Last Sunday I joined in the EKAM World Peace Festival. I’d learned about it via Stephen Karbaron, who spoke
about a vision for world peace at a meeting of the YES group in London. Paul and I meditated at home during the allotted
time because we couldn’t attend any of the groups in London or Brighton. We set a timer because we didn’t want to keep
checking the time and entered what was, for me, an illuminating experience.
I quietened my thoughts and focused on the word Peace,
whilst feeling as if I was sending out waves of peaceful energy from the heart
of my body. I then thought “What is peace?
What does it mean?”. We use the word
quite glibly most of the time and assume that everyone else understands what we
mean. As I was contemplating “World
Peace” the answers I got were: safety; and stability.
This introduced thoughts around why we don’t have World Peace.
In other words, why do we have
conflict? The interesting thing here was
the way these responses flew into my head.
Is it greed? Fear? Anger?
I thought about
refugees fleeing their homes due to war or famine. People must be feeling so desperate and
fearful when they make the decision to leave everything they know, to leap into
the unknown. Then, when they get to their eventual destination they can find
themselves in a different hostile environment.
People like to associate with like-minded people, so refugees
often group together to feel safe. However,
the community that takes them in can feel threatened because there is an influx
of “strangers”. Often it is a lack of
understanding or poor communication that leads to friction and conflict.
Interestingly, anyone who has travelled widely will tell you
that people are the same the world over.
They want a home where they can feel safe. They want an environment that is stable. They
want enough food, shelter and enough money to live a fulfilling life.
I then consciously brought my thoughts back to “World Peace”
and sending out peaceful energy.
Why did I choose to take part in this meditation? One of the things Stephen Karbaron mentioned
in his talk were the measurable results of previous Mass Meditations. Independent studies have shown reductions in
war deaths averaging better than 70%.
The same studies have also demonstrated improvements in a wide variety
of social indicators, such as reduced crime and accident rates.
If you would like more information on meditation and
mindfulness you could start by looking at https://betterlifestyle.litupp.com/course/meditation-and-mindfullness/
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