During my recent visit to the Groveland Correctional Facility where I spoke, a young man gave this to me,  I was moved as I began to read… 

Upside Down World by Enriguq Fierro

[Read more…]

Two remarkable modern heroes, were on the air with Dr. Gary Null. Null’s ‘Conversations With Remarkable Minds series. Both on this same hour show, a great listen. Gary Null is known as a take-no-prisoners health activist and author of several books including the recently published Reverse Arthritis & Pain Naturally.

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a renown environmental and social activist, and formerly one of India’s top nuclear physicists. She is regarded as the leading pioneer behind India’s ecological and ecofeminism movement. In 1982 Dr. Shiva founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which led to the creation of Navdanya – an organization dedicated to the restoration of organic farming across India and the preservation of indigenous knowledge and culture.

For several decades, Vandana has fought for changes in the globalized practices of agriculture and food. She has traveled the world speaking against biopiracy and patenting of indigenous knowledge by large agricultural and pharmaceutical corporations. Her activist efforts have created grassroots organizations throughout the developing world to counter genetic engineering of crops, as well as empower women throughout the third world.

Born in 1934 in Durban, South Africa, Arun Gandhi is the fifth grandson of India’s legendary leader, “Mahatma” Gandhi. Growing up under the discriminatory apartheid laws of South Africa, he was beaten by “white” South Africans for being too black and by “black” South Africans for being too white. His grandfather taught Arun to understand nonviolence through understanding violence.

For 30 years Arun worked as a journalist for the Times of India and founded the Center for Social Change which has aided half a million people in 300 villages of Maharashtra. Coming to the US in 1987 Arun and his wife Sunanda founded the M.K Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence now located at the University of Rochester in NY, and later founded the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute to foster economic equanimity in depressed regions of the globe. He was recently elected to the Board of the Trustees for the Council for a Parliament of World Religions. Arun has written a series of books on Gandhi’s life,  the relevance of Gandhi’s vision for today, and has edited publications of his grandfather’s writings including “The Way of God.”  His website is at www.ArunGandhi.net

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Lynnea Bylund is managing director of Gandhi Legacy Tours, Director of Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, founder of Catalyst House and has nearly three decades of experience in administration, marketing and business development. She was a nationally recognized spokeswoman for the emerging alternative video and information delivery industries. She has a degree in holistic health-nutrition from the legendary and controversial health educator and activist Dr. Kurt Donsbach, she is the founder of two not-for-profit small business-based wireless trade associations and has lobbied on Capitol Hill and at the FCC where she has spoken out strongly against the cable TV monopoly, illegal spectrum warehousing and ill-conceived congressional schemes to auction our nation’s precious airwaves to the highest bidder.  Ms. Bylund is a founder and former CEO of a Washington DC telecommunications consulting and management company with holdings in several operating and developmental wireless communications systems and companies. In 1995 Lynnea became the first female in the world to be awarded a Broadband PCS operating permit – she was one of only 18 winners, along with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon in the biggest cash auction in world history, raising a whopping $7.7 billion. Lynnea also spear-headed the successful effort to launch the first cable TV network in the South Pacific islands.

>Follow Lynnea on +LynneaBylund, Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook, Pinterest, & YouTube

A Bewitching Performance! 

By Arun Gandhi 

Fifty-two 16 to 18 year old, black and white, rich and poor brothers all from the City of Brotherly Love were the greatest Ambassadors of the US.  They captured the hearts of all those who had the pleasure to hear them sing in New Delhi over the New Year.  These young people form the core group of more than 180 young men bound together as the Keystone State Boy’s Choir. 

I first heard them early last November when they invited me to help prepare them for their first ever visit to India.  We assembled in a church that straddles the rich and poor zones of the city.  The congregation is uniques — almost equally divided between the whites and blacks.  The Choir uses this for practice because “the poor can walk and the rich can drive their cars to this venue,” they explained.

