Integritus Prime

It’s International Peace Day, and I’ve been reflecting on my “Elevating Consciousness through Meditation for Global Harmony” conference in Bangalore last month, and two recent family funerals last week. What do they have in common?

Well, for starters, they both taught me a ton about where to find world peace, or global harmony. One of the conference sessions was very clear on this point. The panel included a speaker who was a monk.

The two family funerals created opportunities for harmony but many people didn’t step up to the plate. Let’s look at what is needed and draw examples from these two events.

1. World Peace begins inside you. The conference speaker’s perspective, which I agree with, was that if we do not have peace within, we cannot create it in the outer world. This is because we do not have control over external circumstances or people. We can only control our inner world. He spoke about meditation as a pathway to inner peace, and certainly heartfulness, which I’ve written about extensively, is one such meditation technique. An open heart gives love, which is a pathway to peace. See #3.
2. Avoid judgment, which creates divisiveness. When we judge others, we erode peace and create a divisive, “us and them” mentality. One example from the funerals was a religious divide I observed. One funeral was handled in the Christian style with a pastor, and the other was conducted using Hindu rituals performed by a pundit. Each religious group seemed to distrust the others’ rituals and refrained from participating. If they respected each other and participated with equal reverence in each others’ rituals, a much more peaceful atmosphere could have been created.
3. Love is the only real way to peace. When we love fully, we release judgments, making room for the common ground of basic humanity. Mother Theresa has said, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” So, world peace begins with loving the self, and those around us. This doesn’t mean we become victims; we can still set strong boundaries if people are abusive toward us. But, with love, we can compassionately step away from conflict, seeking to understand and let go of the trauma or other cause of the conflict and wish the other party well. Of course, it is much harder to love someone who repeatedly harms us, but it is possible.

As we pause to observe International Peace Day, a day after the global Climate Strike, it’s important to consider the many ways we wage war in our daily lives. We are destroying climate stability, ecosystems, biodiversity, and many other foundations of life on Earth. We are also destroying our bodies and minds with unhealthy foods, alcohol, drugs, overthinking, and overwork. It’s time to go inside and find our inner equilibrium, then extend that outward to the rest of life. Whatever your method: meditation, yoga, dance, camping, art, poetry, cooking…do what brings you peace and opens your heart to love.

World peace begins inside us, and emanates outward. Photo credit: Joshua Earle.