Changing the World from the Inside Out

1

Callie Withers

FINAL EDGE PAPER

11/28/03

CHANGING THE WORLD FROM THE INSIDE OUT:

A Look at Creating World Peace From Within, a Placeless Place Where God and Inner Peace Naturally Dwell

The first World Conference on Religion and World Peace was held at Kyoto International Conference Hall, October 16-21, 1970 (Niwano 106). Thirty-nine countries sent over three hundred delegates and among the religions represented were Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Shinto, Confucianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Bahaism (ibid).

Despite our continual efforts in attempting to create universal peace, everyday we still bear witness to social, religious, and world intolerance and our world is filled with uncertainty about terrorism and war. Truthfully, we have yet to actually approach this issue of world peace from a different angle: from the inside out, from the place that dwells deep within each of us. Miles we have run to attain answers in religions, countries we have fled to seek peace, and world meetings we have organized to discuss the issue of universal tolerance amidst our differences, but we have yet to actually look deep within ourselves for peace and harmony by way of seeking God, our True Self. It is in this placeless place deep inside that we find answers that speak a universal language; we merge with that of the transcendent and feel a true peace with ourselves and all beings, one of the great manifestations of God. And ultimately, this inner peace provides a vital foundation for greater world peace.

Using various ideas, quotes, and opinions from psychologists, and poets and spiritual mystics from various religions, I will attempt to shed light on the great importance of our own inner peace being essential for world peace to exist. From there, I will discuss the pathway to inner peace in explaining our collective need to spiritually alter our perceptions of the world: we must first understand God as a universal truth that lies at the heart of all religions, remaining beyond the divisions they incur. Then by discussing the transcendent nature of God and His various manifestations -- our true self, our deep connection with all beings, and our experience of Him and the present moment --, I will reveal how ultimately all these aspects of God are mere channels for us to commune with an inner peace as we commune with God Himself in the process. It is this paradigm of understanding that in seeking God within and around in Her universally transcendent nature, we discover an inner peace which spreads like wildflowers, showering a greater peace into this world.

Inner Peace As World Peace

The Dalai Lama, a great spiritual leader in our world today, explains that world peace begins with us:

“In the question of real, lasting world peace, the importance of individual responsibility is quite clear; an atmosphere of peace must first be created within ourselves, then gradually expanded to include our families, our communities, and ultimately the whole planet...If you have inner peace, you have world peace.”

(qtd. in Kraft 2)

Moreover, Weil explains in The Art of Living in Peace that in order for us to live in

peace, we must develop it on three levels -- the inner level first so that we are living in peace with ourselves, then the social level so that we are living in peace with others, and then finally the environmental level so that we are living in peace with nature and the world (Weil 40).

It is natural that our inner state of being will manifest itself in the external world we live in, so it is essential that we each, as individuals, seek an internal peace. As Weil explains in The Art of Living in Peace, the contents of the preamble to UNESCO’s

Constitution state that “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that peace must be constructed” (Weil 29). The seeds of violence and war are born in our inner state of being with our thoughts and emotions, so in order for us to live in peace as a world, we must first develop it on the inside on the individual level. With a peace in our hearts, we bring a peace to our bodies and minds, contagiously affecting the hearts, bodies, and minds of others and of other entities, countries, and places. Obviously, peace is a cultural, judicial, political, social, and socio-economic phenomenon, but these are secondary to the importance of our inner state of stillness.

In addition, Thich Nath Hanh, a great Buddhist Master of our time, describes the powerful effect being at peace has in changing the state of the world rather than using words, arguments, and tireless meetings to attack the issue of world peace:

“There are so many peace organizations which do not have the spirit of peace themselves, and they even find it difficult working with other peace organizations. I think that if peace-workers are really peaceful and happy, they will radiate peace themselves. To educate people for peace we have two alternatives: to use words, or to be peaceful ourselves and to speak with our lives and our bodies. I think the second way is more effective.”

(qtd. in Eppsteiner 37)

He reveals the beauty in being at peace rather than just speaking words of peace. It’s almost as if words of peace have empty meanings if they don’t arrive into conversation with a peace in themselves; words that come from a peaceful person ring so much louder and this ring can truly change people.