The most moving and almost spiritual experience for me was when we all stood around “Gandhi Smriti” — the site where Gandhi was assassinated — at exactly 5.17 p.m. on Friday and the young men sang “Lead Kindly Light”, followed by a Muslim peace prayer and a Hindu hymn.  The time and day were the exact moment when Gandhi’s life oozed out of the three bullet wounds inflicted by the assassin.  It was an emotional and spiritual moment that will live with me forever. 

Later they sang in the streets of Delhi, at the Gandhi Bhawan, University of Delhi, at the Salaam Balak Trust where rescued street children taught the US visitors some saucy Bollywood moves, at the residence of the American Ambassador to India and finally at the India International Center where an overflowing crowd gave the boy’s a standing ovation lasting several minutes. 

If anything this proved beyond doubt that a little imagination and dedication can breakdown the barriers that divide us and kindle brotherly love amongst all.  

Repost Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute: 

Let’s make 2014 the year that helps lift children out of poverty.

Working together we can do this!

 We thank you for your support throughout the year!

“Children should be making sandcastles not bricks” photo credit: UNICEF #notochildlabour

 If you feel you are too small to make a difference,

try sleeping in a room with one mosquito.

Here is the final part of Moe Yonamine’s guest blog.  

Part Three by Moé Yonamine

Since our Skype two weeks ago, my students are still talking about two stories Arun told—the mountain story and the peace-farmer story.

Jenni beautifully captured Arun’s message in an essay she wrote: “Have you ever noticed how people of different religions go after each other? And not just religion, but races as well. This hasn’t happened to me personally, but I’ve seen people where they are treated differently just because their skin is a different color, or they come from a different religion. We brought the topic up to Mr. Gandhi, and he told us the story about the mountains. The story is simply saying that there’s no reason for us to treat each other badly. We may come from different parts of the world, but we are all heading to the same place. We all want to reach the top of the mountain. We just take different paths to get there.”

This story unfolded in the home of Jesse a few nights after the talk with Arun. Jesse shared this in his reflective writing: “Living in a household where Catholicism has been in my family since the start can be conflicting when I talk about my perspective on religion. I believe in self-reflection and peace with your physical and spiritual body. My mom is open to hear my beliefs, but my step-dad isn’t on the same page. The most recent discussion I had with my step-dad was intense. While I listened to my step-dad, I thought about the talk we had with Mr. Gandhi. I was thinking about the story of the mountain. I asked my step-dad why judge and talk bad about other religions. Religions may have different beliefs, but they all strive to get to the same place. Sitting in silence for a couple of minutes made me realize he was thinking. He began to talk about his acceptance of my beliefs. I would like to think that I changed the way he thinks after that night, and that he would end the type of violence he was doing.”   [Read more…]

When asked to invite a friend to a Thanksgiving Dinner a very good friend of mine declined categorically saying: “Thanksgiving is a family affair.”

It makes me wonder why do we still hold on to such a narrow concept of a human family?  If a nation is made up of insular families and the world is made up of insular nations how can we have unity and peace? 

Unity and Peace is something every individual claims to work for and yet no one seems to address the question: Can unity and peace be achieved without compassion?  Should compassion be restricted to only family and friends? 

The newspapers in India reported on December 2 that an estimated 13 billion rupees worth of vegetables and fruit is dumped every year because India lacks adequate storage cold storage and transport facilities.  The United States also is estimated to be tossing two billion pounds of food into the garbage every year.  Yet half the population of India and almost half the population of the world live and die of hunger.  Can we ignore this and live with our conscience?

The rich will spend billions of dollars worldwide during this festive season to give each other and their families gifts that no one really needs.  The rich will get richer and the poor will continue to suffer and die of starvation.  Is this what humanity should be about?   

Our materialistic life style has made us greedy, self-centered and selfish; traits that cannot be considered civilized.  When Gandhi said: We must become the change we wish to see in the world, what he meant was the expansion of our narrow concepts of a human family, to feel the anguish and pain of others who are less fortunate and in however small measure do something to bring joy and happiness to those who are less fortunate in a constructive way. 

