People are often thinking about the news in the world. There is war here and conflict there. Should a government intervene or not. Should there be peacekeepers in the world with guns. What is the truth here? All people are deserving of peace and love, none should be without it. However, this does not mean that it will be so. People must work together to hold peace in their hands. They must resist war; they must stop violence.
The Dalai Lama is a good example. For himself, he has resisted war, he has remained peaceful, but his country is in the hands of violent people. Still, he does not take up the ways of war because of this. He is resisting in a peaceful way. This is ultimately more powerful for everyone than being violent. For he is teaching peace while under the ultimate stress and pain. And he is teaching the world. Ghandhi, too, did this and he is known for his peacefulness. He changed a nation and did it without violence. It can be done.
Violence is faster, more visible yet has a shorter effect than peace. Inner peace is what most people are searching for their whole lives. Once found, it can last forever. A violent act is done, has impact and then changes the world or the person. But its effect can be gotten over, it can be used to change the person for good. A violent act does not necessarily have an evil impact, although on the surface it can.
It can also reach deep into the soul of the person and cause change on a soul level. This change then is good, even though the violence is not. However, peace can only have a peaceful impact. There is no surface impact and a different soul level impact. There is only the peacefulness of the true right God. And this is what violence can be about.
Violence can be about the way God is changing the world. He is using the violence of the world to combat sleepy, unaware lives who have been using all their surface senses and none of their soul’s awareness. He is waking everyone up to see that we all need to be awake now. There is no time for sleeping. Love is part of his arsenal, which is used to create motivation and desire in some, to move others to awareness and to allow the spirit to lift into ecstasy through movement.
There are many ways to become awake. Violence is only one of them. Another way is to merge into the self of knowing. This is done by people who become aware, who begin to pay attention, who create their lives around spirit. This way is not easy, it is the way the monks use to become holy. It is now used to become holy in everyday life.
It is an old way to become aware, using the everyday life to make oneself useful to God, to pray, to be strong and aware of every current of energy running through oneself and the world. It is not easy, but it is available to many. You, yourself may have tried it.
Another way to become aware is through the senses. To experience the clear true feelings of another, compassion, to feel the ease of pain after a conflict, sorrow, to feel the mercy of one who by all rights could be angry, these feelings are the feelings that need to be awoken and can be by prayer and meditation.
This is a way that we recommend. It is the way also of the monks and nuns. Is it your way? Will it be your way? We hope that you will seriously consider these ways and pick at least one of them for your own. It is time for the world’s consciousness to rise and it must begin with you. And with everyone else. It only takes one person to begin, to start a war or begin peace. Will it be you?