| Spiritual: Whatever the Question, Love is the Answer
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Today's Woman Expert Author
Jean-Claude Koven
With each passing day the gathering storm clouds that threaten the lives of humankind darken. Every effort to stave off the inevitable and achieve lasting peace has failed. Perhaps it is time for us to adopt a new game plan?
The recent flare-up of hostilities in the Middle East comes as no surprise. As
any Boy Scout or forest ranger will attest, smoldering embers can easily erupt
into a raging inferno when fanned by even a gentle breeze. Separating the
antagonists by means of a politically negotiated settlement has nothing
whatsoever to do with peace, despite the flowery rhetoric and well-meaning
intentions of those who believe otherwise.
Millions of people all around the globe pray for peace, light peace candles,
hold peace vigils, conduct meetings, and issue peace proclamations. The UN
Security Council declares resolutions for peace. But still hostilities sprout
all around us like mushrooms after a rain. These efforts have failed, and they
will surely continue to fail so long as peace is their objective. For peace is
not a commodity to be brokered or haggled over, nor is it a state that can ever
be achieved between two dissenting parties. Peace is nothing more (or less) than
a by-product of love. So long as the true love that leads to the realization
that we are all One remains undiscovered, there can only be separation – the
bridgeless void that divides us and them.
Ironically, even the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize has its roots in conflict and
dissension. The money for the prize comes from the fortune amassed by Alfred
Bernhard Nobel, the Swedish chemist, arms manufacturer, and inventor of
dynamite. It is said that he set up the annual awards program in response to
seeing his own eight-years-premature obituary printed in a French newspaper: “Le
marchand de la mort est mort – The merchant of death is dead. . . . Dr. Alfred
Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever
before, died yesterday.” Nobel apparently did not want to be remembered through
the ages as an agent of war, so he aligned one of the awards endowed with his
fortune with what he thought was the antidote to his perceived legacy: peace.
A cursory look at recent Nobel Peace Prize recipients’ abysmal success rate in
achieving peace, however, should give us pause. For the most part, the
well-meaning men and women who have received the prize nevertheless worked
within the very system that fosters the separation they sought to heal. Until
they shift the point from which they choose to view, they too can do little of
consequence to shift the world to real peace.
If peace is not a realistic goal in and of itself, then how do we end the
separation and divisiveness that breeds hostility? The answer is wondrously
simple and remarkably accessible.
Love is the only answer. Peace in the absence of love is a total impossibility.
When love is present, the illusion of separation dissolves and the question of
peace becomes irrelevant. I was reminded of this earlier this week when I
received an email with the subject line: “As my soul guides me, Jean-Claude, my
name is Catherina Rodrigues. I have been guided to share with you my intention
to be an instrument for ‘LOVE’ in this world of ours today. All my love,
Catherina.”
Catherina, it turns out, is a young mother living with her husband, Randall, and
her seven-year-old daughter, Madeline, in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney,
Australia. On July 14th, the same date celebrated by the French as Bastille Day,
ironically, a day remembered for its violence in the name of freedom, Catherina
came out of her morning meditation with the unequivocal message: “Think Love.”
She was “instructed” to create a graphic design that embraced the essence of
these words, and “told” that this design should be posted on T-shirts, placards,
note cards, coffee mugs, and anything else that would help imprint this message
into the human psyche.
Within minutes Catherina had created a simple line drawing that perfectly
captured the visual representation of the message. When I saw it in her email, I
was hooked. (See a copy of her email at: www.prismhouse.com/thinklove.php.) A
slew of emails and phone calls quickly followed, and I came to know this
incredible being who has taken on the role of single-handedly doing what all the
Nobel laureates before her have failed to accomplish. Through love, Catherina
and those who choose to join with her will at last, spread true peace to the
world.
Her vision is as clear as it is bold: to invite every single person who sees her
design or hears of her mission to become an active, willing participant. She
plans to turn “Think Love” into a global movement that overrides all national,
religious, and philosophical boundaries. To see what this remarkable woman has
achieved in less than one week, visit: http://www.catherinarodrigues.com/ThinkLove.html.
Each of us is welcomed as an ambassador of love and invited to reach out to
humankind, not merely to cease hostilities and embrace detente but to transcend
the uncertainty and fears of old wounds and outdated thinking and embrace our
former enemies as ourselves.
Catherina knew her purpose in life very early on. “Since the age of four I would
tell my parents that I will travel the world and talk to people about God. . . .
My soul knew then, as it knows now, that I am here to speak of LOVE!!! Love is
all there is to speak about.” Her message to the world, “Think Love,” tells us
that it is time to depose the intellect as our sovereign. We need to follow
Catherina’s lead and learn to love with our minds and think with our hearts.
__________________________________
Jean-Claude Gerard Koven is a writer and speaker based in Rancho Mirage, CA. He
is a featured weekly columnist for the UPI (United Press International) Religion
and Spirituality Forum and the author of Going Deeper: How to Make Sense of Your
Life When Your Life Makes No Sense, selected by both Allbooks Reviews and
USABookNews.com as the best metaphysical book of the year. For more information,
please visit: www.goingdeeper.org.
__________________________________
©2006. Jean-Claude Gerard Koven / All Rights Reserved. This article is
copyrighted, but you have permission to share it through any medium as long as
the proper copyright and credit line is included.
__________________________________
Source:
http://www.todays-woman.net
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| Posted on Tuesday, July 25 @ 16:06:26 EDT by Rose |
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