Inner Peace Is The Key
For World Peace

Art of Living is being happy, singing, dancing, serving, meditating, and making life a celebration. Life is so short on this planet. We are here for just 60-100 years, some people live long then too maximum 125-150 years. This short span of life we spend on this planet is better spent happily and spreading happiness instead of bickering for various things, conflict, and war. It’s ignorance, sheer ignorance. See what is happening in the world today in all the places. You don’t even feel like seeing the news. Everyday there is some violence somewhere.
So sing, laugh, dance, serve each other and meditate. Don’t get caught up in this either, you should not get caught up even in fun. It’s easy to be addicted to fun. Then if you don’t have fun you get so bored and you cause problem for others. Your craving for fun can make others miserable.
Live lightly. Take life lightly and this is possible when we spread this knowledge. More & more people should become free from stress and start spreading happiness.
One street light is not enough to light the whole path. Every few meters you need a light to dispel the darkness and this is essential. So we need many teachers and volunteers who help the teachers to teach the courses. What’s happening in Ukraine, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and in other places domestic violence. This is something that needs attention and it can be done; because here is a solution, something we can do.

Last month one of our teachers from Germany went to Iraq to teach 35 Members of Parliament. After the 3rd day of the program they all shared such beautiful experiences. They said, 'We are all from different political parties and this is the first time we could really connect to everybody and we understood our responsibility. This is the first time that we said that we can all live together and this is needed in Iraq. This is the solution for Iraq’s problem'.
Their words were very touching. They have all given a testimony, all of them. Just in 3 days, a couple of hours each day, not even a whole silence course. Just imagine if it was just the Happiness Workshop, or suppose they had done the Silence Program.
If people can get access to inner peace then outer peace is a reality. Peace is not just absence of conflict or absence of violence, it is a positive phenomena inside of us. When our mind is quiet our intellect becomes sharper, our emotions become positive and lighter, our body becomes healthy, and our behaviour becomes much more palatable. These are the effects of finding inner peace.
Inner peace is the key for world peace. You cannot have world peace with individuals who are boiling from the inside ready to explode. If such people are at the helm of affairs then not only the person explodes, but the countries and communities explode.
Same with religious people. Many so called religious people have not found inner peace. They pray a lot, thank god, ask for blessings, etc., but many times its out of habit, and lip service. It is not coming from the inner space of peace. If that comes from the inner space, then words are not needed. Your breath becomes a prayer; you breath in and it is prayer, you just sit and it is prayer, you walk and it is prayer. Your very life becomes a prayer and a celebration. Everything we do becomes a celebration.

(Somebody peeps in thru the window. Laughter in the audience)
You have to see through my window, the world looks very different from there.
We need to open that window so that everyone can peep through it and see, 'Oh, this is life. This is something great. Something beautiful is happening here and there is a possibility of a world which is full of celebration.
Today when sports have become war and war has become a sport, we all have the onus of bringing that sense of celebration to society, don’t you think so? And we will do it in whatever small manner we can. But for that we need find that inner peace.

To find inner peace knowledge is very important. You may sit and meditate and find it very peaceful, but then you open your eyes and mix with people and you come back to the same old pattern. What can help in your activity is knowledge. What knowledge? Knowing that everything is going to change, and everything is changing.
Now you will ask, 'Should we never get upset, should we always be smiling?'
I say no! You get upset, you fight and argue but snap out of it in an instant. Do it all like a drama, or see that it doesn’t stick to you.
Many times it is not you, it is the atmosphere, the collective consciousness that affects you.

In Ukraine, the whole country is boiling, there’s uncertainty. If you go there, your mind also gets affected by it. If you go to Afghanistan, you get affected by what’s happening in the world country. And when you go to the mountains or Switzerland, you become calmer, that atmosphere affects you as well.
You come here to the ashram, (The Art of Living European International Center, Bad Antogast, Germany), as soon as you walk in you feel a difference. As soon as you come there is some energy that changes the mind. Our perspective changes and this is knowledge.
So, time and space has an effect on the mind.

Space has an impact on our mind and time also has an impact on our mind. At certain times for no reason tension arises in your system; many of you have experienced this. It’s the effect of time. The new moon yesterday night and day before impacted your mind.
Sometimes on new moon or on full moon suddenly you can’t sleep! How many of you cannot sleep on full moon nights? On new moon and full moon something happens to the mind. Time affects our mind.
Our company affects our mind. If you sit with someone who keeps talking negative, a little later you also do that. All your joy simply disappears. Company also affects the mind.
Food also has an impact on mind. Too much food or sometimes wrong food has an impact. But that impact is minor. Food has a very small impact, so you don’t have to be paranoid about it.

The impact of breath is much more powerful. All these impacts can be corrected, be it time, food or company through knowledge, meditation, Sudarshan Kriya (practise taught in the Art of Living programs), satsang (singing) and the company of the wise.
We are all so fortunate that we have this opportunity to see life from the perspective of celebration. Out there just see how people are moving around with guns, hurting other people. So inhumane. If all these people are put in jail and made to do Sudarshan Kriya (practise taught at the Art of Living programs) they will be completely reformed.
This is happening in many prisons, but to get these people to do it is a challenge. I’m thinking on how to get these people to do it.

Last year itself, or the year before, I was making an effort because I foresaw a big force like this coming from Egypt. I thought I should go and talk to the religious leaders who are telling them to take to violence, because some religious leaders have a say over the people.
I wanted to even go and talk to these militant groups. Though the streets are full of violence our volunteers had made efforts and got some contacts and arranged several meetings in Egypt. When I went to the Egyptian embassy in India their ambassador refused me a visa. He said, 'No, you are too high profile. We can’t let you go in there because the country is in a terrible state and if something happens to you then we will have a problem. Our embassy will be shut down here in India'.
I said, 'Don’t worry, I have my own security, nothing will happen to me. I know how to take care'. But he apologized and refused to give me visa.
We were all ready to go. Me and a few others were all set to go to Egypt and have a dialogue with various people – the Christian patriarch, the Muslim religious leaders, the rebels, government. We had chalked out a three day plan but they didn’t give me visa.
We must keep doing our effort. It’s not an easy job. For that slow and steady concerted effort is needed.
It’s only ignorance on their part because they don’t know the other side. It’s not that they are bad people. If you see through my eyes there are only ignorant people, not bad people. There are ignorant people who do bad things, that’s all. There are some in-between who have a little knowledge and are a little ignorant.

Another side is the drug abuse. When many mothers come and cry that their teenage son is into drugs, my heart breaks. I feel, what can we do? Hundreds and thousands of young people are spoiling their lives. That’s why spirituality is a must right from the beginning, right from childhood.