Prizing Peace

In my view, the emanation of peace by any one person is a boon to us all. When that person is the leader of the most powerful and sometimes the most dangerous nation in the world, that boon is magnified exponentially.

I happen to like President Obama and I support most of his policies, even if I veer toward a more progressive agenda than he seems beholden to. But liking the man, or even agreeing with his policies, isn't the issue here. There are a number of politicians I agree with, but at this moment I can't think of another one that emanates peace.

That the emanation of peace is recognized and saluted by one of the most prestigious organizations in the world is a cause for celebration. That it occurs before specific and quantifiable actions occur, is specific and hearty encouragement for such actions to occur.

That peace is even prized is an invitation to us all to investigate what we prize in our leaders and ourselves. We know as humans, and as humans subject to our government as well as to the actions of all other governments in our small world, that we want to prize peace. But do we value peace?

What do we value? We value the power to rule ourselves as we see fit. As a result we prize democracy, and we are extremely privileged to live in one. We value the need and the willingness to defend our democracy. We value the freedom to speak and think and worship as we please. We value being able to love freely. We value the sacrifices earlier generations made that have brought us to this point of even being able to consider this question.

This point is the point. With all the prior and present sacrifices and privileges, here we are. Now what do we value? Peace? That is the possibility.

Were the just and not-so-just-wars from our past fought just so we could demonize one another? Were the battles of the Revolutionary and Civil wars fought so that we could just keep on flexing our muscles and jaws, or so that we could live in peace together?

We know what sacrifices and scars war demands, but what does peace demand? Since President Barack Obama is the prizewinner, we can look to him to receive what he emanates. If you are willing to look at him, rather than at any particular policy he stands for, you will see that in fact he does emanate peace.

His strength isn't required for this emanation. His winning an argument or debate isn't required for this emanation. Even his happiness isn't required for this emanation.

What is required is his deep commitment to the value of peace. He is willing to be an emissary of peace even when vile hatred is being hurled at him. Most importantly, he is required to keep his mind and his heart open to emanate peace.

He has been awarded so that we can all benefit. So that we ourselves as well as our children can see what we still value even when we profoundly disagree. So that we can recognize the capacity within ourselves as individuals and as a planetary citizens to keep our minds and hearts open.

We can receive this award in our willingness to find the source of peace inside ourselves. We can extend this award by offering it all.

My beloved teacher Papaji always ended his meetings with the Sanskrit phrase, Om Shanti: peace for all.

All comments are read and appreciated.

Gangaji is offering a Couples Retreat with her husband Eli at Esalen Institue Oct 18-23. She will have a public meeting Nov 5 and weekend retreat Nov 7-8 in the SF Bay Area. She will be in Sydney, Melbourne, and Byron Bay, Australia during November and December. Additionally she is having upcoming Gangaji Foundation teleconferencing events. Read more about Gangaji's events and catalog of books and videos online.

 

 

Comments

[Live In Freedom Today]

Thank you, my beloved Gangaji, for such a clear voice. President Obama does indeed emanate Peace - he truly is Peace and fully deserving of the Prize he has received. Let us all support him in bringing peace to a world that so needs it.

In love and peace,
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti,
www.liveinfreedomtoday.com

[PaulGopal]

Let There be Peace
Among All Beings of the Universe.
Let There be Peace.
Let There be Peace.
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

[kgay]

Om Shanti! Yes to peace. Yes to open heart. Yes to Obama and to Gangaji for serving peace. Thank-you!

[rmforall]

I ask for help now.

Help upwells spontaneously within as peaceful thought and compassionate appreciation, spontaneous playfulness, appropriate assessment, open-minded defenselessness, joyful forgiveness, simple and direct articulation, helpful positive action -- necessarily channeled by the rapidly relaxing resistances of the apparent consensus realities -- like a river, always flowing downhill toward and, indeed, always already within the single sea, through many levels of shifting landscapes, supporting the evolution of all beings -- for single reality as God is fact, not belief -- what expresses as endlessly evolving, increasingly benign and collaborative communication, cooperation, communion, and union, always single reality, delights in consummate individuation -- out of one, many -- out of many, one, one, one.......­. forever...­....

I salute thee, beloved brother Barack Obama.

I salute thee, beloved sister, Gangaji.

Rich Murray, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

[Ed and Deb Shapiro - Huffpost Blogger]

Gangaji ROCKS!

Peace is my name, Peace is the essence of all

Thank you for being in our new book published Nov 3rd

BE THE CHANGE
How Meditation Can Transform You and the World

with personal forewords by
HH the Dalai Lama & Robert Thurman

contributors include YOU, Marianne Williamson, Ram Dass, Jane Fonda, Dean Ornish, Jean Houston, Jack Kornfield, Byron Katie, HH the Karmapa, Joan Halifax, Krishna Das, Sylvia Boorstein, Michael Beckwith, Seane Corn and others.

I love you,

Ed

[RubySlipperz]

I agree. It is the most gracious and loving face. There is joy that beams from him. It is a face that inspires my love.

While he was running for the nomination, I read his memoir "Dreams from My Father" where he shared himself with so much depth and sensitivity. This man is running for President of the United States, this loving, dedicated true human being. I was thrilled. Then I read "The Audacity of Hope." Wow. What a writer, what a public servant. I support him because I support who he is. I know he can and will make mistakes. That's not the point. His intentions are of the highest order. I know this.

I don't know exactly what the work is that has earned him this prize. intuit that they know something actually that I know intuitively. That we are at a precipice; President Obama works hard to resolve conflicts through diplomacy, the tool of peace: communicat­ion/respec­t. That the Nobel Prize committee put themselves out on this limb tells me that his work is more crucial than I know. I am very grateful for their acknowledgement and support. If America doesn't understand, much of the world does. Americans must see that the world must trust American leadership. We must come out of this childlike belief in being the only sun in the sky.

