7th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PEACE AND NONVIOLENT ACTION
7th ICPNA, Jaipur, November 10 to 14, 2008
Plenary Session on Inter-religious Cooperation in association with CPWR, Chicago,
11.11.2008
Dear friends,
I come from Sri Lanka; a land once upon a time was full of peace, co-existence and nonviolence. Now in this land peace has been torn into pieces and the word nonviolence is an instrument that could perhaps invite violence.
I work with people on the ground and therefore know to speak only in their language and with their voices and tones and not with intellectual concept or academic inputs. The people of the ground know only what strikes onto their feet and the feeling of hurt. The pain that comes out of the hurt is their real voice.
The one thing we all in the world want is a peaceful living. This peaceful life is guaranteed only by living a life according to the commands made to us by our creator, the All Mighty, and following the lifestyles of his messengers. The life style commanded upon us by the creator and observed by his messengers is nothing but the nonviolent way of living. This nonviolent way of living is total commitment to love, affection, compassion, obedience, sharing, caring, togetherness, justice, rights and respect.
To start with, we need to obey. We need to obey the commandments of our creator, who asks us to show love & affection, be compassionate, care & share, to be together and respect, to uphold rights and be just. All these collectively go towards building up of a nonviolent living.
To show love and affection is of utmost importance. Loving should start primarily within our own self. It is only if we love our own self that we would be able to love the other. As such, when we begin loving our own self we end up by loving the other and eventually the whole world. Not only the human species but we will start loving all the creations of the creator - may it be the animals, the vegetation, the rivers, the mountains, the water, the fire, the soil and even our worst enemies.
Love cannot be exercised without affection. It is through affection we develop love. The more we love, the more we become affectionate and the more we become affectionate the more we start to love. Both love and affection go hand in hand and this develops compassion, through which the sense to share and care begins. Sharing and caring is very much needed to put nonviolence into practice. We should be prepared to share the happy moments as well as the sorrowful events. We should be prepared to share resources whatever we may have, to comfort those who are less fortunate. The creator makes available to a person more resources not for the mere purpose of this persons own enjoyment and the fulfillment of his or her own needs, but to be shared with others or those who are less fortunate. The moment we become selfish and do not want to share with others what the creator had given, there will be no hesitation by the creator to take it back. A heart to share will only come if we can develop the sense of care brought into us through love and affection.
Speech: "Addressing The World Crisis Through A Nonviolent Lifestyle Based On Love And Effection (The God's Concept)" www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=66895Today we see the world in crisis. We today speak of economic depression, lack of food etc., etc. Why all this? Is it a million dollar question? Both the problem and the answer are very simple but we find it difficult to put it into practice. The wealthy has remained wealthy without wanting to share what the creator had given. There is no sense of caring to share the resources given. The sense of sharing did not come because there was no love and affection. People were put into starvation while only those who possessed wealth enjoyed life. Men, women, children, the aged, the disabled are been killed without any compassion. Trees, mountains, rivers and other natural resources are destroyed. Animals are killed.
Now the time has come for the creator to transfer these resources to another sector, so that the lessons of sharing and caring through love and compassion could be learned by those who are enjoying live full on their own, what the creator gave to be shared by the whole universe.
If there is no caring and sharing the sense of togetherness will not develop. If all of us could feel and consider us to be “ONE”, then together we will not feel any differences. The creator has created us with differences for purpose of identity and not to be treated with differences. Acknowledging differences and being together with respect to each other and ensuring their rights and being just is the best form of treating the difference that would build togetherness and promote sharing and caring.
My Dear Friends,
YESTERDAY is dead. It is only the lessons from the dead we need for our actions of today.
TOMORROW is uncertain and therefore the action has to be TODAY. As such TODAY is a day we have in front of us that cannot be given to the dead nor carried forward for the unborn.
To address the world crisis of TODAY: let us set our foot this very day on the path of nonviolence as commanded upon us by the creator. Let us make it our lifestyle. Let us start practicing the nonviolent lifestyle based on love and affection. The nonviolent lifestyle based on compassion, the nonviolent lifestyle based on togetherness, caring and sharing, respect and justice. If every one of us gathered here today could do this, start right now, then we would be providing an alternative nonviolent lifestyle to address the current world issues of economic depression, shortage of food, killing of all living beings and bring an end to all forms of destruction.
Yes, we can start right now,
- by serving only what we can eat and not throw away the excess that we could otherwise share with those who are in want,
- by having the minimum of dresses that we would actually be wearing and not by stacking many in our wardrobe without using them,
- by having a house that would be sufficient for our decent living and not having big houses with many luxuries that are hardly used or even not necessary for our existence,
- by being kind to everyone and anyone irrespective of religion, language, ethnicity, colour, caste, economic and social status, community or nation and etc., respecting them, expressing our gratitude and going out of the way to help those who are in need and devoting many other things in a similar manner in our lives. We shall then start living a life of togetherness and share together for a nonviolent life leading towards a sustainable world peace. And no doubt this would make our lives peaceful, even after death.
So dear friends,
Let us be together as one. Let us collectively practice the nonviolent life of love, affection, compassion, sharing, caring, respect and justice and provide a solution to the world in crisis.
This is the what even OBAMA and OSAMA collectively have to do.
Thank you.