{"product_id":"peace-is-the-way-isbn-9780307339812","title":"Peace Is the Way","description":"\u003cb\u003e “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis statement has never been more true. Now, Deepak Chopra expands on A. J. Muste’s insight, teaching us how to expand awareness, stop reacting out of fear, and reject war—one person at a time. As Dr. Chopra says, “Violence may be innate in human nature, but so is its opposite: love. The next stage of humanity, the leap we are poised to take, will be guided by the force of that love.”“The daily practices suggested in this book offer readers a way to become more fully human and actively engaged as peacemakers in their homes and communities.” —Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate, 1984, archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, and author of \u003ci\u003eGod Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Deepak Chopra brings the idea of peace and the power it has over conflict, hatred, and despair into focus. He offers a clear pathway to make this world a better place for us all.” —Muhammad Ali, U.N. Ambassador of PeaceDeepak Chopra is one of the world’s bestselling spiritual authors and the founder of the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California.\u003cb\u003eWar Ends Today\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday is a good day for war to come to an end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe symbolic number of 1,000 U.S. casualties was passed today in  Iraq—I am writing this on September 9, 2004—most of the deaths  occurring after victory was declared over a year ago. What is the  world like on the day you read this? I cannot predict, but I know,  even if this particular war is over, you will be confronted with  terrorism, suicide bombings, insurrections and civil war somewhere on  the planet, and nuclear threats from rogue nations like North Korea  and Iran. Violence will still be raging out of control, no matter  what day you read these words.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the outset of 2003 it was estimated that thirty military conflicts  were being fought around the world. It's a good day for all these  wars to come to an end. But will they? And if they do, what will  replace them?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo end war, you have to think of ending not just one conflict, and  not just thirty. What we have to end is the idea of war, which has  turned into the habit of war, and then into the numbing constancy of  war. The last time the U.S. wasn't on a war footing was December 6,  1941, the day before Pearl Harbor inflamed the U.S. into declaring  war against Japan. Since then, America has accepted the need for a  huge standing army, the growth of arms manufacturers and merchants  into a massive part of the economy, thousands of troops stationed  around the world, intensive research into new technologies of death,  and a political climate in which it is suicide to come out against  war. This whole situation, which reaches into every home, keeps us on  a war footing even when there is no declared war to grab the  headlines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike any habit, war has worn a groove in our minds, so that when we  become very afraid or very angry, the response of war comes  naturally. It has an easy track to follow. Even as the body count  rises in the Sunni Triangle and the photographs of torture from Abu  Ghraib prison stun one's conscience, the groove is still there, deep  and familiar. War has almost become a secret pleasure. It brings  excitement and revs up the routine pace of life. In Mira Nair's film  adaptation of \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e, a woman comments smugly at a party, \"War  is good for men. It's like turning over the soil.\" We reach for war  the way a chain-smoker reaches for a cigarette, muttering all the  while that we have to quit. In the past four decades America's war  habit has led us into Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon,  Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, and Cambodia, not to mention more covert  military operations into places like Laos, Nicaragua, and Colombia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book is about erasing that groove and substituting a new way to  respond when we are very afraid or very angry, or even when we  aren't. The way of peace has to become a new habit. To do that, it  must offer a substitute for every single thing that war now provides.  You may feel immune to the appeal of war, but everyone has benefited  from war's gifts in some measure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWar provides an outlet for national vengeance.\u003cbr\u003eIt satisfies the demands of fear.\u003cbr\u003eIt brings power to the victor.\u003cbr\u003eIt provides security to the homeland.\u003cbr\u003eIt opens an avenue for getting what you want by force.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy contrast, living in peace one breathes easily. There is space to  allow for connections with other people. Arguments proceed with  mutual respect for either side. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and  Mother Teresa lived different aspects of peace. We learned from each  that the way of peace can end suffering and oppression, not by  warring against an enemy but by bearing witness to wrongs, and by  allowing sympathy and common humanity to do their patient work. War  smothers all of that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWar's gifts may prove bitter and empty in the end, but that hasn't  eroded the groove of war in our minds. Today, after a century in  which more than 100 million people died from war, we survivors still  turn to war because we think it does some good. The satisfaction of  waging war cannot be replaced by philosophy or religion. The Buddha  and the Prince of Peace could not have spoken out more strongly  against violence, yet their beliefs have been distorted into a cause  for bloodshed at the hands of their