk about one piece! Because suppose a typhoon like Katrina comes, we would also lose billions of dollars for nothing. So if we lose billions of dollars or a piece of land or even a country for a peaceful purpose, let it be. Why do we need a frontier? Why do we need the country anyway? If you don’t have Egypt, you can go to live in Germany. If they dissolve the border, for example, between your countries and you become another citizen, why not! Just like me, I’m Aulacese and I’m British and now I’m in Germany, who cares? And you guys even come from England, Finland, Poland, Greece, Croatia, France, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Russia, Spain, Romania, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czechoslovakia, Africa, Ukraine – welcome! Bulgaria, Italy and Israel even. (Congratulations, your country is getting good. We celebrated your country’s peace with the Palestinians for one week. We had cakes and dancing, just to support more peace and make it more real, make it getting better, like a little push.) Where else? Sri Lanka, Columbia, Belgium, of course Germany, India, Armenia, Australia, New Zealand, Iran – Oh, wonderful. It’s international, a big United Nations, and we are happy together. (Applause)

 

This is a model for the world to follow. So your actions of coming here have many meanings. Number one, you of course want to see me, your lovely Princess; that I understand. (Applause) Second, you want to meditate together, which is very important, and third… eating! (Laughter) But the most important thing is that you make a model; I let you come so we can realize peace in one section of the world. Because we are all telepathic, I told you already. And if we are peaceful here, we will be peaceful everywhere. (Applause) This is a mini-model for the world to follow; this is how the world should be, and they should follow our example, that we live peacefully together. Here no one cares if we are from Iran or Czechoslovakia. We eat the same food and we sit on the same floor, if you have a seat at all. So here you fighting for property and also for food, but in a loving and peaceful way. And we are so happy; even you can sit in the corner like that. This is all we need, just a little square and we’re so happy! So whatever you do here with us together, it will affect the world. Whatever you do in your house, in your group meditation weekly, it will affect the world. And then it will change. Some people learn slowly; some people learn fast. They better learn fast! There’s not too much time. But they are learning fast.

Be Prepared to Act Positively and Quickly

 

I think the world is getting very aware now that they must do something. There’s no more excuse to say they don’t know; they do know, because what affects the neighbor affects you. Imagine if all the people from the lowlands, when the flood arrives, they don’t have time to build a Noah’s boat. They will not know and it will hit them quick, according to the reports, which is logical also unless a miracle happens. Imagine these people who have nowhere to go and who will then all run into the city, to higher land, where there’s no flood, no disaster – where do they go? They’ve lost everything by then. At that time there’s too many people for us even to go and rescue or to help because there’s so many, and then they will have no home. They will have lost everything; there’s nothing to lose anymore and they will be very chaotic. They will go looting the cities, and they might even have worse war than we’re having now.

 

So, whatever affects them, affects everyone. It’s not like, "OK, I am the President, it doesn’t concern me." Or, "I am the Governor, a high official; it doesn’t concern me," or, "I live on the high land; I don’t live next to the sea; it doesn’t concern me." It does concern everyone because if they come in hundreds of thousands at the same time, hungry, stressed, disoriented, starving and confused, they’ll do anything. They will be like so-called zombie soldiers and that’s the worst you could ever be confronted with. They don’t know anything anymore at that time. It’s too big a grievance for them to even keep their mind together. And there’s no weapon that can stop this kind of war. It will be terrible.

 

So we’d better be prepared, and whoever has the authority and the power must use it to change the way we live our life. We have to clean up our planet, and quick.

The President of Slovenia on Spirit and Politics

In looking at the politics, I don’t expect that change will be initiated from the politicians, from above. The pressure and the change must come from the foundation, from the people’s consciousness. And then the behavior of the politicians and of business leaders will start to change and we can create a better world. – Dr. Janez Drnovsek

Supreme Master Television, the international satellite/internetTV station dedicated to all things positive and humane, interviewed the remarkable President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr. Janez Drnovsek. Slovenia’s president is a compassionate man who lives the contradictions between economics and such issues as social welfare and animal rights. We could say that he blances the past with the future – an arduous but necessary task.