Charity, like many things in modern society, takes two forms.  One that is motivated out of pity and the other that is motivated by compassion.  Pity leads to oppression whilst compassion leads to freedom.  When we make people dependent on charity for their survival we are oppressing them but when we make people stand on their feet and rediscover their self-respect and self-confidence it leads to constructive action. 

I believe that if we drift with the prevailing wind we will destroy humanity and the world but if we change our attitudes and concepts there is still hope of saving civilization and making it more meaningful.   

Part Two by Moé Yonamine

Eager students packed the library, 138 of them seated in rows of chairs waiting for the moment Mr. Arun Gandhi’s face would appear on the screen.  Excitement, anxiety, and laughter filled the room. My students would soon have the opportunity to have a face-to-face conversation with Arun, whose universal work we had studied along with that of his grandfather. Roosevelt High School is one of the most diverse schools in Oregon, and the faces of students represented peoples from across the globe and the great challenges and struggles many have encountered in their lives and street experiences.

These students entered my class in September, many outraged and frustrated with the Trayvon Martin verdict. The experience of Trayvon hit home to so many who regularly experience issues of race and violence in their own communities. Trayvon Martin’s case had become a symbol of injustices they had seen in their own lives and the verdict a reminder of what society sees as the solution. “What’s the point of even trying?” Damarté said during the first week of class. He explained that the outcome okays violence as the just solution to an injustice, so speaking up is not going to do much. My sophomore class waited for my response, many feeling the same discouragement.

We needed to take a bold look at the world and decided to use the lens of asking these two questions: What should the world know about this situation? What should the world (and people) do? We looked at many issues around the world today, discussing injustices the students saw and how they connected to them through their own lives, including issues of stop-and-frisk in New York, post-apartheid conditions in South Africa, continuing conflicts in Israel/Palestine, and the devastating genocide in Rwanda. We analyzed deeply about what should be done about the injustices they identified. “How come we don’t learn from things that have happened to other people?” said Carolina. “Why, if we all know how bad the Holocaust was, did we let something like that happen in Rwanda?”  “And the Israelis who went through this in the past are now part of the same thing with the Palestinians,” Curtis said covering his face with his hands in frustration.  “It just keeps repeating, Ms. Yonamine,” echoed Carolina, looking for an answer. I heard the voices of despair.  [Read more…]

Some students of Salisbury University’s Center for Conflict Resolution made this great 12 minute video, a tribute to my life and mission as well as my family.  I want to thank Kelly Sullivan, Rebecca Demers, April Cahill and Dr. Brian Polkinghorn. Namaste!

Great music was incorporated in the soundtrack: Awake My Soul-Mumford and Sons Your Hand In Mine-Explosions In The Sky Crazy Girl- Eli Young Band Lost In My Mind- The Head & The Heart.

Love and Shukriya,  Arunji

I asked Moe to write a series of three blogs for our website to show how the message of nonviolence affected her and now through her students she teaches.  I hope you will find it interesting.  Love to all of you, Arunji

Arun and Sunanda Gandhi

Meeting Mr. Arun Gandhi – Part I by Moé Yonamine

It was the fall of 1994 when I first met Mr. Arun Gandhi. I was a sophomore in high school, the only child of a single, immigrant mother, moving from city to city trying to make ends meet. As we slowly drove around our latest new town of Muncie, Indiana, a jug of cold water was thrown through our open car window into my mother’s face. A truck full of men laughed and yelled, “Go back to where you came from!” Hatred targeted me directly, and I felt rage like I never felt before. Soon after, our car was graffitied with racial slurs. My school was no exception to the atmosphere of intolerance we were experiencing but rather was a place where racial segregation, separation, and fears of the “other” were magnified.

