And then there are three words that are the key to peace—peace within and peace in the world. Three words, what are they?

In the April 2003 issue of Science of Mind there appears an article entitled Making Peace Happen by Barbara Stahura. She compiled her article by interviewing various, in her words, Superstars of Peace, and getting their ‘best take’ on peace. The following is taken directly from the article including the quotes of the “Superstars:”

• Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg says peace is “deep harmony, a connection to the deepest places within us, deeper than the changing circumstances of our lives.”
• Duane Elgin, author and media activist, sees the search for peace and harmony as an ongoing process of “ever-broadening freedom and passionate creativity…peace is a creative learning process.”
• Matthew Fox also links peace to creativity. “Peace is not just the opposite of war,” he says, “ but the awakening of creativity and the steering of it… Being creative in conscious ways, including meditation, means we can rid ourselves of violence. Thich Nhat Hanh says we’re all born with the seeds of peace and violence, but we choose which ones to nurture.”
• Creating peace requires choice and action, agrees Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D—Ohio). Yet peace itself is also “an active presence or capacity, a condition of interconnectedness with all living things past, present, and future,” he explains. “It’s a condition of the heart, of love, tolerance, acceptance, and coexistence, as well as a quality of spirit reflected in a certain general temperament and in compassion.”

There you have it from the Superstars of Peace. And the irony, the only Superstar I see is Rep. Kucinich—a politician. The world is a strange place, isn’t it? The others are totally “off the mark” in Making Peace Happen. Yes, peace may be viewed as a “deep harmony,” but how do we make that happen? And what is a “creative learning process?”

Fox states that peace is “the awakening of creativity and the steering of it.” Well, I must say that the Special Op’s and the Fedayeen are also very creative. Oh that’s right, they just needed to replace their violence with peace through meditation! Meditation is just a tool not a solution and many times meditation as a beginning tool of spiritual evolution is lacking in it’s effectiveness due to the individuals “thundering mind” and the separation of their heart from their mind.

So have you discovered the one word yet? Rep. Kucinich comes closest to the three words for peace or making peace happen. I wrote the one word that is the root cause of conflict above. Do you know what it is?

Separation—so simple but so complex. Separation is the root cause of all conflict—inside us as well as outside us in the world. And the key to peace: Absence of Separation or, one word again, Oneness. The key to peace, to making peace happen, is Oneness, unity of being, unity of beings, unity of the earth. And unity equates equality—of sexes, cultures, resources and so forth.

The chant USA, USA, USA only separates. The key to making peace happen—One Earth/One Humanity, One Earth/One Humanity, One Earth/One Humanity. Chant this; get your neighbor to chant this and just possibly, the world may follow.

May 2003