Being a man openly concerned with the spiritual aspect of life, his success in politics is an anomaly, though increasingly less so as time goes on and people identify more with their spiritual rather than material being. Nevertheless his views on the interaction between the spirituality of the people and how they choose to govern themselves will be valid for a long time yet. He has played a role in both ’socialist’ and ‘liberal’ political parties, demonstrating his allegiance to a higher ideology- one that is more fundamental and essential to human life.

The thought of President Drnovsek extends beyond Slovenia to the people of the world. In establishing the Movement for Justice and Devlopment he aim is broad: “to raise the consciousness of people… around the world.”

Broadly, Slovenia’s president represents the neohumanist movement. He identifies issues of the day with percision based on real understanding of the divine nature of each human being. The workings of the world today are often in contradiction with this latent property. The very nature of our system, being divided into materialistically identified groups precludes our very divinity!

Sometimes I say that politics ideally defend the interests of humanity as a whole. But they are always about the interests of some groups of people or of nations with economic interests. We can speak about geopolitical interests, but who defends the humanity as a whole? Who defends the earth? No one!

Talking about the challenges of the day, the president is aware that they will continue as long as the meta-ideological trends and materialistic paradigms, that give rise to tribalism and individualism, continue.

And just imagine what the people, perhaps living thirty, forty years from now, will think about the generation that could have stopped these developments, but didn’t. What will they think about us if we don’t act, if we don’t move, if we don’t change these patterns of behavior, of politics, of big business, sometimes also big media and so on; that we will just allow this to go on, all because of benefit and profit and greed, because of selfishness, of eternal struggle between some groups of people or individuals or nations.

Patriarchy, Politics and the Future

(this article is in progress)

What we have in our society is a kind of fanatical rationality. So much material progress has been made under the doctrine of rationality that it reigns spureme, unchecked. The result is that many aspects of our lives, our societies and our world are intellectualised when in fact they require emotional inquiry as well as intellectual. For example, according to the rational realist, economic progress is sometimes more important than the wellbeing of those whom the progress is supposed to be serving. This type of ‘rationality’, cold intellecualism, is not rational at all. Our reliance on it comes of our misunderstandings about ourserlves and what ‘makes us tick’.

Emotion is sometimes needed to contribute to a more humanistically favourable rationality. It is well known that unchecked by rational thought emotion can lead to unfavourable outcomes and outbursts. Children often provide plent of examples of this but so do many adults who have not trained the capacity to think things through. Nevertheless Emotion itself is not less rational than intellect. It is another tool for us to use in this world, alongside intellect. Rationality would be a balanced use of each, governed by a higher faculty: wisdom. It is the latency of this higher faculty that causes our undervaluing emoition and partaking in fanatical rationality.

The New Enlightenment

The purpose of a foreword is to put the rest of a book in a particular context. But the context of this book is no secret: the relationship between the self-proclaimed champion-states of civilization and the rest of the world; and the placidly divided societies inside these ‘perfect democracies’. Though these issues are mirrored in many other countries, nowhere are they clearer than in America, and at no time they have been clearer than now.

Even the least critical thinker will have seen problems regarding America’s policy and action in the last century. These problems have been amplified in the last five years with the invasion of Iraq. It is an undemocratic war in which a few leaders usurp control of vital American institutions and ignore the will of the people, all for a purpose which is anything but clear. It is sloppily executed with devastating disregard for anything and everything including Americans, Iraqis and world public opinion. This extreme minority is empowered by the corporate media which many still assume to be impartial, allowing the contradictions even as the suffering becomes more and more obvious and tragic.

I am not an expert in these areas, leading me to wonder why Beverly has given me the honor of opening her book. It must be that like me she sees a more important theme running subtly through current affairs, a theme that starts with each of us, but will resolve future outcomes for our entire civilization.

This theme is based on the need to understand the cooperative and ‘spiritual’ capacity of human beings and how this understanding or lack of it is reflected in our societies. Or we could say it regards the evolution of our collective paradigms and society. I say ’spiritual’ for lack of a better term. What I refer to is actually: the recognition of the virtues inherent in humankind; individual introspection and respect leading to heightened empathy and sympathy; measurement of success disjoined from material measures, and; something that exists independently of religious traditions.

This presence or absence of such spirituality determines the state of affairs within a nation and the world. As has been said in China since the time of Confucius (perhaps recently put to one side, temporarily):

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right (Michael Garofalo, 2003: http://www.egreenway.com/taichichuan/kft1.htm).

