A Worldwide Televised
Concert and Telethon
"Music is the pathway to the heart." – Voltaire
A daring idea to transform global consciousness, end world hunger,
poverty, and to provide food, clothing, shelter and safety for
children.
"Never doubt that a small group of committed individuals can change
the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
An annual, worldwide-telecast concert of superstar musicians inspiring
the possibility of love for one another, combined with a
celebrity-hosted telethon which raises the funds necessary to
implement programs to resolve global issues affecting children.
"Music should be healing, music should uplift the soul, music should
inspire; then there is no better way of getting closer to God, of
rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection,
than music, if only it is rightly understood."
- The Sufi Hazrat Kahn -
REGISTERED WGA
Steve R. Robertson
Executive Director
Project Peace on Earth,
A Globally-Televised Concert & Telethon
10620 Le Conte Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 871-2965 Office / email: projectpeaceonearth@earthlink.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." – Proverbs
Imagine a globally-telecast, annual concert that funds the programs
that systematically end world hunger and related disease, that
empowers those in extreme poverty, and that provides for food,
clothing, shelter, safety and education for tens of millions of
children worldwide. Imagine the most spiritually inspired SuperStar
Musicians performing spiritually inspirational music from the most
mystical concert venues on the planet: Egypt's Great Pyramids,
England's Stonehenge, Australia's Ayers Rock, Peru's Machu Picchu,
Japan's Mount Fuji, and California's Mount Shasta.
Imagine how billions of people can be transformed as superstar
musicians perform and sing "From A Distance" as a special orbiting
satellite zooms in on worldwide candlelight vigils for peace, and
instantly mixes these images into a simulcast music video for everyone
to see and experience for the first time…tens of millions of people
around the world all holding a common vision for peace.
"From a distance the ocean meets the stream and the eagle takes to fly,
From a distance there is harmony and echoes through the land,
. . .From a distance we all have enough and no one is in need,
From a distance there are no guns, no bombs, no diseases, no hungry
mouths to feed,
From a distance we are instruments marching to a common plan,
Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace, songs of every man,
. . .From a distance I can't comprehend what all of this war is for,
From a distance there is harmony and it echoes through the land,
It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves, it's the heart of every man."
Imagine a weekly reality television show called "Project—Peace on
Earth" that tracks how proceeds from the Concert literally impact the
lives in global communities benefiting the causes for which they were
raised. A show that features a celebrity host and philanthropist,
supported by a team comprised of experts in the fields of science and
technology, medicine, education, fundraising and logistics,
construction, business, and international politics, leading a
humanitarian effort to address and resolve issues of health, food,
clothing, shelter, safety, education, and economic sustainability in a
remote global community. Imagine a show that also enlists the
brain-trust of undergraduates from major universities (schools of
business, science and medicine, economics, engineering, etc.) to
support the remote communities in completing a business and logistical
plan that will form the basis for the Project-Peace on Earth team to
implement sustainable support.
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
The Spiritual Origins of Sound and Music
"People say that the soul, on hearing the song of creation, entered
the body, but in reality the soul itself was the song."
- 14th Century Sufi poet Hafiz
Research has shown that music has the power to change emotional
states, shift our mental outlooks, change our physiology, and impact
spiritual awareness. Certain types of music, devotional in nature,
can also have the power to transform individual and collective
consciousness into the heightened states of love, forgiveness,
compassion, and physical healing. These heightened states of love,
forgiveness, and compassion are also what empowers human awareness to
identify societal, geopolitical, and environmental problems, and at
the same time create and implement solutions. This paper explores the
possibility of how a globally-telecast concert of spiritually inspired
music can shift the collective consciousness so that each of us
experiences our innate divinity, and witnesses and recognizes this
same divinity in others, resulting in our ability to recognize the
sacredness of our planet's wildlife, its natural resources and our
custodial responsibility and honor for the earth. In this way, we may
grow to honor the spiritual, cultural, and ethnic diversity that is
the watershed of God's creative expression.
"I believe that from the earth emerges a musical poetry which is by
the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources cause
to exist a phonology of music, which evolves from the universal known
as the harmonic series. And that there is an equally universal musical
syntax, which can be codified and structured in terms of symmetry and
repetition." - Leonard Bernstein
The earth and universe, according to all major religious texts, were
created and brought into form through sound. The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita,
which predates the Bible by some three thousand years, literally
translated means "Celestial Song." Its' text states: "In the
beginning was Brahman, with whom was the Word, and the Word was
Brahman and Brahman said this world shall be and the world came into
being."
