Aloha From Hawaii, Buddhist Greeting, Jain Applause

On behalf of the Center for Global Nonkilling, it is a privilege to send greetings and best wishes to all participants for success in the 8TH  ICPNA.

You will recognize that I have greeted you with three cultural expressions of nonviolent respect for life. The Hawaiian greeting ALOHA means Love and sharing, HA is the Breath of Life among all. ALO-HA. The Joined palms greeting familiar to Buddhism and other faiths signifies recognition of the nonviolent nature within each person. The raised hands are a Jain expression of nonviolent celebration of life as an alternative to conventional handclapping that does violence to life in the air. Such simple words and gestures can be learned and shared across cultures toward raising universal consciousness of respect for life. I trust you will think of others and Share them during this conference.

Although not expected to do, I would like to take this opportunity to express a debt of gratitude to the Terapanth Jains for nonviolent encouragement and instruction over nearly 40 years since 1974 when—as a former Korean War veteran become academic political scientist—I surprisingly awakened to three words “NO MORE KILLING!”. Thus began my nonkilling re-education and global search for cultures and faiths that offer evidence that a nonkilling world is possible. Thanks to DR. S. L. Gandhi, now International President of the Anuvrat Global Organization, I was introduced to Acharya Tulsi and The Anuvrat (Small Vow) Movement; then to Yuvacharya Mahapragya who surprised me on first meeting by saying: “We’ll never get to nonviolence by religion alone.” He encouraged discovery of applied science bases for nonviolence, including neuroscience; to Swami Dharmananda in Preksha meditation camp who taught how to discover and express nonviolence already existing within each person; to the artists, village workers, and children of the Children’s Peace Palace at Lake Rajsamand who demonstrated that learning and practicing nonviolence can be beautiful and joyful.

In the presence of Acharya Tulsi and Yuvacharya Mahapragya in 1993 in Delhi, I took two small vows. First, to write and publish a book on Nonkilling Global Political Science. Second, to organize a nonprofit Center for Global Nonkilling to encourage worldwide advancement of nonkilling research, education, and action. The book was published in 2002 and made freely available online. It is now in 25 translations in languages accessible to over 3 billion speakers, from Arabic to Urdu. The Center for Global Nonkilling was founded in 2008. It followed the First Global Nonkilling Leadership Forum convened in Honolulu in 2007 that had opened with a Blessing by Acharya Mahapragya. The Forum emerged from responses to the 2002 book. It brought together 40 spiritual leaders, translators, educators, political leaders, activists, and institution-builders from 20 countries.

The Mission of the Center for Global Nonkilling is “To promote change toward the measurable goal of a killing-free world by means open to infinite creativity in reverence for life”. The Center for Global Nonkilling now engages over 700 Scholars in 300 Universities in 73 Countries in 19 Nonkilling Research Committees. They are beginning to publish books on discoveries from Nonkilling History, through Nonkilling Societies, Nonkilling Psychology, Engineering Nonkilling, Nonkilling Media, and Nonkilling Security and the State to Nonkilling Futures.

There are Center for Global Nonkilling affiliates in the Balkans, Brazil, DR Congo, Germany, Haiti, India, Nigeria, and the Philippines. Villagers in Kazimia on the banks of Lake Tanganyika in the DR Congo have founded a pioneering nursery-primary Nonkilling School for over 200 children, aged 3-5 and 6-12, with a “Nonkilling Society Curriculum” based on French and Kiswahili translations of Nonkilling Global Political Science.

To support the work of participants in the 8th ICPNA now and in future - the nonkilling knowledge resources of the Center for Global Nonkilling are freely available online at www.nonkilling.org. I hope that participants in this Conference will explore and add to them.