Global Crisis
All over the globe on a daily basis, a portion of humanity faces hostility, chaos, life-threatening situations, poverty, and other adversity. They are not the only enemies of peace. Other considerations are racial intolerance, cultural differences, religion, social standing, politics, lack of education and understanding.
In certain circumstances some humans become like robots: unthinking beings following the mob or deluded leaders. They bury their real feelings, and allow themselves to be exploited, often, at the expense of their fellow human beings.
Enemies of Peace
Governments around the world greatly hinder peace efforts. Some make military decisions based on materialistic considerations rather than what is good for the people. If the immense expense used for the promotion of war was redirected towards providing alms to poorer countries, a balance of peace in some places could be quickly restored. One begs to ask the question what would happen if governments focussed on preventing war, promoted lower worldwide military spending and controlled the manufacture and sale of weapons, especially those capable of mass destruction.
Discord and chaos offer fertile opportunities for understanding and learning underlying spiritual purposes, but rarely do those intimately connected understand or realize what is actually happening, never mind cast their consciousness towards creating balance and accord. Never do they seek positive outcomes, look for harmonious endings, win-win situations, or foster a spirit of co-operation. Not ever do they embrace oneness as a means to end separation.
Harmony
Harmony means having peaceful connections between people and/or situations. Where there is conflict or differences, the trick to converting them is to discover ways of working with them rather than have them work against each other.
Cultivating Harmony
Australia is one country that values the diversity of a multicultural society and in the main, peace and harmony reign. There is of course occasional disruption, but nothing like what happens elsewhere. Australia now speaks more than 200 languages with migrants contributing new ideas and technology, also fostering local knowledge of their culture, language, food and lifestyle. Australia is Religiously diverse, enjoying a freedom that allows the community to celebrate their different festivals side by side.
This is possible and somewhat due to the Australian Government's introduction in 1998 of the "Living in Harmony" initiative, which emphasizes common values and respect, rather than differences. It also provides grants to develop projects at a local level. These projects range across sporting, law enforcement, Indigenous, educational, arts and media arenas.
Personal Initiatives
What we can do individually to help promote peace is to embrace oneness, end separation, and foster a spirit of co-operation by blending and harmonizing as opposed to resisting, confronting, attacking and overcoming. If we encourage the habit of thinking of others more than self, we let go of ego and its requirements. When we can step aside from personal self-centredness and self-consideration it leads us to cultivate kindness, wisdom and compassion. A common problem is that we often allow our mind to rule our behaviour rather than giving permission for our hearts to rule our heads.
Confucius says, "To put the world right, we must first put the nation in order. To put the nation in order we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our heart right".
Lead by Example
If all who can were to lead by example, maybe we can infiltrate into the realms of the "powers that be" who currently make the decisions that affect humanity as a whole, so that we can finally become a concordant family, free from all dissent and ill feeling. Only then can we really live in peace with our fellow human beings, because harmony can only exist where love, truth, honor, beauty, freedom and happiness reside.
Love is greater than peace, for peace is founded on love. Love is the objective point of peace, and peace is an outcome of love. Until love is attained, peace cannot be...