Peace on earth. Let it be so.

[Badger24]

Your question is vital. "What do we value?" We value what we do -- the walk we walk more than the talk we talk. From my perch on the Canadian side of the 49th Parallel I can only express profound disappointment at the partisanship still torturing the body politic nearly a year after Mr. Obama's election. Perhaps the first step along the path to peace is to proclaim this belief : "Oppose hate". Few of Mr. Obama's more visceral and virulent detractors could sport that bumper sticker without being a purebred hypocrite. People of peace "oppose hate" at every turn. Thank you for your kind words. I only wish I could hear you speak them with that wonderful mellifluous voice of yours that I have heard so often. Bless be !

[Michael Byers]

The one overriiding reason I voted for Barack Obama was the face of peace he would present to the world. I support his open heart with my own open heart, both returning peace and love to the world. Om shanti, shanti, shanti.
Michael

[DrLaurieMoore]

Each global situation comes and goes. Emanating peace is being peace, studying peace, making trials and errors. Being peace is finding inherent love beyond circumstances, beyond explanation, beyond reason.

Some spiritual/religious institutions use words of peace while operating as metaphysical fascism in righteous good guy/bad guy perspectives. Meeting whatever this evokes as myself (frustration), has me re-arriving in love/peace.

I found preferred qualities (peace, mercy, love, joy, care, kindness, compassion) are followed by opposites (war, criticism, etc.) when attributed to circumstances. If melted into the human as itself, opposite qualities are also found within the consciousness of life. In facing this honestly, emanating peace occurs.

Obama’s tendency to return to peace in facing OUR adolescent COUNTRY inspires! We want solutions now, someone else to find them, and to blame another if solutions are not readily found. This practice regenerates the problems for which we seek solutions.

Via personal focus on love, joy and mercy here is a discovery. Mercy’s focus reveals a similarity to joy beyond explanation, love in all circumstances and peace as a basis rather than a result. Mercy is of, in, for, from and as everything; all that is. Mercy reveals peace. From inner peace, outer peace can appear. It can be created by each individual’s attention.


(Continued in next writing this page)

Dr. Laurie Moore
www.animiracles.com

[DrLaurieMoore]

(Continued from Dr. Laurie Moore’s above)

In focus on mercy, outer action in peace is natural to extend to those before us, as their witnesses, in thanks-giving. Thank you, Gangaji, for extending yourself to Obama, as witness of thanks-giving. In bird tribes, a leader has the task of being most sensitive to followers. The “leader” moves as fast as FOLLOWERS ALLOW.

In focusing on love, I found myself praised by many and attacked by some. This brought up pride and hurt. I felt my heart as a baby bird and myself to be a Mother tending to her so that she could fly instead of getting caught up in the praise and insults. I found she only wanted to be love/peace like Obama, you, everyone else. Looking deeper into the source of pride and hurt, I found peace beyond myself. I found peoples’ attacking is a cry for mercy.

I cannot offer mercy as that comes from source so I refocus on the essence where love, peace, joy and mercy originate.

Obama, our brother like us, has some say in culture’s destiny. Knowing the human being is comprised mostly of water, and water is reshaped by thoughts of those who focus upon him/her, how shall we treat our human brother, Obama, everyone? Knowing we can only treat others with what we have found within, what might we look for as most important in ourselves? To what do we give ourselves?

Dr. Laurie Moore
www.animiracles.com

[MommyMystic]

Om Shanti Gangagi! Thanks so much for posting this. This is how I felt but have not read anything until now supporting it. It seems like everyone is afraid to express how they really felt. How can support and encouragement for peace, and even all the discussion - both 'for' and 'against' - the award, be bad? At least peace is being discussed at all...I hope I can 'extend this peace' myself, as you invite us all to do...

[Northcross]

Thank you, dear Gangaji, for getting to the heart of the matter. The challenge for a head of state who emanates peace is (1) responding to those within his own country that are terrified by a head of state who does not emanate aggression and (2) those abroad who see a head of state with peace in their heart as an opportunity to increase their own power. We've been here before. Gandhi and King were both willing to die to stay true to the peace in their hearts. But, they were not heads of state. We had a head of state named Jimmy Carter who had (and still does) peace in his heart. He got an embassy taken hostage and a Soviet invasion of an independent country. Our country got scared, turned its back on a leader emanating peace and elected Ronald Reagan. The world saw another head of state, Jack Kennedy, as emanating peace. Kennedy was murdered before his first term was over.
I don't know what the answer is. I hope with all my heart that Obama and those around him can find a way to stay true to peace through all that may come.

Love for all;

Mark

[SquareStone]

It filled my heart with joy to hear the news. Obama is indeed a rare leader who emanates peace, especially in this time of great change. His winning of this year's Nobel Peace Prize will help accelerate the shifting of the global consciousness into a more peaceful gear.

[worldloveperson]

Peace!! Peace!! Yes!!
Thank you, Yes!!

[Katharine-in-the-UK]

Dear Gangaji, how lovely to read such pure, beautiful reason on this issue. I too have been amazed at the criticism. Thank God for your voice.

America, I wonder if you realise how lucky you are to have a man like Obama in charge. Yes. he is finding it difficult to implement some of the measures he hopes for - but as Gangaji says, he is a man of peace, and does truly emanate peace. That is obvious every time he appears on TV. Here in the UK our politicians endlessly squabble and seem mired in confusion, if not downright corruption. So many of us ache for a person of peace and truth to lead us.

Katharine