Will There Be Peace in My Lifetime?

Every year at Christmas time, we sing our sweet little carols crying out to the heavens to grant us peace on earth. We pray for peace throughout the year. Many in the New Age Movement hold the energy and carry a light within their hearts that someday soon, peace will descend upon us and we will finally live as one big happy family on this planet. What do we envision while praying for peace? We see a world without war, without anger, without bigotry, without fighting, without hatred. We see a world that is safe for children to play outside and to walk to school without fear of abductions, molestations, and horrible nightmares that predators would make our children endure. We dream of a world that is safe for everyone. Nobody is harassed or killed for being their unique individual self. Everyone plays nicely and feels nothing but love and compassion for each other. Will that happen in our lifetime?

No, it will not happen. Why not? Because of the very nature of the human animal. We have fluctuating hormones and chemical imbalances. Ask any woman who suffers from PMS if she likes being short-tempered and weepy. If there were a way to logically make a decision to be completely and totally in control of our gut instincts, our mood swings, and our biological urges, then as a species we would have done so by now. Yes, a minuscule percentage of the world’s population has learned to completely and totally control their every thought, feeling, and emotion, but they are not the norm. It is not vogue to work on such self-control so I do not see it happening any time soon. Normal everyday folks get ticked off and blow up sometimes. So what happens if we all learned complete self-control over all aspects of ourselves? Then would we be able to create peace on earth?

Real peace on earth means being able to leave the house and to walk out into the world and interact with each other knowing that we will not be judged, beaten, ridiculed, or even killed for simply being ourselves. Peace on earth is NOT about being locked inside our homes feeling nothing but theoretical love for our fellow man. Peace on earth is NOT the practice of mutually agreeing to ignore each other. “Since I don’t really like you, I will pretend that you no longer exist in my reality.” You cannot really love someone until you really get to know them - warts, flaws, and all. Let them continually annoy you with their apparent stupidity and still be able to say, “I really do love you just the way you are.” Real peace is being able to say, “I disagree with just about everything you say and do, but I honor your right to do it and to say it. And I will still call you my friend and we shall live as neighbors in peace.” That is a lot harder than embracing an emotionally detached philosophy of loving everyone.

Peace on earth is often confused with feeling safe. Safety is about keeping the bad guys out. If we all agree voluntarily not to harm anyone else, then nobody gets hurt. For that kind of safety, we would have to have every single person on the planet agree to the concept and to become self-accountable towards honoring that vow. The problem is that there are religious and cultural teachings all over the world that clash. One group believes that the others are some kind of satanic demons and that real peace cannot happen until they are kicked off the planet or they are forced to change their ways. We would have to agree on one religion, one cultural teaching, one attitude, one emotional response, one belief system, and one path to spiritual enlightenment for all human beings.

Those who are open-minded will argue that making everyone follow the same set of rules and pray to the same god is not necessary. But they do not understand that the only way the other closed-minded people will agree to peace and safety for everyone is if everyone on the entire planet adopts their one way. That is the core aspect of being closed-minded, “My way is the one and only correct way to do things, to pray, to parent, etc.” So, who’s religion shall we all adopt? Whose form of government will we follow? Whose brand of anti-depressants will we take? Whose parenting philosophies will be made law? Whose belief in how we came to be on this planet will be taught in our schools? Who’s rulebook shall we all prescribe to? Closed-minded people cannot feel safe and peaceful until everyone is doing it their way. That is why we will never have real peace on earth and that is why open-minded people will never actually be safe.

“Just having an open-mind can make you vulnerable to the dark forces of the devil don’t you know!” Yes, it sounds ridiculous, but that is what they have been taught and they really do believe that. Anyone who reads up on the teachings of the major religions in this world soon realize that they are all very much the same in their core belief systems. It’s only the rules and dogma that are argued. Yet most religions’ holy books tell us that to even look into what our neighbors believes so as to understand them better is a case of giving in to the evil that plagues us all! “Stay ignorant and uneducated about the people you hate, that way you get to go to heaven! All you need to know about those other people is what we, the clergy, tell you about them.”

Until the closed-minded people can open their eyes and see how ridiculous they are by forcing everyone on the planet to agree to their ideals, there can never be real peace for anyone. We are all in danger of the zealots and the extremists who would force their beliefs on us. Yes, I personally believe that everyone should get along and pick their own path through life. Yes, I believe that everyone should have the right to find ‘god’ in their own way. I believe that your relationship with God, with your lover, with your children, and with yourself, should be none of my business. And I would like the same respect in return. But that is not the world we live in and it won’t change any time soon.

The New Age Movement is beautiful and I love their visions and their dreams. However, I am also a realist and the truth is that there are a lot of people who will never be at peace as long as the New Age Movement exists. They do not comprehend that the only real universal law among New Agers is to allow everyone the right to find their own way in their own time. That vision of peace cannot happen because it goes against too many other religions’ rulebooks. Nothing is more frightening to them than the idea that people could become enlightened without rulebooks and to form a real relationship with the heavens without the need for preachers and gurus.

To be truly self-accountable and open-minded, that is what it takes to offer others real world peace. Until we can allow others who are different from ourselves to experience their vision of peace on earth in complete safety, then we are not really looking for peace on earth for everyone. Peace on earth is NOT “everyone doing it my way!” As long as we would rather not be burdened with learning the truth about other cultures, other religions, and other philosophies of life, we will never be able to grasp the concept of creating real peace on earth. We humans still have a long way to go before we can expect to see real changes on the planet.

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