In these strange times, when leaders don't choose the path of peace and demonstrate little concern for the quality of lives of the people they represent, everyday citizens experience immense turmoil in their daily lives with family, children, colleagues, and society. Mental and emotional stress is at its tipping point. Can we restore a balance to societies? This podcast with Dr. Vie and Ash discuss the way forward. To follow the podcast audio scroll below.
Introduction to Inner Peace to World Peace
Well, hello there. I'm your podcast host, Dr. Vie. That's V as in Victor, I.E. And welcome to another episode in the inner Peace to World Peace Series. I'm delighted to engage in yet another dialogue with my colleague, one of the directors at the Dr. Vie Super Conscious Humanity Initiatives in Africa, Ash.
Welcome Ash to today's episode on inner peace to world peace.
ASH: Hi. Good morning.
DR VIE: Now, as you know since our previous episode a week ago, the world continues to grapple with this barbaric inhumanity. And our audience and people around our planet are questioning systems.
They're questioning beliefs and they're questioning leaders. And even the global bodies, everyone just wants to understand why this is happening in this day and age, and how to stop the inhumanity.
And you know, it's all so ironical because we're in fact celebrating the 75th year
of the enactment of the International Human Rights charter. And so today, our episode for our audience begins to be focused on inner peace to world peace.
So Ash, let's get started.
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ASH: 75 years had passed since we started trying to be better people. It doesn't seem to have worked.
DR VIE: Yes, indeed. It just doesn't, for some odd reason, you know, in the previous episode we were focused on how to live your best life.
And, and this is what you're saying, 75 years, even after the enactment of the International Human Rights charter, we still haven't to learned any better.
ASH: Yes, not at all. I, I think, definitely we've devolved significantly over the 75 years. So I have often pondered why haven't we changed? Why have we not learned from the mistakes we've made? And I am, I believe we have the wrong focus.
I think people are still focused on themselves. So the selfishness makes one believe that they're doing something better for the rest of humanity. But ultimately, if you analyze it, many people are still as selfish as they were 75 years ago or a thousand years ago.
It is just getting worse. They need to develop a collective consciousness, which is a phrase I use a lot, because I believe that's the best way to describe our path to oneness.
People need to see each other not as separate individuals, but as part of a collective where we all come from the same source, that we all have the same needs, and essentially we're all the same no matter what form or shape we take. Our core is identical, and that's where we need to begin.
DR VIE:
And you've summarized what we were talking about in the first episode on the fundamentals to this. And I think what's also quite important in, in all of this, when we're looking at where we are today and, knowing that we're certainly not in a better place than we were 75 years ago, we, we need to look at, as you mentioned, why is all this happening?
And is it due to the fact that we as individuals are not doing our part? Or could it mean also that there's something else also going on?
And this is where I, I oftentimes look into what an individual is, you know, as a human.
What I'm saying is, as an individual, we actually have the capability, completely the capability to be peaceful beings, to live in the state of inner peace as individuals.
We have that capability completely, but somehow the mind, because of the weight of the groups, it is the mind, the way the mind is that we tend to be roped into this group mentality.
In fact, we are indoctrinated into the group system right from get go depending on where we are born. So we are indoctrinated into beliefs, whether it is of the family, whether it is of the community, the nation.
We are told what the purpose of our life is- according to the beliefs of others. And then we are systematized into this series of competition that you have to compete with others.
And so we live in the state of fear because we feel that someone has to win, and for someone to win, someone has to lose. And another group then might take over.
So we live in this constant state of fear. And of course, this group mentality, it's not just one group that is doing this, but now we have multiple groups around the planet doing it. And so it's one group against the other group, one group against the other.
Rather than it going back to an individual to, for himself or herself realize individually without the filters of the group to individually understand introspect and feel this connection with their source. And that's where most of the problems come from
When we're looking at what the group mentality is and going with the group flow instead of the individual flow, because the individual has all this capability, but because they've got their group filters on, this doesn't even come into play.
ASH: Yes, you are absolutely correct.
And it all starts with what society defines as norms, which is then indoctrinated in our ideas from the time we are born. And that's when the pollution of the mind starts when we start getting taught things by our peers or by our parents, or by society at large as to how we should think, what we should want, and what society's definition of success is.
And I think it's geared away from believing that we as a species need to survive and to help each other, and it's more focused on separation.
