Do We Really Want Peace in the World?

I am a peacemaker and to be honest today I felt sad at my own plight trying to get peace into schools.  I am not talking a few attempts, over 18 years I have been on a journey to understand peace.

Today I felt to go to a park, interestingly I needed to be in the normality of nature.  It is there that I can reconnect to the animals.  I sat motionless for a long time contemplating my life.  Do I become homeless and trust life to take me to where I need to go?  Did I make a mistake following this path of peace and not having children?  Did I isolate myself too much to the point where no-one waits for me at home?  Do I talk too much?  Is the world going to listen anyway?  So many disappointments of many many efforts, sometimes I want to just finish.  Not only have I had to face endless dead ends, but people too have not been kind or helpful along the way.  Not all people, but some who felt no empathy for me at all.  I knew when I met them that they were part of my peace work but in moments I feel the pain of their unkindness.  However, I try to remember that I dreamed I was teaching peace and yes, this road is not about making money it is about awakening to the truth.  No it is not paved with accolades although the occasional generous comment is thrown like a coin into the pond of my own reflection.  Like the Trevi fountain, the original place of pure waters.  Purification is not a word commonly used in our fast paced, self oriented world, but it is a cleansing of not only the human body but the collective body of the toxins that not only pollute our bodies but our minds and the world itself.

I sit in this garden and I watch the Emu’s slowly move away.  I marvel at their cylindrical body’s shape, plume of long grey feathers, ancient feet moving them slowly to the next place to peck.  I see the magpies and my eyes fix on them as I drift into ‘what next?’.  My attempt to present my REAL HOPE program to the Department of Education was met with statements of ‘you have to got to the schools direct.’  I want to start a Sustainability & Peace Encouragement Award for Kids to Unite People (SPEAK UP).  It is far easier if a government department communicates with the schools, and I as a World Peace Sustainability Clown then visits.  To have to coordinate it with the schools individually is a long process and I am an outsider.  I am happy to do this by gold coin donation if no-one wants to pay.  Most cry poor but I live on $660 a fortnight and work tirelessly for society whilst being forced to comply with unemployment criteria.  My true desire would be to be funded so I can just get on with spreading the real message of peace, this of course is an inside job!

I reflect at the thousands of letters I sent to schools over many years and no response.  I reflect on the references I received from those schools that did run REAL HOPE and how successful it had been with the children.  I think of Patch Adams how he endorsed my work yet I couldn’t get him to respond to patronage of SPEAK UP, maybe too busy?  I think of all the Rotarians I contacted over many years and how very few came to work with me or guide me.  I think of my trip with a group of Rotarians to Nepal to resource teachers establishing western styles of education there.  I think of my part to teach Cultures of Peace to teachers in the Western Himalayas. I taught as a clown and showed creative interventions.  I don’t believe in disciplined education as it curtails the natural impulses of children and teaches conformity.  I understand for controlling large numbers of kids that is easier but at the same time their natural ways are curtailed as they try and fit in, not realising they are all diverse.  In truth they cannot be the same. I accept the world is what it is, but my way is to creatively help children to tap into their universal values, their feelings, their critical thinking to question and expand the creativity and humanity of people, to connect.  I think of how as a clown I had all the children (Dalits [untouchables] and Brahmin [high caste] etc. running after me happily, seeing themselves as one, curious and laughing.  I think of my trip to Adelaide, I was invited by Rotarians there.  They told me they took a risk deciding on myself to visit, I wondered at that given my background.  I was to bring people together through clowning and promote peace education.  The Afghan Hazara people (asiatic Afghans, often persecuted in their own country) were in the small town of Naracoorte.  I recall the Mayor being present at this meeting and how I changed my presentation from conflict resolution to simply clowning for connection.  The people had to connect first as they don’t know each other.  All fear of course comes from the unknown, so we have to create environments of peace so people can laugh and get to know each other, create friendly relations and exchange.  This dissolves false perceptions. I had some of the Afghans wear colourful wigs and they told jokes in their language.  It was so beautiful to see them laugh.  I saw women standing behind, but rather than judge this, I jumped over chairs went to the back and brought my laughing alligator and had the children experience it.  The men turned around to smile and watch.  It was fantastic.  It was successful to use humour to unify people.  I went to primary schools and the kids loved learning about Peace through a clowns eyes, very exciting and dynamic.  The teachers wrote positive testimonials.  I went to a College and ran a laughter session with teachers, they loved it.  All the while I educated them on real happiness and how no-one can give it to you, you have to find it in yourself.  Self love is the key.  We are the source of our happiness, yet how many people blame others for their unhappiness not realising their own thoughts are the saboteurs.  I help them to really get the laughing happening, break down the walls, drop the masks and just play.  They can be serious as they have so many obligations as teachers these days.  I show them the humour of life and give them permission to be human for a little while.  They loved the session.  The media came and interviewed me for the local paper.  Later on I was interviewed on ABC Regional radio and talked about peace as an expansive subject from local to global.

