Ilchi Lee on Healing Society

Exhaling to Open a New Civilization of Spirituality

A single cycle of breathing contains the truth about life and death. When you breathe in to the maximum capacity of your lungs, you then have to breathe out to stay alive. You may try to hold your breath if you don't want to breathe out, but you cannot do it for very long. This is also true of human civilization. We have strongly developed a materialistic civilization consuming the planet's resources to great extent without pausing to exhale, thus finally suffocating both human beings and the Earth.

In order to avoid this situation to explode, we have to exhale or at least stop inhaling. The paradigm of competition and domination has driven us to this point. If we don't choose to exhale, we will not avoid an explosion. If we want to continue to live on the Earth , we should hasten to breathe out. Yet, we cannot change the paradigm of competition and domination in just a second. As vice-president Al Gore said, " We have to start by recognizing and respecting each other." This is wisdom that must become widespread enlightenment. When we broaden our concept of enlightenment from the individual, to society, and to all of humankind, we will be able to shift the paradigm of competition and domination to a new civilization of peace and harmony.

[At a press interview]

Only humans can revive the environment and establish peace on the Earth. Therefore we must set a new identity for ourselves as "Earth Humans" and share this with all humans in the world. "Earth Human" is another word for Hong-Ik-Ingan, a traditional Korean term for someone who lives for the betterment of all. "Earth Humans" are those who live out the philosophy of love for humanity and love for the Earth. "Earth Humans" are our hope for the future. The key to overcoming the limit of materialistic civilization is the philosophy of harmony that integrates heaven, earth, and human into one. This is the essence of the Hong-Ik-Ingan philosophy. The Declaration of Humanity is the flower of the humanity conference.

We Must All Live as One

When the leaders of the world, political and religious, can naturally express their love, we will be able to solve all the problems we have on the Earth. However we are afraid of love because we have forgotten the truths and have come to believe in myths. The first truth we have forgotten is that we are all one. We are all one, indivisible, in spite of differences of religion, nationality, ideology, and so forth. We think we each need our own separate identity, and we participate in mad competition with each other, even with the Earth itself.

The second truth we need to remember is that there is Enough. As long as we think we need More and as long as we are unable to share, we cannot awaken from the illusion that there is not Enough. Another truth is that there is no such thing as 'better'. But it is not easy to resist such an attractive illusion. From my childhood, I thought that I was born a winner because I was an American, Catholic, and a Man. No matter how silly it may sound, there are still wars and massacres because of a sense of superiority like this. Yet what we must do now is to live the message that we are all one.

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Our Efforts for the Protection of Environment and Peace

We are facing a lot of global problems among which devastation of the environment is the most conspicuous. Other problems are deconstruction of family, and the conflicts caused by religious, political, and cultural differences. These global problems rest on the major illusion that the Earth is too big for us to damage. This illusion also implies that we think humans and Earth are separated. Now we are required to fundamentally change the way we see and the way we live.

A major fact is that we must also recognize and respect our differences. For example, the kids involved in the school shootings in America felt that they were not respected. Discrimination based on lack of recognition and respect creates seeds of violence. Failure to understand the meaning of our differences gives us a false sense of superiority and separation. We must recognize and respect the wide variety of people and beliefs in this world in order to establish global peace. When we respect these differences, we will be able to overcome them.

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Where on Earth are we going?

During the 21st Century, we have still not found solutions to major problems such as religious conflicts, environmental pollution and overpopulation, that are threatening humankind on a global level. In the developing countries of the world, organized destruction and abuse of the natural and social environments is taking place. They are copying the model of errors of the developed countries that have created the global crisis we are now facing. However we cannot deny the right to growth to the developing countries. With resources and experience of the developed countries, we must help developing countries to have security on the basis of shared partnership for global peace.

Only a new paradigm of global cooperative governance can provide real solutions to our difficulties. Now we must re-order our priorities, and place the well being of the earth before that of individual people or states. This will require the cooperation of people all over the world. When people change, politics change. Whether or not we create an equitable global community is up to us.

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Mission and Role of Press in 21st Century

We will refer to the Declaration of Humanity throughout this conference. It is a call for the end of conflicts and the abuse of the Earth's resources. How can we practically send such a message to every individual? Fortunately, in terms of communication technology, globalization has already become a reality. The media and development of the internet allows individuals and organizations like NMPF to exert a lot more influence than was possible before.

However in countries like Iran or Afghanistan where the press is controlled, people cannot access information freely, thus development of the spirituality of individuals cannot be guaranteed. This is why independence and freedom of the media must be secured around the world. The role of the press in evaluating information cannot be replaced by technology. The mission of the press is to reflect a true image of ourselves, helping us to know what must be done in order to secure the future of humankind and the Earth.

[At a press interview]

The experience of witnessing and reporting on conflicts in many areas of the world has led me to the conclusion that conflict cannot be avoided, and existing governments and organizations do not have the power to stop them. I think we need 'something new', and I expect that something new will emerge from the Humanity Conference. I joined this conference to support global peace and to discuss how to attain it.

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Spirituality as a Tool for Social Reform

My journey as a human rights activist, over the last fifty years, has been a spiritual journey. As a Christian pastor, the prism through which my view of spirituality is expressed is grounded in the literature of the New Testament and the person of Jesus Christ. The sayings of Jesus have proven to be universal in terms of authentic spirituality. His central teaching was in the realm of spiritual discipline of self in relation to other humans. In a very real way it parallels the teaching of Grand Master Ilchi Lee of the inherent divinity in every person.

The greatest social changes in humankind in the twentieth century were grounded in spirituality. Gandhi, a devotee of Hinduism, threw off the yoke of British colonial rule through the use of sataygraha-soul force, on the sub-continent of India. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian pastor, dismantled nearly a hundred years of racial segregation through the creative use of non-violence anchored in the Christian faith. Nelson Mandela, an indigenous South African, though not formally religious, orchestrated the demise of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa from a jail cell. All three of these leaders demonstrated that spirituality is an effective instrument for social change. Their leadership provides a persuasive model of how our global village can be bettered. Without spiritual awakening, there is no hope for any social change. Through events like the humanity conference, we can declare a revolution of human spirituality and find the keys that will encourage people to join.

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The Paradigm for the Cultural Change in 21st Century

Even as the new millennium begins, we are lost. In this chaos, we may win or lose everything, depending on our consciousness. The mind that caused our problems cannot solve the problems. We have to be able to find a common basic code to be shared by diverse cultures and ethnic groups. We must recognize our fundamental oneness in order to find creative solutions for our global crisis.

Within each individual human being, there is a dynamic desire for the common truth. Each individual has a never-used immeasurable potential, to develop the mind and body. Education and spiritual experience designed to help people recognize and actualize their potential can help optimize oneself as a human being. Global communication through the internet has brought together diverse cultures and consciousness. We are now required to turn to a new spiritual perspective that allows us to understand that everything is integrated in oneness. The more we recover the spirituality in our individual lives, the more we will advance in the direction of "possible human" and the "possible society". We have that power and we must use it.