followers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur age is steeped in mechanized warfare that is totally terrifying  in human terms. Somewhere in this country teams of scientists are  working on a bomb that will vaporize human beings on contact without  destroying the buildings they inhabit. Somewhere in this country  other scientists are figuring out how to disrupt an enemy's water,  electricity, communications, and transportation using signals  delivered by the Internet. Soon we may be able to cripple other  nations without even having to set foot in them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe are almost there now, thanks to high-altitude pinpoint bombing and  long-range \"smart bombs\" that can guide themselves to their targets  while our soldiers remain safely out of harm's reach. This technology  makes some people, even in the military, very queasy, for it means  that our army can kill at leisure without loss of life on our side.  The last vestige of honor on the battlefield was respect for the  enemy, but no more. The satisfaction of managing death so efficiently  has to be added to the list of war's gifts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCan the way of peace really substitute for all that? Can it succeed  where centuries of wisdom and morality have failed?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt can, because the way of peace isn't based on religion or morality.  It doesn't ask us to become saints overnight, or to renounce our  feelings of anger or our thirst for revenge. What it asks for is  something new: conscious evolution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe time has come for us to stop being passive, and to take control  of our own destiny, one person at a time. What keeps war alive?  Backwardness of response, a reliance on reactions that human beings  have followed since the beginning of history. Violence is not the  essence of human nature. It is prevalent, yes, and it is innate. But  so is the opposite of violence: love. The way of peace is love in  action. Although humankind, explicitly or implicitly, seems to  believe that violence is more powerful than love, this is the same as  saying that death is more powerful than life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat simply isn't so. Humanity has evolved to transcend many things  that once seemed innate. We have learned to use reason triumphantly.  We have overcome superstition and disease. We have exposed the  darkness of the psyche to light. We have delved deep into the  workings of nature. All these successes point the way to the next  step, which is the realization that human beings have outgrown war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday isn't the day that I or anyone else can say that human beings  are finally and forever beyond war. The only recent news item that  gives hope is a small one, a piece of reported data which says that  the last twelve months, despite the headlines from Iraq, brought the  fewest deaths in war since 1945, the end of World War II. The total  body count from all conflicts over the last year was 20,000  worldwide. So the trend may be starting already. You and I, in our  anguish to end war, may be catching tremors from the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday is the day to act on them. Just as Newton's formulation of  gravity meant that human beings were finally and forever on the road  of a new science, a road that has led to a completely transformed  world, you and I can create a new turning point. I would argue that  for the majority of people in America--and many other parts of the  world--the tide of the future has turned already. People are ready to  follow the way of peace, if only they can learn what it is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe way of peace is based on the same thing that ushered in the age  of science: a leap in consciousness. When they witnessed  demonstrations of steam engines, electric lights, and vaccines,  people adapted to them at the level of their own awareness. The idea  of being human could no longer be consistent with reading by  candlelight, traveling by horse, suffering through high rates of  death in childbirth, short life spans, and the ravages of disease. A  leap in collective consciousness took place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe way of peace, I believe, can change the future in the same way.  If you and I demonstrate that peace is more satisfying than war, the  collective consciousness will shift. Today you and I woke up and  found it easy not to kill anyone. Our society, however, can't say the  same. It's time for society to take a direction that conforms to what  the individual wants. There can be no excuse for living our  comfortable lives embedded in a culture of mechanized death and  violence. You and I are not innocent bystanders to war. We depend  upon it politically, economically, and socially. I will show in  detail why this is true, and how we can shift our allegiance to a way  of life that is not entangled in war or death. The more people who  join us, the faster war will come to an end. Instead of wishing that  others would stop killing, you can become a force for peace, and in  so doing make the ultimate contribution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you shift your allegiance to peace, war ends for you today. This  happens one person at a time, but it works. A million tiny  earthquakes move more ground than a single cataclysmic quake. There  is no better or easier way to live than by catching the wave of  evolution. How hard is it to look up and say, Today is a good day for  war to end. If your consciousness follows these words and remains  true to them, war will never return to your life again.","brand":"Harmony","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302612947173,"sku":"NP9780307339812","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307339812.jpg?v=1767734573","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/peace-is-the-way-isbn-9780307339812","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}