I travelled the world alone trying to figure out peace in myself and peace in the world, aware of my own humanness and vulnerability.  I practiced trusting the flow of life and allowing more than controlling, curious to see what happens.  I see control as a central issue as one person believes they have to force or change others for their world to be happy.  This of course is untrue.  No-one can create your happiness or security.  The change must come from within.  Where our world is in great confusion is in the belief that what is happening is outside of themselves.  Everyone would say ‘hang on a sec, of course the conflicts are outside me, I see them on t.v. or at work, home etc.’  I would say in your world which is your reality, the world is within you, your emotions are yours and you colour your world through projecting your beliefs onto it.  You can do a thought experiment with looking at photos of people some looking bad some beautiful, then make sure the stories are opposite.  100% will see the bad looking person as that and the beautiful person as nice.  You can never judge a book by its cover, yet often we do consciously or unconsciously.  Projection is often described by the analogy of a movie theatre.  The mind is like a projector. Your mind is projecting onto the screen of your life, believing the movie is real.  Just think of a video you get engrossed, feeling you are there, feeling all the emotions yet it is not true.  You are the one who decides what to watch on t.v. (what goes in), what to believe (truth?) and who to blame (negativity).  We sit in our lounge rooms and make decisions on the world, this comes through our own filter, our own culture, background, media, education and so on.  It is all filtered.  In truth we are not in those external situations, we have no idea of the reality affecting people and the ripples going outwards.  We have no idea of all the players and the truth.  We believe we have to control others to be safe.  This is what is called situational control.  It always creates an opposite response. For every action their is an equal and opposite reaction.  Sounds like Einstein hey.  We believe others must change for peace to exist within us.  That is not true.

A good example would be Abraham who speaks of being in a fully stocked kitchen.  You may say you don’t want let’s say chilli sauce in that kitchen.  You say get it out of the kitchen.  You are afraid that some of it gets into your food, so you want it gone.  The kitchen is the universe of possibilities and the way law of attraction works, as you say you don’t want it you attract it.  Vibrational universal law works on attraction from focus.  So what you focus on you attract whether it is wanted or not.  So the power is in focus and emotional response.  So as you focus more on what you don’t want the more it shows up in your reality.  This is how this vibrational control works.  So to make sure it doesn’t get into your food or pie, you don’t focus on it.  Thus it cannot get into your pie.  So you shift your attention to what you do want.  The law of attraction brings you what you focus on. We can see that in repeat abuse relationships, a person keeps attracting the same person who abuses, not realising something in them recognises this energy, it is familiar, if they are afraid they attract it.  The same could be said for those who attract what is good, they expect it.  This goes on and on.  It would be interesting to do market research on this question to see the incidence of it.  People attract both consciously and unconsciously so there could be problems in research as people may not be aware of their thoughts to know they are actually attracting it.

The real peace is actually the opposite to what the world has believed.  This moves us into physics, the quantum level, the idea that all of life is vibration.  That solid objects are made up of vibrating atoms.  Consciousness is vibrating, so that is what is meant by what you think you attract, as thought sends out vibrations.  We think things we can’t see aren’t real yet that sub atomic/vibrational level all is active all the time.  There are patterns, sacred geometry, energy patterns that are changing constantly given stimulus.  So when you think intensely with emotions, you are literally affecting the vibrational field around you, that is why you can feel people near you, or know someone will ring, you feel it.  This moves us into the subject of vibrational control. What this means is if I decide my intention, if I believe and get excited about what I want (as distinct from what I don’t want), then I can vibrational change the world around me, I can literally attract into my world what I am focusing on.  If money and wealth is my only focus that will happen (unless fear of not enough then that is attracted), if it is love, feeling love for self and attracting and knowing love is on its way, if it is a hobby imaging, dreaming, excited expectation of getting things to feed that hobby. Whatever it is, what you focus on you attract.  Hence like attracts like.  There have been many cases of mystics, teachers, guru’s defying the laws of gravity through mastering energy as shown in levitation, manifesting objects (Sai Baba) or miracles (Jesus).  So those who have tuned into their true nature have come to understand that they can master their own world, they can choose what information they put in, they can practice positive thoughts, inner peace and allowing the world to show up.  This is the law of attraction, it is a universal law.  The law of allowance simply allows life to come and go without resistance and expecting to receive what you intend.  Some call the art of manifestation – intention, desire, allowance and surrender.  The letting go is the most important as you get out of the way of natural vibrational cause and effect to bring to you what you desire.  It is like a magic wand.  You can visit the law of attraction online and check it out.   This is not going to be taught in mainstream curriculum at this moment, but in the future it will.  It won’t be mentioned in the news when discussing calamitous events, at this time as the media will describe the event and focus on the problem.  However, in the future it will change when these truths are realised.  At this time few consider that we create the events and times we are moving through via our thoughts and emotions.  If we did we would be mindfull.  None of us really question what is true, or indeed know the truth of any matter, we just believe the consensus and add our energy of approval/disapproval to it.

