J. FREDERICK ARMENT continues his conversation with CHRISTINE JONES about promoting peace in the world. He especially focuses on the foundation of it all—the importance of relationship, community, and love.
Q: Last fall, you were having a conversation with Daaji, and you said, “After 15 years and 400 cities of peace, I’m not really seeing much peace anywhere. There’s a sense of discouragement sometimes in my work.” Daaji responded with, “Well, we do this intention for peace, which originally came from Ram Chandra (Babuji), who called it the universal prayer. He had an epiphany that everyone should come together at night at 9 p.m. local time.”
We created a modern day version, a universal intention for peace, so that everybody can join. Daaji said to invite all these cities of peace to join us in this intention for peace—a common time where we join together for only 15 minutes.
And he mentioned the word egregore, a thought form that acts to hold a group of people together. As thoughts are added to the egregore, it grows, but it also allows those connected to the current of the egregore to access the knowledge of that group. In your book, The Physics of Spirit, you’re well versed in this idea of egregore, although you use a different word—waveguide. This may be why Daaji invited the cities of peace to join in the intention for peace. When a group has the same thought at the same time, a waveguide will radiate the harmony we all hope for.
Can you expound on this in layman’s terms?
FA: Yes, a waveguide is a structure that guides wave. They are around everybody right now. It’s like a wire that plugs in and the current runs through the wire. It directs the waves. And when you guide a wave, you can increase the consonance by bringing in other waves. The consonant wave becomes much more powerful. For example, the churches of the Middle Ages had tall steeples and the podium was up high so that everything was raised to the sky. We create waveguides even within churches. Also, we create waveguides in whatever activity we are doing. The waveguide of a spouse allows you to love and receive love. That means your spouse is a waveguide for your love in order to expand it, replicate it, increase the intensity, and make an impact on the world and yourself at the same time.
So the Heartfulness Centers are waveguides in the community. You come to a Heartfulness Center to learn meditation, but also for the relationships. So I see the Heartfulness Centers as waveguides and the heart of the community. Community needs a heart, needs this waveguide. I’m very excited about Heartfulness Centers around the world becoming cities of peace, because you’re already working for peace in your community.
The cities of peace ideal is something that will enable all of the Heartfulness Centers to tell their story of how they affect the community in a positive way. Whether there’s a potluck, you’re planting trees, or you’re giving a prize to a child who does beautiful artwork, you’re impacting the community. So if Heartfulness Centers have this idea of egregore, then all of a sudden we have this means of working for peace.
People do need a way to work in their communities, and all the different aspects of community, like government, the library, etc., can work together through the ideal of a city of peace. Heartfulness Centers can become the heart of that effort.
People do need a way to work in their
communities, and all the different
aspects of community, like
government, the library, etc., can
work together through the ideal of
a city of peace.
Q: You just explained that spiritual waveguides give purpose through reciprocal love. Spiritual interactions like meditation, rituals, and worship are energy interactions that help us experience a feeling of unity beyond oneself. A waveguide guides the propagation of waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound, with minimal loss of energy. It routes energy along a path, I love it!
FA: You know, wave guides can also be destructive. So we need to create our waveguides with the understanding that they route our energy. If you choose waveguides that are destructive, there is destruction at the end of the path. If you construct your wave guides as positive influences on community, then the result will be positive.
Q: Daaji recently said, “Your readiness to do things perfectly takes you forward.” So, there has to be completion and conclusion in anything we start in perfection. The tendency to perfect our work will come only when we are proud of ourselves. This is the positive use of ego. Ego can be used in either direction, and the same with these waveguides.
FA: Yes, we have to look at what we do and who we are as energy. If we do something halfway, the energy dissipates, whereas if we go to completion the energy is transferred. What Daaji says is very revealing, because it gives us the urge to do good.
And I've been working on the concept of least and urgent; the urge is to life and the least is to death. It leads to entropy, the dissolution of energy. It’s the old couch potato routine. If you sit on the couch and don’t work in your community, then your energy will dissipate. If you get up and become engaged, then life is created, beauty is created. That’s how people do wonderful paintings and become great writers, ride horses and work with their dogs and walk in nature. All these beautiful things are because we have the urge to complete this idea that the spirit comes out of us and it comes back into us. That’s the reciprocal truth of all things being energy.
Q: Something changed in me when Daaji said that about how I participate in the intention for peace. I realized I was working more from hope than completion, and it was interfering in the intention for peace.
You wrote in your book about the Latin root of the word inspiration—a sudden and spontaneous breathing in of the divine spark that gives us creative purpose. Fulfilling our purpose is simply resonating with the energy of universal love. So Daaji’s idea about willingness to do things perfectly, and your idea that purpose is resonating with the energy of universal love, a new understanding changed the way I was approaching the universal intention for peace. I moved to feeling that peace was already established in the world.
So my question is, do you feel your personal vision for peace has already manifested?
FA: Each of us manifests, so I believe it is our manifestation and I work for peace. I founded a couple of things, I’ve written some books, but I don't take any personal pride in those things as the idea is that we are working in concert. My wave is in concert with your wave, Christine, so we are together, and that’s why I can smile. With all the bad news in the world, if we get bogged down by the idea that there’s only hope, we’ve already started giving up. We’ve been given so many gifts as human beings, and we just need to calm down and work as we can and in our own way. I think that’s how humanity will raise our consciousness. And when we raise our consciousness, all will be well.
To be continued.
J. Frederick Arment
Fred is an author, lecturer, and founder and chair of International Cities of Peace. He mentors peace leadership in over 400 member cities. His books include The Elements of Peace: How Nonviolence Work... Read More