When I learned that Arun Gandhi would be speaking at nearby Ball State University, I made sure I was there. I wanted to hear something positive and powerful that I could believe in to fight all of the injustice around me. This couldn’t be the way it was supposed to be. But how could we help change things? What power did we have as young people to fight hatred and make a difference? I went to listen to Arun in an auditorium filled from wall to wall with college students. He spoke about fighting, but fighting with our spirits, non-violence and compassion. I needed to talk to him. I waited until his speaking was over, stood in a long line, and finally got to shake his hand. I vividly remember saying, “You don’t know me, Mr. Gandhi, but I really need your help. Will you come to my school?” He listened patiently alongside his wife, Sunanda, as I rambled on and on about the injustices, the anger, the violence, and the hatred at my high school.

The next day, I was called out of my first period class. The teacher told me that someone was there to see me. I hurried to the main office to find none other than Mr. Gandhi, gently smiling. “Well, where are the students?” he said. My heart burst with joy and excitement. Quickly collecting as many classes as I could, we packed the auditorium within minutes. He listened quietly, intently, as a small group of students bravely spoke up about racism around us while many others sat back, cautious and apprehensive. Looking for an answer and a way to overcome, we waited for Mr. Gandhi’s response. He shared with us the story of the pencil, a beloved lesson learned from his grandfather, Mohandas K. Gandhi. [Read more…]

The Keystone State Boychoir (KSB) will embark on a concert tour of England and India on December 25th, 2013. Sixty young men will perform concerts throughout the cities of London, New Delhi, Agra and Neemrana.  The boys will delight audiences with enthralling performances while walking in the footsteps of one of mankind’s great heros – Mahatma Gandhi.

Founded in 2001, the KSB has enjoyed unprecedented success for an organization so young, and is recognized today as one of the very finest community-based boychoir programs in the world.

The Keystone State Boychoir consists of more than 170 boys between the ages of eight and eighteen who sing an enthralling repertoire from the classical to the contemporary. Major choral works that KSB has performed include Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, Rejoice in the Lamb, and St. Nicolas Cantata, the Fauré Requiem, and John Rutter’s Mass of the Children. The Boychoir has sung with the region’s most distinguished ensembles, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and Opera Philadelphia, for which it serves as its official boychoir.

Internationally, the Keystone State Boychoir has performed in major concert halls, including the Manaus Opera House in Brazil, the Petronas Philharmonik Hall in Malaysia, and the Hanoi Opera House in Vietnam, as well as in venues throughout Canada, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, Monaco, France, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Norway.

In 2009, KSB made history as the first choir to travel to, and perform in, Antarctica. In doing so the Boychoir became the first choir to have sung on all seven continents. It  made history again in 2012 when it travelled above the Arctic Circle to Svalbard, Norway – the most northern settlement in the world. There the Boychoir sang in the northernmost church and theatre on the globe. While in Norway, KSB had the profound honor of singing at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in Oslo honoring Aung San Su Kyi.

The KSB experience is one of truly joyful music-making. The vibrant sound of the Boychoir is enhanced by its compelling stage presence. The Music Directors believe that today’s choral music should be felt and seen, as well as heard, if the art form is to thrive. They have found that when the unique energy of boys is channeled into choral singing of the highest standard, the result is unforgettable performances for audiences and singers alike.

This particular concert tour will feature the Graduates of the Keystone State Boychoir. Affectionately known as “the Grads,” this ensemble is comprised of talented high school singers who make up the tenor and bass sections of KSB. Some of the Boychoir’s Alumni will also join the Grads on this concert tour. The Graduates stellar singer-musicianship, breathtaking diversity in repertoire, and dazzling polish have earned them a stellar reputation nationally and internationally. 

Original Post Source: Gandhi Legacy Tour

I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of the city of Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were well within the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I always look forward being able to go to town to visit friends or go to the movies. One day my father asked me to take him to the city to attend a conference that lasted the whole day and I jumped at the chance.

As he went to town, my mother gave me a grocery list of things I needed and my father asked me to take care of some outstanding things like taking the car serviced. When I left my father, he told me: See you here at 5 pm and we will go home together.

After quickly completing all the assignments, I went to the nearest cinema.I focused so much with the film, a John Wayne movie, I forgot the time. It was 5:30 pm when I remembered. I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting. It was nearly 6 pm.

