The future will be different from the past

I found an inspiring text by Rick Smyre, (USA), President of the “Center of the Communities of the Future” titled “Emerging From the Mist”, from which I quote:
“What can we do to prepare our communities and society for a different kind of future? We would suggest a counterintuitive idea. Before we “do” anything, we need to think about what we need to do. (…)
Everyone knows the future will be different from the past. What we are just beginning to understand is that the challenges of the 21st century will probably require a “different kind of different”….a future filled with qualitative changes as well as quantitative changes, with new principles that define and organize our society. (…) Some of these ideas and principles may be seen as quickly obsolete or even irrelevant for the future. However, we are not concerned about rightness at this point….we are concerned about searching for a new way to think about and see the world.”

This is exactly the point where I can recommend to study the book „Future without War“. It contributes fundamentally to a new world view and thus to a new experience. We need to develop a new relationship towards the word “theory”:

Benjamin von Mendelssohn (co-worker of Tamera and head of the Peace Research Village Association) wrote in a letter from Palestine, where he was one of the leaders of a peace seminar in April 2008:

„This week was good beyond expectations. (…) While feeding in the theory it also became a practice week. Theory effects the life directly if taken serious. It changes it profoundly.“

I invite to share experiences, future visions, new thoughts and moments of “enlightenment”!

Taking the time to understand what is really happening there

I have made myself a hot cup of tea and enjoy the warmth of the beverage and the warmth of the room I am sitting in.
In the internet I read the following news:

(…) The suffering of the Tibetans under Chinese oppression is so unbearable that many do not see any other way out of it anymore but to commit suicide. In East Tibet, in Amdo and Kham, quite many people had to leave their houses and flee. They are now looking for refuge in the mountainous regions from the brutalities of the Chinese security forces. Without food, clothing and fuel they are captives in the mountains and woods. Their situation is life threatening and they are in urgent need of international support. (…)

What do I do? Do I carry on with my regular activities? Have I forgotten the news only minutes after hearing them, the way I have done countless times before? Have I been swallowed by my everyday life, my everyday sorrows, my everyday needs?
I pick up Dieter Duhm’s book “Future without War” and read:

“More people die from the consequences of colonisation and globalisation than ever died in a war. Can we continue to enjoy our privileges and limit our efforts to words? We need to find real ways to free the earth from war. We indirectly contribute to the war because we do not have the time to understand what is really going on there. Our culture is arranged so that nobody has the time to understand what is really going on.”

I decide to take the time today. Now, immediately, for the people in Tibet and Palestine, in the Irak and the Sudan. Equally I appeal to my fellow human beings to take the time. Now, immediately! Before we discuss the possibilities and impossibilities of global peace, before looking at different ways and strategies, we have to get in touch with this sound and intact place within ourselves, out of which we can know wholeheartedly: I want an planet without war! I notice this is not just my own small, personal wish – it is the dream of all of humankind. This dream has to be rekindled within me and within many others, since it is us, who still have a roof over our heads and enough time and strength to think and act.

I am grateful for the contributions and statements and I thank all those of you who take the time to understand what is truly happening.

The Success of the More Comprehensive

If we want to believe in a future without war, we need to create an image of a peace force which is capable to outmatch the present war machine. What kind of groups of people are prepared enough to realise this callenge and by what means?

Today a point of view persists which renders this question to be absurd. However, if we hold on to the idea of global peace and summon all sources of knowledge accessable today, a new possibility opens up to us. This is what Dieter Duhm proposes in his book “Future without War”.

“How can local groups have a global effect? How can the conditions of structural peace that are created at a few places on earth have an effect on the whole earth? The answer lies in the characteristics of holistic, all-encompassing systems. The functioning and parameters of such systems have been described in detail in the previous chapters of this book. What will determine the success of such peace projects is not how big and strong they are (compared to the existing apparatus of violence), but how comprehensive and complex they are, how many elements of life they combine and unite in a positive way. When establishing new fields in evolution, it is not the “law of the strongest”, but the “success of the more comprehensive” that is determinant. Otherwise, no new developments could have been able to establish themselves, for when they began, they were all “small and inconspicuous” (Teilhard de Chardin). “