"And God said 'Let there be light." - Genesis
Similarly, in the Bible's Gospel of John it states: "In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
According to John the Evangelist in the first century A.D., the
Biblical translations of the 'Word' means 'Primary Harmony.'
Egyptian religious texts state that the Singing Sun created the world
with its cry of light. He sang: "This world shall be," and the world
came into being. The religious texts of the Aztecs also referred to
God as the 'Creator' and state that "He sang the world into
existence."
Hindu teachings describe the 'Word' in terms of the sound 'OM,' which
is the vibratory essence of God and the creative energy used to bring
the universe into existence. Buddhists refer to this energy as the
'Primal Vibration,' teaching that it was divided into 12 tonal
derivations, each of which gave rise to and corresponded with the 12
signs of the Zodiac, the 12 months of the year, the 12 hours of the
day (yang), the 12 hours of night (Yin), as well as the 12 notes of
the chromatic scale.
"All things are aggregations of atoms that dance and by their movement
produce sound. When the rhythm of the dance changes, the sound it
produces also changes . . .Each atom perpetually sings its song, and
the sound at every moment creates dense subtle forms." – Alexandra
David-Neel
Music and all audible sound, according to these spiritual texts,
represented the audible manifestation of the "Word," 'OM,' or 'Primal
Vibration.' In fact, the great Sufi master, Hazrat Inayat Khan, went
so far as to say: "What makes us feel drawn to music is that our
whole being is music; our mind and body, the nature in which we live,
the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is
all music."
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
"And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and
truth." - John 1:14
In physics, Einstein's statement, "Energy and mass (matter) are
different forms of the same thing mass/energy," creates the foundation
for understanding the energetic/vibratory nature of all matter. As
energy increases, matter begins to take form. In the 19th Century,
physicist Ernst Chlandi discovered that when he sprinkled sand onto a
flat surface affixed to a pedestal base, and then drew a violin bow
perpendicularly across the edge of the surface, round, mandala-like
shapes were formed as the grains of sand were moved by the soundwaves
generated. This work was followed by Dr. Hans Jenny in a field he
named 'Cymatics' or the study of waves. Jenny was able to capture on
a device called a "Tonescope," the patterns of a circle when "OM," the
sound associated with God, was chanted into this device. He also
discovered that concentric diamond shapes also formed within the
circle during the process.
"Architecture is crystallized music." - Goethe
Music differs from other art forms, such as paintings, sculpture,
photography, or literature, in that they express more of a linear or
more of a one and two-dimensional form of matter/energy than does
music. As such, these art forms are processed by either one or the
other brain hemispheres. Music, as a type of matter, remains in a
vibratory state and is thus processed holographically, or by both the
right (intuitive) and the left (analytical) hemispheres of the brain.
The philosopher and poet William Kindler proclaimed that "of all of
the arts, music is the perfect art, because it strikes the soul
without the aid of the intellect."
"The Science of the future will be based on sympathetic vibrations."
- Rudolph Steiner
Music affects consciousness because of two Laws of Physics: the first
is called the Law of Sympathetic Vibration, and the second is the Law
of Entrainment. The Law of Sympathetic Vibration works like this:
take two acoustical (string-type) musical instruments, such as a
piano, violin, or guitar, and place them near one another. As the
string on instrument A is struck, the vibration from that instrument
will resonate and carry across the room striking the strings on the
untouched instrument B causing it to vibrate. Likewise, this Law of
Physics is what facilitates the communication and transference of a
song's emotional message (harmony or melody) from the mind of the
composer and its performers to the mind of the listener, thus causing
the person to feel and to take on the corresponding emotional essence
of a song's compositional intent (happy or depressed, peaceful or
violent, hopeful or hopeless, and so on). Similarly, the Law of
Sympathetic Vibration explains why a person gets "goose bumps" when
listening to a song.
"The companions of right reason are decency, accord, and cadence;
decency in song, accord in harmony, and cadence in rhythm." - Plato
The Law of Entrainment, or as it is technically called, 'mutual
phase-locking of two oscillators, was first described by a Danish
physicist in 1767. This Law of Physics was discovered one afternoon
as the physicist observed the armature motion of two pendulum type
clocks that he had placed side-by-side on a fireplace mantel.
Initially, the armatures swung in opposition to one another. Then,
after a short period of time, they began swinging in unison
(entraining). This Law of physics occurs as a result of energy always
seeking the path of least resistance or, said another way, finding the
most efficient means of expressing itself. In other words, objects
(clock armatures) moving in unison (harmony/entrain) expresses a more
efficient use of energy than when they move in opposition (disharmony)
to one another. Similarly, the Law of Entrainment is what causes the
unconscious neurological tendency of a person to move their body or
tap their foot in rhythm to music.