And everywhere we look today, we see complete and separation from each individual to groups that see themselves separate and therefore different from other groups.
Whether it's that are the lines are defined by states, countries or continents or, or religion, or skin, all of these different things that society has placed upon us to help separate us from each other.
And the moment we start looking at another person as part of us is when we are going to effect any change. Society needs to realize that nobody wins if we all don't win, and that should be our focus.
DR VIE:
And this, what you're also talking about is this collectiveness, this oneness.
And I find it very, very easy most often to actually tap into this.
And I think most of us can, and some of us are.
A very simple way to do this, to go beyond just our noses or beyond the noses of our groups in their swarms and their mentality, if we could at any time just be outside, just look up at the stars, the planets, the sun, the moon, and we'll instantly realize that all we see when we look up is this harmonious expansion in diversity.
Because each of these stars, the planets, the sun, the moons, all of this, it's just so unique.
You don't find one that's a complete replica of the other. And yet we don't see a battle waging on up there. We just see this beauty and this amazing harmony.
There's no competition because there's enough space. And interestingly the space is expanding because of this harmonious expansion. Expanding. Developing. Evolving.
And we, of course, as the scientists say, we ourselves are made up of the same stardust.
So if we as individuals just in our quietness look up into the skies, we could immediately feel that connection.
And you are right, we need to look deeper into this, and we need to restore connectedness to firstly ourselves before we can even feel connected to another being. Because that's what's missing.
We have lost the connection with our own inner being.
ASH:
Yes, absolutely. And I like that you bring up the fact that as far as, far out as we can see, around us and and beyond, we're all made from the same basic elements.
And, on a physiological level, that's absolutely true. And harmony is a natural predisposition that everything around us has.
And we, we need to be able to appreciate what is around us.
I think if we take a lesson from the universe, that we're inherently, a collective, and we need to embrace that.
And a thought occurred to me whilst you were talking, there are times when we've seen humans come together as a collective, as they should be.
And what are these times that have occurred from time to time where people come together, almost unconditionally loving each other? The times in my life that I've seen this happen is when catastrophes happen, whether it's a massive earthquake or something like 911 or most recently, the covid pandemic, where people actually where kind to each other for the most part.
I'd walk into a store and strangers would come up to me and thank me for being there for them.
And as separated as everybody needed to be during this pandemic. I don't think they were ever closer than I've ever seen them before in terms of viewing each other as, as the same species, as as those one unit. And, and if we live our lives continually that way that would solve the problems.
It shouldn't take a pandemic to catalyze these feelings. That's how people naturally should be viewing each other, not just each other, but everything around them.
For me, personally, when, when I look around me and I'm sitting in a park right now, with my Husky Chrystal, and I, and I can hear the birds and I can see berries on trees, and I, I feel I truly, truly feel a part of everything that I see inside of me. I feel a part of everything here.
And, and we need to be able to feel that for our surroundings and for each other, in order to feel completely content.
DR VIE:
And you brought up an interesting aspect here is the question of when have we actually seen people come together?
And most often it's been when there's a traumatic experience as we're now seeing whether it is with Israel, having their traumatic experience on the seventh, but now for over 70 days (as of tis podcast), we're seeing this collective traumatic experience and people trying to come around, come together around the planet to reinvestigate what's actually been going on in Palestine.
And what I remember being from South Africa and growing up in the time of apartheid, when we were so separated, couldn't vote for the President. And so many atrocities were happening.
I remember one instance where we really did come together as a collective, and that wasn't out of trauma. And I was in the country at that time in a situation where it was the, the World Cup. It was being held in South Africa. And for the first time we were a free nation. Apartheid had just been abolished.
We had elected Nelson Mandela, who was previously branded as a terrorist, as part of the falsely stigmatized ANC terrorist organization, to be our first president.
And that scene out in the streets in Cape Town, where we were all celebrating South Africa’s win in the sporting event, but people from all races, I've never seen that before in South Africa, because firstly, we used to live in separate areas because of the Group Areas Act of segregation, so how often did everyone come together?
But there we were all on the streets, hugging each other, whether it was African, Indian, Colored, White (the four main race groups legally separated by apartheid since 1948), whatever it was, we were just hugging each other.
People were crying, people were celebrating the sports event, but actually celebrating freedom, because it was the first time we all came together to celebrate freedom.
And it goes back to what I said in the previous episode about all life emanating from one source, that life is founded on freedom.