We are powerfully in a consciousness of separation that has been taught for 100’s if not thousands of years yet has been configured in life given the duality of life.  Duality is simply the emotional array ranging from fear to love.  We oscillate between emotions and they conjure positive/negative responses and this creates our world.  The indigenous of course had far more awareness of the interconnection of themselves (mind, body and spirit) to nature and in fact, saw no disconnection.  The earth is the mother, they are inseparable, they could not conceive of ownership, they were stewards.  I heard a story a few years ago from a educator working with indigenous people explaining to me a story of an elder transporting himself within minutes a distance of 80km.  I wondered at the secret business of many indigenous people who were one with all of life.  I think of the arrogance (I say this with love) of our own beliefs that we know how to control the world, that it is here for our use and we don’t like our beliefs questioned.  Yet if we truly lived in a democracy we would be very open to solutions, we would be listening deeply to all views and suspending judgement.  I call it keeping the juggling balls up in the air.  For I could be wrong.  When I taught peace I taught children that this was the most intelligent thing they could think, ‘ I could be wrong’.  Why – because we open to possibilities, we get the ego out of the way and start to consider possibilities that haven’t been thought of.   I remember my father saying to me once ‘give up on a losing game’.  He was suggesting that about my work in peace.  I think that now in the context of a world paradigm that is not working.  A losing game in the sense that the environment is being degraded, exploited and used up moving us all across tipping points.  As nature simply can’t regenerate and adjust to our constant demand for more.   Rather than as a world community coming together as Buckminster Fuller and Robert Theobald (futurist thinkers) would say, we are separate nation states all pulling in different directions.  In conflict resolution the picture of two donkeys trying to get the grass in different places, pulling in opposite directions, rather than coming together and eating in the same place together in cooperation.  Self interest driving decisions not best interest.  This is the reality today as we all are seeking to maximise our own pleasure at the expense of the earth.  We can’t seem to see that our very life is connected to the balance and harmony of nature.  We have no idea that our own inner disharmony creates the outer destruction.  We will not look within ourselves for the problem, we stay in denial.   I love the humorous joke – Denial is not a river in Egypt!.  Indeed it is not, it is when we refuse to own our own fears, our own discord, we just won’t go there.  I saw briefly a speaker talking about the male and female brain.  he spoke of the men compartmentalising everything or putting it in neat boxes.  They would look at one box at a time and their favourite box was the empty one where there was ‘nothing’.  They tried to get their regularly.  The woman were seen as active, left to right brain, constantly thinking, planning, interconnecting everything.  The female saw all things as connected, perhaps this is because they are typically wired and configured to look after children.  They have to watch them, teach them, feed them, think ahead and take responsibility.  This gets hard wired in.  If men are working all the time and away, then absent fathers are not really part of the family, their work becomes their home and they spend most of their time there.  Women of course these days are expected to do it all, raise kids, work and have relationships.  I don’t have kids and I don’t know how they manage it.  I don’t like to put men or women down for their biological and nurtured differences, but my feeling is that somehow they both have to learn from the other.  Women learning to be a bit bolder and saying no, not doing everything but strategising family life so it is balanced.  Men also learning to express emotions and not suppress them, as violence will eventually erupt if they do not learn that emotions are natural not feminine.   Their masculinity is not diminished when they cry, they have to be strong enough to cry, that is real courage in front of men trained to suppress and believe silence is strength.  We need far more communication that is meaningful, outside of football, to really tackle what is going on in the world.  Of course if I was Prime Minister conflict resolution would be mandatory at schools and teaching conflict transformation of negative thoughts so that people can be freed up to positively attract solutions.