This progression, a gem of common sense, leads to peace and harmony. However we see the opposite in institutionalised practice. The consequences are clear. If only we had a functioning world to compare with ours, we could start going forwards instead of backwards. But where does this misdirection start from really?

Materialism and the old Enlightenment

Capitalist-friendly liberal assumptions dominate decision making in the largest industrialised economies, notably America, Britain and Japan, and also in international institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. These assumptions are less ‘liberal’ in the classical sense and more ‘realist’ in a utilitarian sense: going under the guise of an egalitarian liberalism. These assumptions that turn our economic world result in the ignoring of the human being except as an economic unit. Wellbeing is measured by a state’s success, which is measured by economic indicators, e.g. GDP and FDI, rather than actual human benefit or satisfaction, or even a standard of material living. Where did this ridiculous idea come from?

The ideas that built modern age evolved, more recently, from the concept of ‘rationalism’ that took over in the ‘Age of Reason’, roughly the 1600s. The idea was taken further in the European Enlightenment of the 1700s, becoming ‘empiricism’. The ultimate implication of rationalism and empiricism was a rejection of things deemed unreasonable and not testable. What was ‘empirical’ to the men who brought about the further scientific and philosophical revolution of the Enlightenment, was that if a thing could not be objectively and repeatedly proven by physical tests and examinations then that thing would not exist and not factor in the intelligent person’s thinking. Such a ‘thing’ was a metaphysical, spiritual or divine aspect to a person.

The empiricism of the Enlightenment was a reaction to the dogmatism and abuse of religious and political power. It was a reaction against the traditionalist culture which was perceived as enabling the oppression of the population of Europe. It was seen that if an institution’s claim to power was discredited, any ‘enlightened’ man would lose faith in the traditional mechanisms of the old world. The popular acceptability of independent reasoning and self-determination in society led to the spreading of not only an intellectual trend but also of a means for liberation. It was indeed an ‘enlightenment’ of sorts for humanity leading to great scientific and social advances. Thus we hold liberalism to be the champion philosophy of the modern age. But it has limitations which are becoming clear as our world changes exponentially quickly. Like any ideology, it bundles concepts and skips over issues.

The scientific method, enthusiasm and freedom finally birthed in the enlightenment were the major contributors to new technologies and the force that brought on a speedy industrialization. After this came new trends in modernisation, imperialism and finally globalization: interwoven processes that are still changing and evolving together. Notwithstanding change, to this day the idea of empiricism (and the Positivist scientific method) has been at odds with religion. But not only religion: bundled together with religion in the ‘irrational’ category is the concept of spirituality. This bundling is a mistake necessarily made, due to the enthusiasm of the time, but one that is contributing to the crisis of the age.

In the post industrialised and ‘intellectually evolved’ nations, it is very unfashionable today for an intellectual person to even imply the possibility of a metaphysical aspect of life. Such thinking is deemed to be extremely unproductive: given voice and audience, it would supposedly direct civilization backwards to the dark ages when the Church and state oppressed the people of Europe for ends of their own.

Even if there were no good evidence for the spiritual side of life, the belief in it would still make this world a heaven for us and future generations. Spirituality can thrive in a non institutionalised environment. The only temple required is one’s own body.

A Tribal world?

If in the 17th century Descartes’ followers institutionalised the practice of vivisection (live dissection) on the basis that animals had no souls, what could be done if humans too are thought of as mere machinery? Resource wars? Human experimentation? Genocide? We see it all, over and over again. Our problems are directly related to this materialistic idea, which is most popular among an ambitious, ethnocentric, fatalistic and aristocratic elite. Empiricism is still the scientific paradigm that one must display in order to justify to others their worthiness of world-directorship. In contrast, for ordinary people with no need to prove anything there is an unspoken belief in virtues: sympathy, compassion, selflessness etc. Unfortunately ordinary people are not allowed and are incapable to make decisions in our limitedly ‘representative’ ‘democracies’.