And in this journey of life, we are meant to explore the diversity of life. And we were meant to experience joy. And we are meant to satisfy our dreams.
And with the understanding that you deserve to live your life as you see fit, but also realize and permit, I'm using the term permit very loosely, allow others to live their life as they see fit.
And this restores our connectedness so that we can feel this collective bond.
And so:
We will then not just want to feel peace, but actually be peace.
Not just want to feel loved, but to be loved.
Not just to feel safe, but to be safety.
Now, we, what we've been taught, though is the other way around.
No, no, no, no, no, no. You actually, you need to feel peaceful. You have the right to be loved. So fight for love. And you have the right to be safe, so wage war to feel safe.
Instead, if we say, look, firstly what we really need to experience as individuals, we need to be individually peaceful.
We need to individually be loving beings.
We need to individually be the face of safety, meaning not to harm enough.
Then we feel safe, then we feel peace, then experience love.
But this has been reversed since birth..
So we need to introspect on what it actually means to be an individual human and to access everything that we were meant to be.
ASH:
I like that you touched upon feeling safe and feeling happy and feeling loved. And the only way for any of us to feel and achieve any of those states is to actually just give it away.
So in order for us to feel loved, we, we need to give away love to other people. And that's what humans needs to understand.
Instead of trying to extract love or happiness or safety from others. If everybody did the exact opposite, the reversal, like you mentioned, we would have no problem if everybody saw another person and loved them, them, no matter what their perception of that person was, then our problem would be solved.
So that's what we need to attain. We need to learn to share what we have, whether it's our happiness or whether it's our safety or whether it's our love.
But those are the things that are critical that we share with other people. And if everybody does that, then everybody will have that.
DR VIE:
And it's important, I think, also for our children from an early age to begin to understand and realize this, because as we mentioned right in the beginning. We learn our first beliefs, our first entire systems, we actually come across it as we're growing up within the family, or whether it's within the care givers that surround us and the support systems.
And hence, I feel that children need to start exploring this at an early age.
And as they grow up to be more independent, it would be wonderful if each youngster will have the opportunity to travel on their own outside of the family unit, outside of the belief systems, outside of the group mentality, outside of boundaries.
Even sometimes our peer groups might be that group mentality. But just to, to leave that familiarity.
And, there's a saying that goes:
Familiarity breeds contempt.
And, and this is what I mean to, we need to break free from that familiar surrounding and to be in a different location, to explore the world, explore the different cultures, the newness of everything, the different people, the different languages, the different lifestyles, the different beliefs, the values.
And that way, as we mentioned in the previous episode as well, the brain itself begins to expand its capabilities. We become more intelligent. We're using more of what we were bestowed with.
And that's how we start this movement of inner peace to world peace, with children, with the youngsters.
And as we believed the universities used to be a place where we, we could voice our opinions. We could articulate about all sorts of things. It used to be the ground where everything could be discussed, because it's only through dialogue, it’s through discussions, we begin to understand each other and we can forge the way ahead as a collective.
And I think this is quite evolutionary and what I've seen as well around the world throughout my nomadic life, where I've come across youngsters who are already beginning to explore the planet at an early age, and their perspectives are quite different from that, what we see in groups and clusters of people who say, no, this area needs to only be for people with our beliefs, who look like us, who think like us, and who have our values.
That becomes very restrictive and limiting and as we discussed in the previous episode, shrinks the ability of the brain itself!
We've actually seen this limited thinking in play, especially when the Ukraine war started, and the world just came together with the shock from the atrocities.
And in the USA and EU we, we heard this one mantra being repeated;
“Oh goodness, they look like us, so we have to help them.”
And so the borders were open, countries were inviting the refugees in, they were giving them visas and work permits, jobs, hotel accommodation, registration into Yoga and dance classes. They were treated like precious humans.
And then something similar happened where Palestine and the strip of Gaza has been invaded. A similar situation as to what happened in Ukraine, a smaller area invaded by a military power -even though Ukraine was a sovereign country with its own military power.
A completely different reaction played out that was most revealing. Because the people no longer looked like us.
And this is what I'm saying, if from an early age our youngsters can explore diversity outside of this comfort zone of their religions, their group mentality, their systems, their country, their nationality, then we can actually pave the way for a better, better future because we're creating a collective mentality.