Now returning to the law of attraction. If what I said is true, and it is not coming from me, it is coming from master teachers.  Let’s say this is real.  Then the media that constantly focuses on the bad guys, the worst of humanity and calls this the evening news is in effect adding to the collective belief in the insanity of violence that is permeating the world.  If they were trained to understand that what we communicate literally creates the world, then would they change their thinking, would they change their message, would they constructively seek stories that uplift, that inspire, that re-create a new paradigm of hope and expansion for not only the adults but for the children who are absorbing behind the scenes the erroneous beliefs and undoubtedly recreating the same world in their parents image.  Even if the law of attraction was wrong, do you think that positive news, solutions, what works would move the world in a new direction?  Do you think collectively we would look for the good and expect it.  If we are expecting it collectively do you think we would create it.  Instead of seeing a man walking down the street and thinking he is a pervert or a murder, we would see a man walking down the street without a story.  He is just walking, breathing the air, just like me. I’ve done this. I refuse to cross the road, I refuse to make him feel avoided.  I meet his eyes and smile.  Thta is revolutionary in a world that is so fearful of its shadow.  I mean that psychologically and metaphorically.  The shadow is the psychological negativity that is arising from within that projects onto the world.  The shadow is anything negative that is unquestioned.  It continues on as part of you without a second thought because it is unquestioned.  it frame the world you see and it makes it seem a scary place.  I am so glad I ignored the fears projected onto my desire to travel the world alone.  I remember just before I left I was walking at night, which was normal for me, in a park. My mum rang and she shared her fears of being attacked.  I jokingly said I would attack anyone.  I would just enjoy the air.  My sister said the same thing, fearful of the dark, fearful of the shadows, must be evil lurking there.  For me it was just a walk in the park.  I told my sister travelling the world is just a walk in the park.  And indeed it was.  I want to move out of the shadow and into the light of experience, research and understanding.  Wisdom comes from knowledge applied.

My work in peace education arose from a dream of teaching peace.  I saw that universal values were the way.  If we tapped into what was natural within all of us we would naturally come into harmony.  I saw universal values as not western, they were human, all human beings shared these values.  REAL HOPE is an acronym for:  Responsibility, Empathy, Awareness, Love, Honesty, Oneness, Peace, Enjoyment and there is one more letter S which is service.  I saw Service as the outcome of the rainbow of values coming together to produce the light (white light).  I saw the spectrum that had appeared divided unite in the one light.  I saw that one light as the real light of humanity.  I saw the clown as the archetype of humour, to laugh at oneself, to not be so serious.  The seriousness is what causes bullying, is what is angry, is what is demanding you do it the right way, punishes you and so on.  I didn’t resonate with this conditioned mind pattern of right and wrong which varies anyway across cultures, clearly not universal.  I felt that people were intrinsically good.  That is my feeling and experience as a clown.  I drop my stories and go out on the street with love in my heart and see the real world.  it is full of colour, light and beauty.  It is every face no matter the race, the gender, the occupation, the mood, whatever, all is beautiful in its own way.  They don’t have to laugh, they don’t have to be happy, but I just see with love and accept the great diversity, the great tapestry weaving around me, out of my control and just flowing as it should.  I have no time to think or judge or box people, I just flow around them and smile and some will dance with me for a while, others will move on their way but whatever happens colour is swirling and love is generating through the simply act of loving.  I know I have moved into the real world.  I know it is not rose coloured, I know it is the thoughts that change the true nature of our world with all the judgements, the education training us to see in certain ways, the morality that is proscribed, rather than bringing us together ensures we look disapprovingly on those who break the rules, rather than allowing life to be the rule.  What if – what turns up is what I want, what if what turns up is reality unfolding, what if it is natural, what if it is meant to be as it is. Does that mean I don’t give food to someone hungry? does that mean I don’t give money?  I do what I do but whatever that is, do it with love not resentment.  For negativity flows into the world as concentric rings formulating a future that moves from a possibility to a fact.  Why not send out love no matter what the world is doing? Why not just live the example?  Why not be the change you wish to see?  Gandhi thought himself a failure, but he was not despite what many these days think.  He tried to find a way to peace, he tried to demonstrate this truth through his own life, he chose to not hit back, he chose to state his truth whether you liked it or not, in a way that was peaceful and for the good of all.  I hear some voices these days condemning him and I know it is not the truth of who he was.  He came to me in a dream.  I felt myself beneath my feet in humility.  When he came to me the room was dark and I could see him with his stick and the rims of his round glasses.  I couldn’t see his eyes, like he was in spirit.  I felt him see me.  I felt acknowledged.  When I went to his ashram in Ahmedabad, India I felt I’d come home.  I felt this was the place for truth.  I had spoken my own truth and it seemed to fall on deaf ears, loving smiles but deaf ears.  I lay on a concrete slab and contemplated this brave man.  I went into the bookshop later and felt the tears rise up in me.  This was inspiration not sadness, had to explain to those who aren’t feeling it.  I had to calm myself and think of Mother Theresa (love her).  I went back in and bought two books and then cried and laughed.  The Satyagrahi, follower of Gandhi (although he would say don’t follow me).   She asked if I wanted a tour.  I said yes.  I thought of him moving through this ashram.  We unlocked his room and sat on either side of the spinning wheel.  I grabbed the stick and sat on the ground.  We both sat and talked about peace education.  I saw how sparse his room was, this was his inner world empty.  He allowed this emptiness to be filled with inspiration and guided by a force so many call God, source, spirit or life.  Whatever, the truth is he opened himself to be a servant of life.  This was servant leadership and it was a force more powerful as hate, control, negativity breaks down, love unites, fortifies and is a great strength as you join with the so called opponent.  In truth they are an aspect of you attracted on some level, there is something to learn.  If you feel discord they are teaching you peace, if you feel peace you are teaching them peace.  As they clearly are in discord.  So is it true opposites attract or we complete through this process of contrast (opposition).  If you choose to learn from those who oppose you, you cannot be destroyed.  If you believe life is eternal there is absolutely no death, so what is to fear.  You simply transition to the next experience.  I certainly believe we go on after speaking to people who had near death experience, I learned that indeed there is another world and we are all like actors in a play, playing our part.  So how can I hate an opponent if they are helping me to practice what I preach, I can’t.  I have to feel gratitude, for they are leading me home.  So in truth, there is no enemy, no victim unless I believe I have no power or choice.  We all do and we do choose.