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
"The noble-minded man's music is mild and delicate, keeps a uniform
mood, enlivens and moves. Such a man does not harbor pain nor mourn
in his heart; violent and daring movements are foreign to him." -
CONFUCIUS
Ancient Chinese philosophers believed that music was an energy formula
that could be used for either the benefit of humankind or misused
according to free will. In one of their most revered texts, 'The
Spring and Autumn of Lu Bu Ve,' it states: "When desires and emotions
do not follow false paths, then music can be perfected. Perfected
music has its cause. It arises out of justice. Justice arises from
the true purpose of the world." So strong was the Chinese belief in
using music to promote peace that every word for music (Yuo) is
represented by the same graphic symbol as the word serenity (lo). To
the Chinese, music represented the highest form of prayer and the most
powerful means of directing consciousness towards spiritual
realization. Therefore, it was important that composers and performers
understood, integrated, and aligned themselves with the higher order
thoughts of love so that their music promoted a harmonious vision for
people.
"A Psalm is the tranquility of souls, the arbitrator of peace,
restraining the disorder and the turbulence of thoughts, for it
softens the passion of the soul and moderates unruliness . . .So that
the singing of psalms brings love, the greatest of good things
summoning the help of angels."
- The Christian Church of St. Basil
David Tame, noted author of The Secret Power of Music states: "Surely
the lowest common denominator which determines the precise nature of
any musical work is the mental and emotional state of the composer
and/or performer. It is the essence of this state which enters into
us, tending to mold and shape our own consciousness into conformity
with itself. The fact is that all types of musicians, good and bad,
tend to be quite aware of the communicative power of tonal art.
Through this communicative power, the emotional state of one artist
can be transferred to a hundred, or even ten million listeners."
"A great musical performance is actually an exercise in the accurate
and exquisite communication of emotions. For the audience to feel the
emotion in a musical phrase the performer must also feel it in mind,
body, and spirit."
- Felix Mendelssohn
Throughout history numerous noted scholars have been interested in the
relationship between a musician's creative intention and the resulting
composition's affect on the emotional and spiritual state of the
listener. One of the earliest recorded observations was made by
Iamblichus, a pupil of Pythagoras. He observed, "And there are
certain melodies devised as remedies against the passions of the soul,
and also against despondency and lamentation, which Pythagoras
invented as things that afford the greatest assistance in these
maladies. And again, he employed other melodies against rage and
anger, and against every aberration of the soul." In Timaeus, Plato
stated, "Man's music is seen as a means of restoring the souls,
rendered confused and discordant by bodily affliction, the harmonic
proportions that it shares with the world soul of the cosmos."
Aristotle also concluded that, "Emotions of any kind are produced by
melody and rhythm; therefore by music, a man becomes accustomed to
feeling the right emotions; music has thus the power to form
character, and the various kinds of music based on the various modes,
may be distinguished by their effects on character- one, for example,
working in the direction of melancholy, another of effeminacy; one
encouraging abandonment, another self-control, another enthusiasm, and
so on throughout the series."
"Music is the shorthand of emotions." - Leo Tolstoy
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
"All conditions and all circumstances in our lives are a result of a
certain level of thinking. If we want to change the conditions and
circumstances, we have to change the level of thinking that is
responsible for it." - Albert Einstein
In the early 1800's, Thomas Young, an English physicist, conducted
ground-breaking research to establish that light traveled in a
wave-like pattern in what he termed the "double-slit experiment."
Approximately one hundred years later, Einstein's experiments on light
proved that it traveled in a straight line (or as though it had been
shot out of a gun) in what he termed the "photo electric principle."
These differing conclusions confounded the physics community who
pondered how could light travel in both a wave pattern and also in a
straight line? In 1934, Heisenberg, the renowned German physicist,
answered this question in his experiments, which lead to the principle
of quantum mechanics, called the Uncertainty Principle. Heisenberg's
experiments concluded that the very act of observing a natural
phenomenon actually changes what is being observed. In other words,
if the experimenter's hypothesis is that light travels in a wave
pattern, as was the case with Young, then these thoughts literally
cause the light particles at a subatomic level to conform to this
outcome. Similarly, if the experimenter sought to prove the hypothesis
that light traveled in a straight line, as thought Einstein, then
these thoughts caused that outcome.
"The superior man tries to promote music as a means to the perfection
of human culture. When such music prevails and when people's minds
are lead to the right ideals and aspirations, we may see the
appearance of a great nation."