ASH:
Yes, definitely. And that's where we need to begin with the younger generation and encouraging them to explore the planet. To encourage them to explore the diversity, amongst them.
You mentioned, universities and how they used to be. And it took me back to to my first days at university.
And as you know, I grew up in an apartheid South Africa as well, and I never truly spoke to a White person until I went to university. And I was 17 at the time. So I had spent 17 years not knowing anything about any other cultures other than my own, which by law the Group Areas Act and segregation that I was forced to live in and restricted by legal boundaries.
But when I went to university, I, it was fantastic. I met people from different areas, different parts of the country, and most importantly, different cultures. And then we realized that we we are all the same.
We all had the same needs and we had the same fears. And even though we were all grew up in such separate worlds, in those individual worlds, everything was the same and there was absolutely no need for separation.
I'd like to think that most universities may still offer that diversity, but there's a lot of other factors that have come into play now at, at universities that have caused further restrictions.
But yes we need to encourage all of those people who are in elementary school and high school to start exploring the cultures in the world around them, whether it's through exchange programs or just traveling during their vacations, while still maintaining their freedom.
We, I want to say we should make it mandatory, but rather than mandatory, we should, we should make more of those experiences available to more people and try to remove the restrictions that that hinder that like visas and passports and borders and, and things like that. And that's when people will start to see the world as it really is.
DR VIE:
And now of course, also with access to the internet, our youngsters can be doing that from a very early age if it is built into the curriculum so that they can explore not just through books and through materials, but through discussions and dialogues with others around the planet.
Because I think this is what is missing. Our refusal to entertain discussions and dialogue with people who are different from us and with people who we are having great conflict with. We need to talk more to our enemies instead of only talking with friends.
That should be the first line of action, dialogue and conversation. Violence, apartheid, massacres and wars shouldn't even be an option
Let alone genocide. Genocide means that we have failed in our duty to ensure humanity first.
So this is so important that we are in a lifestyle that says, hey, it's okay to talk freely, to voice your opinion, to engage in discussion because it's through mind exchanges that we
actually understand each other better and the discussions can go on and on and on because there's so much to learn, so much to explore.
And what I really, really love is seeing the change around the planet where we have couples who are coming together across the colour line, across the religious line, across even the gender line.
You know, and this is so beautiful because it's just all about love. It’s a sign of expanded consciousness and advanced intelligence.
And we need to be loving.
As the great Mahatma Gandhi said,
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
His message is profound
It's, unless we ourselves can be peace, they can never really be peace in the rest of the world, and we'll always live in a state of fear.
It's only when we are that love, that we can experience love.
And it's only when we are that safety meaning we don't harm others, then we also begin to feel safe.
Peace begets peace.
And that's imperative. It goes back to our previous episode and discussions about the fundamental premise of freedom.
We must have freedom to talk, freedom to voice concerns, freedom to listen to what the other person's saying and to empathize, understand, and put yourself into their shoes. Go visit their lands, understand their culture and history, understand what they're actually experiencing, especially if they're suffering and they're in trauma.
And I think with the leaders, we have so many leaders who all they do is sit in their ivory towers and engage in immense decisions that impact humans and the planet, without being on the ground, understanding the person face-to-face. They massacre millions with the excuse of bringing safety to region, and they throw their soldiers the young talent of their countries to their deaths under the auspices of protecting their countries.
If only leaders would live among the people they want to make decisions about, they themselves will experience a different dimension. Their own selves will begin to expand.
And so in conflicts, it's so important to make sure that you visit each of the countries engaged in the conflict to truly understand what is going on and to engage in dialogue first.
I think it's so important.
ASH:
So we've had, opportunity to touch again very briefly on a lot of things that need to be changed because of people's beliefs.
To summarize, it all starts off when we are very young and because of our lack of exposure to other societies, other cultures and other people's beliefs, I think it's really important for everybody to explore all of these, but to do so respectfully and with an open mind and with a mindset that says to oneself, the other person could be right.
Instead of like, so many of us automatically have a preconceived notion that everybody else is wrong and that our way is the best way we need to learn from each other.
And I think on that note, if we can open up for any questions that people might have or suggestions or ideas or anything that they would like to talk about or contribute to this particular topic, and then we'll try to answer them and perhaps, have further discussions and more input from people and see what their thoughts are.
Please post your questions, input, comments below and voice your thoughts. It's only through discussions that we can pave the way for a world at peace.