As Dr. Mark Abramson, the teacher of a Meditation Class here at Stanford, explains, “with inner peace, the world can truly be transformed” (interview). When we are in a place of inner love and light, peace naturally flows out of us on a human relationship level. Below, he provides an small-scale example from our everyday lives of how being at peace can change the world:

“I truly feel that if everyone would instantaneously begin to love themselves, be more at peace, be kind and understanding of themselves, the world would change on a dime. The world would be transformed. How could people be unkind to one another when they themselves are in the state of peace, love, and kindness? Imagine that you’re driving in your car and in a state of mind that is internally joyful and peaceful. Your car is in heavy traffic and you are stopped in a long line of cars on a city street. Someone sitting in his car wants to come into the traffic line you are in from the driveway at the exit of a building complex. You see the person waiting at the driveway as you realize they are looking for an opportunity to get into the line of traffic. Your natural response in a peaceful, loving state of mind is to openly let this driver in your line. You make space for them to enter the line and in doing so, you witness a smile of gratitude as he waves thanks and you acknowledge with a returning smile and wave of your own. And it all feels good. Now in that same situation, if you are in an angry and unpeaceful state, you don’t let the driver in your line and pretend to not even see the driver. You stay as close to the car in front of you as it begins to move forward so that there is no possibility for any care to merge into the traffic line. And this doesn’t feel good.”

(interview)

Although this situation seems minuscule when compared to peace on a worldly level, it actually does relate to the issue of world peace; the traffic we experience in our daily lives directly parallels the “traffic” we experience in our interactions between countries. So if we are in a state of peace, we will treat our neighbors with peace, and this will transcend to a peace in our state, country, and ultimately, our world.

How Can One Attain This Peace?

First and foremost, we need a new paradigm, a collective conscious shift in our thinking to open up to all people and the universe. As human beings in our world, we live according to certain values that depend on our perceptions of the world, and it is very common that our paradigms in understanding the world are extremely narrow-minded. For example, in religions, we assume that our own God is the right God while gods from other religions are wrong; in addition, we view ourselves as separate from the world and from other individuals; and lastly, we live in the mind of our future and past, a place where God does not reveal Himself. Because of our common “tunnel vision” syndrome in perceiving the world, many of us prevent ourselves from creating an inner peace and ultimately, this manifests itself in the world.

I will demonstrate in various sections that in seeking peace, it is essential we open to understand God as an ineffable being beyond language, words, and religions and to also experience the great manifestations of God: 1) God dwells deep within us as our

True Self, 2) God exists in our silent and deep interconnectedness with all beings, and 3)

God lives in our experience of Her and the sacred present moment. It is when we are in this place of God within us that peace (as well as many other manifestations of God such as love, light, harmony) naturally flows out from inside. These are all beautifully positive emotions and energies that can affect the world, opposite to those of anxiety, fear, hatred, anger, and disgust, which are all emotions that breed non-peace.

God As Formless And Transcendent: Dissolving Our Illusions of “My God Is The Right God”

Firstly, on a very broad level, what is God? In the West, especially in religions such as Christianity, God is seen as a “Father in heaven,” through images, forms, and icons like those of Jesus for example. These images and forms of God are seen as the ultimate source. Yet in the East, God is known as formless and transcendent, an essence that permeates everywhere within and without, which is often experienced through some mystical union with the divine. In this sense, Gods are seen as manifestations of a single indescribable source -- something that is impersonal but which can be personified through various images or forms.

One of the most famous poets and mystics of the East known as Kabir beautifully reveals in his numerous mystical poems the essence of worshipping a formless God that transcends language, thought, and even the formlessness of God. Below, he accentuates the spirit of God that permeates all that is around us, but all that is within us as well:

The truth is you turned away yourself,

and decided to go into the dark alone.

Now you are tangled up in others, and have forgotten what you once knew,

and that is why everything you do has some weird failure in it.

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.

My shoulder is against yours.

You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms,

nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:

not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck,

nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me instantly --

you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell, what is God?

He is the breath inside the breath.