So what to do in Syria?  See peace building.  Send a positive image to those who are in power to find a way out of the misery.  Send letters of hope, love and peace to all.  Ask how peace can happen?  Give shelter to those fleeing as they are me.  That is how a peacemaker thinks.  Help them resolve their differences, face their fears, see their common unity or community with others.  For so many see themselves as separate.  Help them to question their own negativity, to look at insecurity, to look at power games, self interest and turn it around.  I recommend people have a look at The Work of Byron Katie www.thework.com check out the videos as she takes people through their confusion to see in the end it is their own projection.   Self responsibility and self love is the key.  Often if not always, our conflict is coming from a deep place of needing love or refusing to really look at our part and that through our thoughts we attract and see what reflects us not the reality in truth. To see reality just drop the story.  The story is ours, we construct it to make ourselves right and the other wrong, we justify great violence in the name of a story, we then call it history.  In truth if we are destructive there is negativity and separation occuring within us and we project it outward.  if there is loving harmony, we have accepted ourselves, we are not in resistance and this joy translates into harmony with everyone.  That is why when a person wins lotto their first action is to buy something for those around them, to celebrate, to give as that is our true nature when happy.  As a clown I gave for free and saw how natural it was.  I saw others giving back to me immediately.  I saw the economic system driven by fear and taking and the greed that fed ego. I saw how unhealthy this approach was and not natural to who we are.  We are naturally sharing, gregarious and kind and that is the inner nature or inner sense that builds unity.

I look back on my life and after writing this blog, I feel tired but I see my journey was important for me.  I wanted to know the truth of life.  I don’t care if my views are resonating with society, current beliefs or the way that makes me belong. The only thing that matters is that it does no harm, they I feel a resonance with it and that it inspires me to keep on giving in this world.  So far it has kept me focused on never giving up.  To continue to practice peace in every moment knowing that sadness is a passing parade, that it is never real. Byron Katie calls it a tantrum with God, I smile.  I’ve had many of those kicking my feet and stomping around demanding the world to show up as I want.  Life is a wonderful teacher it shows you the way home if you stop fighting, when you stop resisting, when you stop dictating, when you simply smile and let go of the reins or drop out of the plane and free fall, without the chute.  That is trust.  Can we learn to say ‘there maybe something I do not know, the knowing of which changes everything’.  Can I be wise enough to not know anything and just let something much wiser than I, take over.  Can I just accept the world as it is and love everyone – the soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.  Can I look at them and see myself.  Can I truly connect to unconditional love and know that non-resistance is not condoning the world, it is simply stopping controlling it.  Love is the great healer, it is the great love that unifies all life.  Can I love without condition and allow each soul to walk its path.

The world is our reflection. What is your world on reflection.  What you see is not the world, it is you!

What world do you want to see?  Go to work and bring that world too you – see it, feel it, love it, know it and then let it go.  Whallah welcome to happiness.