Mike's Sharebook 

The following meditation should be made regardless of short term events. It aims at sowing for the future. It can be practiced individually or collectively. It is a good idea to make it happen in community associations. It is of course better to meditate in a place where there is silence, and clean air. While its regular practice produces better effects than doing it just once, it is truly beneficial even as an isolated event.
Building Peace in the Middle East
1) Sit in an upright posture.

2) Adopt a calmer and deeper breathing. Leave aside any thoughts about short term matters.
3) Relax feet, then legs, hands, arms. Relax the muscles of your face. Feel the contrast between the freed muscles and the firm vertebral column. This is an image of how we must face life: being firm in that which is essential, and flexible in matters of secondary importance.

4) Slowly think of the suffering of the Jewish and Muslim nations in the last few millennia. Calculate the present levels of pain, from various causes, in the different communities of the Middle East and in every Muslim and Jewish individual and community around the world. Look at your own suffering: even hopes and aspirations are often forms of pain. Reflect upon the fact that it is possible to change afflictions into wisdom, and hatred into respect and appreciation of other people’s lives. Remember that no attachment to suffering, or hatred, or fear, is necessary. Calmly consider the task now waiting for human beings: to learn in one’s own soul the art of living with impersonal altruism and respect for all. This task slowly produces an enduring happiness.

5) Visualize humans in every part of the world consciously learning lessons from the obstacles they face, and from each other. See wisdom and solidarity permeating relations between Muslims and Jews and among all nations in each continent. Imagine humanity awakening now to the unlimited power of mutual help. Keep before your mind’s eye, for an instant, the image of Jewish and Muslim nations practicing mutual help and unconditional respect for the lives of all beings. See every individual as part of a global civilization based on the principles of self-responsibility and mutual help.

6) See the radio, television, paper media and Internet websites actively promoting peaceful community goals in the Middle East and around the world. Take a calm look at the present civilization, as it builds solidarity mechanisms in the vast, inspiring world of your own creative mind. Strengthen your personal commitment with this vision. The world of Muslim-Jewish relationships is the Pascal’s circle, whose center is everywhere; and you are certainly no exception. You are its centre, too.

7) Visualize for a few moments sincere public leaders in the Middle East promoting and sharing the process of Jewish-Muslim awakening to true friendship and long-term cooperation. Remember this old axiom, that “there must be more merit in attaining a goal which is difficult, as long as it is noble”.

Imagine your local community and country as lands of universal peace. See them as ready to a new era of unconditional fraternity. Keep this image with yourself. Preserve it in your mind and heart.
Every new phase in mankind’s evolution needs its own pioneers. If you can realize you are co-responsible for the collective awakening, consider taking the necessary steps for these visions and glimpses of the future to remain strong and to gradually expand their influence.
One of the best ways to develop your power of good-will is by helping accelerate the on-going, largely unconscious dawning of the next civilization of universal brotherhood.