He anxiously asked: Why are you late? I felt bad about it and I could not say I was watching a John Wayne movie in Durban. Then I told him the car was not ready and had to wait. I said this without knowing that my father had already called the garage.

> Continue reading at Gandhi Legacy Tour

Davide Martello World Tour for Peace Announces USA Tour
November 2013-2014

“The Peace Pianist,” playing in Taksim Square

Davide Martello, an Italian pianist based in Germany, began his world tour over two years ago with the intention of helping to bring about a more peaceful tomorrow.  He has played in over 60 cities worldwide, including Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan; Sarajevo, Bosnia, and Pristina, Kosovo.

In June 2013 Martello brought his grand piano to Taksim Square in Istanbul, during the Gezi Park protests.  It was there that journalists gave him the name, “The Peace Pianist.”  For the three days that he played in Taksim Square, he showed the power of music to calm tensions.  Police and protesters alike took off their riot gear and listened to him play, and for over 50 hours there was peace in the square.

His performances covered by

CNN,  New  York Times, Huffington Post, The Times.

Everyone has their own gifts they can use to make the world a more peaceful place.  I’ve got my piano,” Martello said.

Martello will continue his world tour in America.  He will drive his piano across the entire continental United States to promote his message of peace through music.  He plays performances in outdoor spaces, believing that music outdoors causes all of us to reflect for a moment in the midst of our busy lives – a reflection that is often a movement of the human soul toward peace.  Martello performs in outdoor spaces for free.

In addition to playing in public venues he will also be playing for organizations that are helping to create a peaceful tomorrow (including Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, Partners in School Innovation, Peace and Brotherhood, among others).

Please find below Martello’s tentative schedule for the USA tour:

November: NY, Maine, NH, VT, MASS, RI, WV
December: NJ, Penn, DEL, MD, DC, WV
January: Virginia, NC, SC, GA, FL
February: AL, Miss, Tenn, KE
March: LA, AK, OK
April: TX, NM, AZ
May: CA, NV, OG, WA
June: ID, UT, CO, WY, MO
July: ND, SD, NE, KA
August: Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minn, WI
September: ILL, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio
October: New York City

This is part two of my Swedish adoption blog from my most recent visit to Sweden

Read Part One Here: My 132 Grandchildren!

The Many Who Died

 By Arun Gandhi

Pain and pleasure are like the two sides of the same coin. If saving 128 children brought us joy, there were many heartaches as well. In order to hide their pregnancies mothers ate very little so that the fetus did not grow. Then during the last weeks of pregnancy they would go to a relative in another town and quietly deliver the baby and within hours abandon it. The mother cannot be allowed to get attached to the baby.

So, life begins with many handicaps for these children. They are severely malnourished and equally traumatized by abandonment. It is difficult to imagine how anyone could survive so much agony in the first few days of life. It was no wonder that many died. Those who died within hours were better off than those who survived a few months more of disease and starvation. Sunanda and I often wondered how people could be so heartless to inflict such agony on innocent little babes! [Read more…]

Part 2 of my interview with Laura Savinkoff of Boundary Peace Initiative “BPI” (part 1 HERE and part 3 HERE)

3.   BPI: In general do you have any suggestions for the global peace movement so that it might be more effective in its resistance to the rise in economic imperialism with its continuing military oppression of ‘service or supply’ areas, the erosion or, in some places, total disregard for human rights and civil liberties, the takeover of nations and/or regions for exploitation by financial super powers and its economic “development” and wealth reallocation that often ignores the basic, human needs of the many, valuing them solely as another ‘resource’ for their productive/purchasing capacities?

Painting of Bapu in Ahmedabad

Since our goals in life are negative, becoming successful by any means possible, it brings forth the worst in humanity.  We even tell our children to be successful in life (and success is measured in material terms) and get to the top by any means possible.  The first seeds of greed, selfishness and exploitation are planted in little minds.  Peace can become possible only when we collectively decide that materialism is not the ultimate goal in life and that we are not individual islands that can survive on our own, that we will bring about the “Change we wish to see in the world.” [Read more…]