Once can see how the hot-headed policies of the day are related to anti-spiritual and materialistic notions about humankind. A lack of faith in the inborn positivity of people governs aggressive ‘revenge’ policy. The assumption that people are purely physical phenomenon – self-aware bags of flesh and bone – allows policy to depart from the precepts of the most popular religions, to which many our leaders profess to belong. These religions all not only hold that the human is divine, but also forbid killing. While outwardly these religions are practiced or even claimed as the source of inspiration, the unspoken materialistic assumption can clearly be observed.

The same materialistic assumptions allow us to divide each other into groups and justify the culture of group behaviour. For example, as we do not recognize a divine identity of any description, we thus identify by default with our material and social aspects: race, class, religion, you name it. This means: ‘defending our group against your group, at the drop of a hat and without much need for forethought. Wars that seem to be caused by unfortunate cultural or religious contradictions, or humanitarian interventions, are often really about resources and having ‘the good life’. The world has adopted this materialistic dream. The habit of firstly identifying with race or culture is through and through a result of the materialistic paradigm.

But if we replace this paradigm with a belief in the commonality of human divinity then what justification is there for this type of tribalist behaviour? In the place of nations and cultures ‘owning’ people and their identity, there would simply be a colourful globe. History and culture would not have such grave implications for our identity and belonging as it does for us today.

Taking away materialistic, racist and tribalistic notions, then an international conflict or an act of terrorism would be understood as a malfunction of the entire system – not the result of the inborn personal deficiencies of individuals. If a group were to attack, it would be acknowledged that the attacked had first been attacked in some way, though perhaps not militarily or obviously. The original problem might come from some unrecognised ignorance on the part of the attacked, in which case and the whole misfortune could even be perceived as a chance to re-examine international relations and search for the fault. Of course this is hypothetical because only in a receptive international world could such a country exist. In a world receptive to such nations, terrorism would be unknown. Otherwise, such a nation would be taken advantage of and brought down to level.

Today we could say not without an element of truth that much of our problems are all because of a few awry leaders, take your pick of examples. To an extent this may be true. Our system of ‘democracy’ operates in such a way that a certain wealthy and well connected demographic selection, can come into positions of government far more easily than any old commoner from the working class. We need only take a glance at America and its dynastic corporate and political families, and their ambitious supporters, to get a good idea of this.

Our responsibility for the little and big pictures

This should not be an excuse to evade responsibility for our world, our nations and ourselves. We ought to look at our own lives and see how closely the actions of our state have reflected the assumptions we make and the way we live. We might then begin to understand that our own mentalities are not as far removed from the exclusivist policies of the state as we would like to believe.

For example, Americans, thought of as the ‘guardians of western civilization’, are known across the world for their consumerist lifestyles and individualistic notions. Likewise, US government policies above all reflect the supreme value of material wealth, irrespective of the policies’ effects on other nations. The righteousness of ‘national interest’ is the justification and motivation. How much of this can we say we represent at the individual level in our own societies? Many of us will likely admit that within our own nations are microcosmic copies of the international world. Perhaps our local societies show less tragically obvious symptoms, but the basic mindsets are the same. We are, in our modern capitalistic societies, more or less forced into a defensive and selfish position: personally, socially and internationally.

There are those of us who realize that there is no such thing as an isolated ‘national interest’ in such a globally connected world. Going against the flow, we see how one nation’s interest is entirely dependent on the interest of all nations, as each depends on the others for their material sustenance and peaceful existence. We look at ourselves and our societies critically, and ask whether such isolation and paranoid defensiveness is necessary or useful in creating a world we can live in and be happy.

Beverly is a part of a new movement in patriotism, which recognizes that a nation is a part of the world and that the world will not function through violence and fear.

Human nature or divine nature?

Many a discussion between ideologists comes down to the lowest denominator of all social theories… ‘human nature’. For some it is both the defence of the system and the reason not to hope or strive for better one. For yet others it is the reason not to care at all… seeing as ‘people simply cannot be trusted to forgive and forget’. But how much of is this truth, and how much is it part of a vicious cycle of belief and self-fulfilling prophecy on the behalf of all humankind?

