What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

The best way to be healthy is to be a part of a healthy world.  But the world is sadly and dramatically unhealthy.  We wonder why we feel like crap, and we never stop to consider the sewage that we pour out through our own violent thoughts.   Everywhere there is war.  Everywhere there is chaos.  Everywhere people suffer, and everywhere people cause other people (and other living things) to suffer.  How can we find true health without peace and love?  How can we find peace and love in a world filled with chaos and hatred?  We have two choices - either give up . . . or start somewhere, do something.

"Peace and love" is not just a cliché from a past generation.  It's not a joke.  If you can learn to be at peace and live peacefully, peace will radiate out of you, and improve the world.  It will also make you healthy and sane and good.  The physical world is a manifestation of thought.   If you think peace and love, you'll create it.  If you think turmoil and hatred, you'll create that.   Please work hard to nurture and grow peace and love.  If you dedicate yourself to peace and love, this will, in itself displace all of the hatred and turmoil inside you.

If you pray, pray for peace.

If you meditate, meditate on peace

If you chant, chant for peace.

Live peacefully.

Do good.  Be good.  Live, love, serve, meditate, realize.

It doesn't matter so much what you do - what matters is that you care.  If you care enough, you'll do good things.  

Below I have placed some quotes, prayers, mantras, chants, philosophies, etc. about peace.  It is a work in process.  Perhaps you'll find something that moves you.   These bits and pieces have come from many sources - like a patchwork quilt.  Please feel free to submit others to me (or to report corrections) via email, or however you like.

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me and instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Thought Power for Inner Peace - World Peace

Words of Wisdom by Swami Sivananda from the book "Thought Power" 

Thought is a living force.  Caused by the vibration of psychic vital energy on the mental substance it is the most subtle and irresistible power that exists in the universe.  The stronger the thought, the more effective it is in accomplishing it's work.  You can move the world through thought force.  The powerful thoughts of great sages and rishis (wise men) of yore are still recorded.

As you think so you become.  Be careful of your thoughts.  Whatever you send out of your mind comes back to you.  If your mind is full of hatred for another, hate will come back to you.  If you love others, love will come back to you.

A negative thought harms the thinker by doing injury to his mental body.  Secondly, it attacks the person or persons against whom it is directed.  And lastly, it radiates out, poisons the general environment, and promotes negativity in the world.

A positive thought benefits the thinker by nourishing his mental body.  Secondly, it helps the person or persons for whom it is directed.  Lastly, it radiates out, and improves the general environment, and promotes positivity in the world.

Thought can be used for positive or negative purposes.  Promote your own inner peace, as well as world peace, by radiating out loving thoughts.

Baha'i on Peace

Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity.

Be fair in judgment, and guarded in thy speech,

Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, 

and a home to the stranger.

Be eyes to the blind, 

and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring

Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, 

a dew to the soil of the human heart,

and a fruit upon the tree of humility.

 

 

Buddhist Prayer for Peace

May all beings everywhere plagued with sufferings of body and mind

quickly be freed from their illnesses.

May those frightened cease to be afraid,

and may those bound be free.

May the powerless find power,

and may people think of befriending one another.

May those who find themselves in trackless, fearful wilderness---

the children, the age, the unprotected--

be guarded by beneficial celestials,

and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood

Hindu Prayer for Peace

Oh God, lead us from the unreal to the Real.

Oh God, lead us from darkness to light.

Oh God, lead us from death to immortality.

Shanti, Shanti, Shanti unto all.

Oh Lord God almighty, may there be peace in celestial regions.

May there be peace on Earth.

May the waters be appeasing.

May herbs be wholesome, and may trees

plants bring peace to all. May all beneficent beings bring peace to us.

May thy Vedic Law propagate peace all through the world.

May all things be a source of peace to us.

And may thy peace itself, bestow peace on all

and may that peace come to me also.

 

Jainism on Peace

Peace and Universal Love is the essence of the Gospel preached by all Enlightened Ones.

The Lord has preached that equanimity is the dharma

Forgive do I creatures all, and let all creatures forgive me.

Unto all have I amity, and unto none enmity.

Know that violence is the root cause of all miseries in the world.

Violence, in fact, is the knot of bondage.

"Do not injure any living being."

This is the eternal, perennial, and unalterable way of spiritual life.

 

Muslim Prayer for Peace

In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful.

Praise be to the Lord of the Universe who has created us and made us into tribes and nations

That we may know each other, not that we may despise each other.

If the enemy incline towards peace, do thou also incline towards peace,

and trust God, for the Lord is the one that heareth and knoweth all things.

And the servants of God, most gracious are those who walk on

the Earth in humility, and when we address them, we say "PEACE."

Native American Prayer for Peace

Oh Great Spirit of our Ancestors, I raise my heart to you.

To your messengers the four winds, and to Mother Earth who provides for your children.

Give us the wisdom to teach our children to love, to respect,

and to be kind to each other so that they may grow with peace of mind

Let us learn to share all good things that you provide for us on this Earth.

Shinto Prayer for Peace

I believe are all our brothers and sisters.

Why are there constant troubles in this world?

Why do winds and waves rise in the oceans surrounding us?

I only earnestly wish that the wind will soon puff away all the clouds

which are hanging over the tops of mountains.

Zoroastrian Prayer for Peace

We pray to God to eradicate all the misery in the world:

that understanding triumph over ignorance,

that generosity triumph over indifference,

that trust triumph over contempt, and

that truth triumph over falsehood.

Sikh Prayer for Peace

God adjudges us according to our deeds, not the coat that we wear:

that Truth is above everything, but higher still is truthful living.

Know that we attaineth God when we loveth, and only victory

endures in consequences of which no one is defeated.