A nEw WaY Of LiFe ......

 

New way of life

Also, through meditation, I am beginning to live life again through positive thoughts. I am having more time to work on the practical aspects of life and less stress through meditation.

For example, I have a project to write a book on social change, and I am practicing positive thinking on how to write it. I know I can do this; I have done it before.

There will be a certain amount of stress to make this book. But to write that way, to create a new way of life based on positive thoughts and ways of being in the world, is actually easier than the way I was living before I started meditation. And once I create that positive world, once I am firmly anchored in positive feelings and ways of being in the world, I will have no fear of the world.

My life is a lot easier now than it was before. I would say I am living my life positively; I have created a new way of life.

Social change

Also, through meditation, I can see social change. I have a project that is very close to my heart, ever since consciousness. I would say it started around that time. When I stepped into practical life, I started asking myself questions about social change. I had an idea and a vision of what I was trying to do. But I didn't know how to do it.

I knew one way was to write books, and I wanted to go around the world and ask people, "Why is it that you don't have schools, you don't have hospitals?" And the response I got was, "You don't know how to do it." So I asked myself, "What do I know how to do? What I know how to do is to live my life through and with the feeling of community."

So I started talking to people in the communities where I lived. And I asked them what they wanted to see change in their world. And when I would ask them that, they would all say, "You don't know how to do it. You don't know how to do it. You don't know how to do it." So I said, "What am I going to do about it?" And they said, "You know, you don't know how to do it, but we do."

They said, "We know what we want to see changed." And they gave me lists. They said, "Here is what we want to see changed. Here is what we want to see changed. Here is what we want to see changed." And I said, "All right. How can I learn how to do this? How can I learn how to do this?"

And this is where I got the idea of a community that was active in support of social change in America, in the world. I called it the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond.

The People's Institute of Survival and Beyond

Then I started to travel around the world and talk about social change. And when I was in India, where the guru was known for starting the Ariana Center and I had worked with him for some time, I was introduced to an old woman who had been a follower of his.

And she said to me, "I don't understand. Why are you giving speeches about this case in America and giving lectures about this case in Europe, and here in India we have known about this all our lives, and you want to teach us how to do it?"

So I said to her, "I'm here to teach you how to do it." She said, "I don't understand. What are you going to teach me?"

And I said, "What I am going to teach you is the People's Institute of Survival and Beyond. And that is going to be our organization. And I said to her, "We are going to work with the villages, the community. We are going to ask you all to sit together. We're going to ask you to look at each other and look at this world, and we are going to ask you, what are the problems we have? What do you want to see changed? And then we are going to put the problem on the table, and then we are going to work it, and we are going to put a plan together, and we are going to make it happen."

And this old woman looked at me and said, "What are you going to teach us?" And I said, "We are going to learn how to do this. And we're going to teach you." And she looked at me, and she said, "You don't know how to do it. You don't know how to do it. You don't know how to do it."

And then she said, "All right. You show us. You show us how to do it. We'll sit together, and we'll talk to each other." And so it was born. It began as a weekly meeting at a hotel in Varanasi, and it continued as an annual meeting at a

one year later, we changed our name to the Center for the People's Institute of Survival and Beyond, People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, and the name of our newsletter is Voices for the People.

But our purpose was always to bring about social change in the world, through what we called grassroots nonviolent social change. And we learned how to do this. And over a period of about 50 years, we helped to change the lives of millions of people in many, many countries and in many, many towns and villages.

Mahatma Gandhi was deeply in love with the idea of nonviolence, and he asked me to come to India and to start a nonviolence training institute. So I was able to open a nonviolence training institute in India called the Nonviolent Defense Initiative (NDI), Nonviolent Defense Initiative. And we started off in Bombay and expanded to Delhi. And we taught nonviolence training for civil rights movements.

We began teaching nonviolence training for the Garvey Youth Movement in the United States, to teach them nonviolent, inner-city organizing techniques and also training in nonviolent actions.

And we would have nonviolence training sessions all over the United States. And we had many chapters around the world, chapters all over the United States. And we would have nonviolence training sessions all over the United States. And we had many chapters around the world, chapters all over the United States.