The fortunate truth about ‘human nature’ is that it is nothing in particular. We learn to reflect the dominant paradigms of society as we grow. We scarcely like to recognize this capacity to be ’socialized’. As much as we do not like to think of ourselves as products of a system, we also hesitate to question the societies that gave birth to many of our own ideas, ideals and assumptions. We could probably redefine what many of us call ‘human nature’ as ’social nature’. If there is a ‘human nature’ then it isn’t something we are born with. Conceiving of human nature as a fixed thing, especially as an inbuilt biological impetus to protect one’s life and prosperity, is narrow thinking. This myth, if it allowed to permanently strangulate us, will doom humanity to fulfil it; and will doom the world a permanent state of ‘crisis management’ or worse.

It doesn’t have to be so. Looking in small and unexpected places, one can find infinite exceptions to the dominant assumptions about people. And when the pressure to scrape a material survival is off, our divine nature is given a chance. Our divine nature is constantly struggling with our habitual, socialized selves to break forth in the world and re-create in the image of our inherent goodness. It is always with us: so all that is needed for it to blossom is a little patch of earth and a little rain in the form of truly free thinking.

There is great hope for humanity. Even these ‘dark times’ are far progressed compared with previous centuries. What makes the negative more visible is new technology, used almost exclusively for the purpose of private profit seeking – and otherwise taken full advantage of by forces that wish to create and dominate a social and economic food chain. Yet people have their civil and social rights, to varying but improved degrees, if not yet their economic rights. (Economic rights will only become reality when it is realized that human beings are not inherently selfish entities: when the myth of deserving and undeserving is exposed as a functionary of an oppressive and artificial society).

It is not necessary to identify various ideologies and how the contribute or not to world problems. All of the ideologies: liberalism, socialism, etc., are masks for more important meta-ideologies which exist independently. For example, much of politics today is seen as a tug of war between liberalism and socialism- deemed as opposites. But more importantly there are materialistic liberals or socialists, and spiritually minded liberals or socialists. It is the individuals deeper interpretation of the human being and life that dominates his or her behaviour, not his or her superfluous and transitory ideologies.

Peace starts with us

History, if one cares to look closely and with an open mind, shows that one of the greatest spiritual legacies of recent millennia, Christianity, was hijacked by the Roman Empire for political means. It seemed to Constantine in about 300AD that the best way to deal with this growing threat was to assimilate it. Hence the notable difference in the demeanour of Christians before and after that date.

However through time interest in spirituality survived outside from the religious scene as it always does. More people are turning away from dogma and looking for real spirituality, either within their religions or elsewhere. In recent times this spiritual interest is thriving despite the increased material threat for a growing portion of the world’s people. It could be that the social and environmental problems of the day are heightening our awareness of the need for a broader view. It could be that as the contradictions of the system become more and more obvious we realize more and more that peace starts with us. No one is excused from the responsibility to create a better political, social and environmental world.

We are taking great joy in reinventing ourselves as responsible citizens, world-citizens and self-interested and self-respected individuals. In time this will undoubtedly turn the tables and bring a favourable outcome for humanity, even if only after some calamity. After all, it has been said by more than one authority that ‘we reap what we sow’.

The movement Beverly is a part of is not spiritual in an explicit sense (In fact it is often opposed to the dominant and conservative religious groups in many countries, personified by the American ‘religious right’ and its propaganda outlet Fox News). But the ideas and assumptions that govern the movement make it far more spiritual than the exclusive dogmas and traditions that pit human against human; God against God. The movement has been called the New Enlightenment, or the Second Enlightenment which will replace the materialistic ‘rationality’ of the 18^th century Enlightenment with a new, humanistic rationality in which respect is held not only for people as social and political actors, but as beings who are in the world, but not of it. Great tribulation will have gone into the building of this New Enlightenment.

These changes have nothing to do with those who seek to document them and predict them. Theories and ideas might be useful in spreading untruths and abstractions, but they are absolutely useless when it comes to the rediscovery of what is already within us. But, if perchance you are interested in reading more on these topics, a website has been set up called Spirit & Politik: www.spiritandpolitik.info. I hope you find the site inspiring. You will find links to the ‘neohumanist’ and ‘futurist’ community around the world, as well as my own articles which expand on the topics raised in this foreword.

Individually, we constantly recreate ourselves… all we need is a little hope, imagination and diligence. Together, we constantly recreate our world, and it could be heaven or hell. We each have to dream harder about the person we want to be, and world we want to live in. Probably, we’ll all be forced to do so anyway. The future is bright!