-Kabir

(Krishnan)

The final line of this poem gives rise to the idea of God existing as an essence that dwells deep within us and around us and that He cannot be labeled or exist in form because

He is inconceivable and impalpable in its formlessness. As Jung, a spiritual psychologist who believes strongly that our purpose in life is to become our True Self, explains, “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” (qtd. in Frager et al. 76).

Truthfully, God is a class of all “its” own and therefore no quality or attribute can properly be spoken of God at the highest, ontological level. We can only speak of our experience of God at the observed, experienced, and phenomenological level and all our conflicting claims about God are really but variegated human understandings of one’s own mystical subjective experience. And yet all of these differing experiences share a single universal source; it is when we remove the walls of religions that all the scattered lights of each are one and the same, that of God.

Dr. Hajime Nakamura, professor emeritus of Tokyo University, comments on the absurdity in our attempting to define God through various ideologies:

“Ideology is merely a method of conveying something ultimate. Since this ultimate is something like ‘void,’ it cannot be precisely expressed in words. Therefore, in order to make men understand it as much as possible, philosophy and ideology were born. If people would realize this, they would no longer kill each other defending the absoluteness of their way of thinking.”

(Niwano 113)

It is in our defining God that we confine “it” to exist only within the parameters of that definition. And by the very all-encompassing nature of God, She is without any limit, so this cannot be possible. It is under the running sea of our theories and scientific explanations that the aboriginal abyss of the Ineffable dwells. And as Niwano states when comparing Buddhism to most religions: “Truthfully, is it not possible that the God who created the cosmos, the God most people believe in, and the Universal Life Force of Buddhism are all but different manifestations of the same Reality?” (Niwano 77). He elaborates further in explaining our failure to see the common link behind all religions, a great hindrance to world peace:

“The historic failure of religions to work together for peace, stems from the fact religious people attach importance only to formal differences of faith, without trying to see the common aspects that lie behind their respective religions. I believe that such narrowness would disappear if they endeavored to think about the essential meaning of all religions; this would help open their minds...”

(Niwano 74)

In addition, Jung beautifully articulates the tragedy theologians face when attempting to prove the existence of God:

“With a truly tragic delusion...theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light, but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realize that is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing. For it is obvious that far too many people are incapable of establishing connection between the sacred figures and their own psyche...”

(qtd. in Moacanin 65)

Ultimately, God is an essence beyond everything, beyond form and formlessness.

As Joseph Campbell, a psychologist interested in the myths and meaning of life, illustrates in a PBS interview with Bill Moyers, all elements of life mask the eternity of God (Campbell Interview). Even religion masks the transcendent, as it is just a veil for the face of the face-less and all images and icons of religions are but mere manifestations of the Image-less (Campbell Interview). We lose sight of the essential experience of the deep mystery of God in our lives that surpasses any mental conception. Campbell states:

“God is a thought, God is an idea, but its reference is to something that transcends all thinking. He’s beyond being, beyond the category of being and non-being. Is He or is He not? Neither is nor is not...Every God, every mythology, every religion is true in this sense. It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery...He who thinks he knows doesn’t know. He who knows that he doesn’t know knows.”

(Campbell Interview)

The search for reason ends at the shore of the known; on the immense expanse beyond it only the sense of the transcendent can glide. And this sense of the transcendent is out of place where we measure, where we weigh. It is in this awareness of the ineffable essence of God that we part company with words. Its essence, the tangent to the curve of human experience, lies beyond the limits of language. “The worlds of things we perceive is but a veil. Its flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable. Its silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away” (Heschel 16).

Truly, it is in the high mountains, the rivers, lakes, trees, flowers, and animals that the essence of God is exemplified; plants are hidden, secret thoughts of God, and trees are particularly mysterious in their direct embodiment of the incomprehensible meaning of life. God is nameless and unfathomable, an omnipresence of the mystery, a rhythmic heartbeat, an endless labyrinth, the whispering rain, an expansiveness felt inside a presence, music from a shoreless sea whose waves roar out of infinity, an invisible wind that sweeps us through the world, a beingless being deep within us, love and peace, eternal light, and an ultimate mystery that is beyond our conceptual thinking. He is existence, She is Life, He is the Ground of all that is, She is the world, He is the earth,

She is eternal and ever-present, He is the unmoved mover that moves all things, She is a child, He is the devil, She is the force in our souls.