- Confucius
The phenomenon of thoughts causing specific outcomes, as defined by
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, has been described by spiritual
doctrines throughout history in terms of how humans express free will
and co-create. "As a man acts, so does he become. As a man's desire
is, so is his destiny, "states the Upanishads. "All that we are is a
result of what we have thought," stated Buddha. The Bible's King
Solomon said, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Interestingly, the root origin of the word "man" means consciousness.
Shakespeare concluded, "Nothing is either good nor bad, but thinking
it makes it so." Emerson proclaimed, "The ancestor of every action is
thought."
"The profound meaning of music and its essential aim . . . is to
produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man and with the
Supreme Being." - Igor Stravinsky
Pythagoras, the father of mathematics, believed that the philosophical
principles of love, peace, wisdom, compassion, forgiveness, and joy
were embodied in the harmonics of what he termed, "Music of the
Spheres." This music, he believed, was heard and recreated in
proportion to the composer's level of spiritual evolution and most
importantly their intent to create compositions from that devotional
mindset. This state of spiritual intention, according to history's
great mystics, is accessed through a devotional and contemplative
listening to the small, still voice within that guides the self into
union with Divine Will. "Be still and know that I am God," says the
Bible. Paramahansa Yogananda, author Autobiography of a Yogi stated,
"The Veda's, India's most ancient scriptures, were divinely revealed
to the rishis, or 'seers.' It was a revelation by sound, directly
heard." Aldous Huxley said, "After silence, that which comes
nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Kahlil Gibran,
author of The Prophet said: "My soul counseled me and charged me to
listen for voices that rise neither from the tongue nor the throat.
Before that day, I heard but dully, and naught save clamor and loud
cries came to my ears; but now I have learned to listen to silence, to
hear its choirs singing the song of ages, chanting the hymns of space,
and disclosing the secrets of eternity."
"I function as a channel through which music emerges from the chaos of noise."
- Vangelis, composer of Chariots of Fire
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
"from the deeply laid principles of inherited associations, musical
tones would be likely to excite in us, in an indefinite manner, the
strong emotions of a long-past age." – Darwin
From birth, our consciousness is hard-wired to hear and to listen.
The first bone to develop in the human fetus is the ear bone. The
cochlea, part of the inner ear, looks like the shell of a snail. In
it, there are some 60,000 hair cells, each of which resonates like a
microscopic tuning fork, to a specific frequency or sound. As one of
these specific hair cells resonates, a corresponding neurological
impulse is sent to the brain, causing the release of neuropeptides, or
what are called "communicator molecules."
"Music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of
spirit." - Beethoven
According to Candace Pert, Ph.D., former Chief of Brain Biochemistry
at the Clinical Neuroscience Branch of the National Institute of
Health, "Everything in your body is being run by these messenger
molecules, many of which are peptides. A peptide is made up of amino
acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. Peptides are amino
acids strung together. They (peptides) appear to mediate
intercellular communication throughout the brain and body. We've
actually found the material manifestations of emotions in these
peptides and their receptors. Emotions, they're the bridge between the
mental and the physical or the physical and the mental. Our organs
and tissues are physically affected by moods and attitudes because
they come from the realm of the mind and transform themselves in the
physical realm through the emotions. Emotions affect whether we'll
get sick from the same loading dose of a virus and directly influence
the probability that an organism will get sick.'"
"Every sickness is a musical problem, the healing therefore, is a
musical resolution."
- Novalis, the 18th century German mystic poet.
Similarly, Margret Kemeny, Ph.D., assistant professor in the
department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University
of California, states "We tend to think of feeling happy or sad as
intangible. We experience these emotions, but we don't imagine that
they have physical correlates. But in fact, when we feel happy or sad
or angry or afraid, very specific changes take place in particular
regions of the brain." In 1964, the renowned biochemist, Anfinsen,
drew an interesting analogy between music and protein molecule
stating, (in the 2nd edition of Stryer's text book on Biochemistry),
"It struck me recently, that one should really consider the sequence
of a protein molecule about to fold into a precise geometric form, as
a line of melody written in a canon form and so designed by Nature to
fold back into itself, creating harmonic chords of interaction
consistent with biological function."
"Consciousness is somehow a by-product of the simultaneous,
high-frequency firing of neurons in different parts of the brain.
It's the meshing of these frequencies that generates consciousness,
just as tones from individual instruments produce the rich, complex,
and seamless sounds of a symphony orchestra." - Francis Crick,
Co-Discoverer of DNA
The renowned Japanese mathematician and research scientist, Susumu
Ohno, converted the mathematical formulas of living cells into musical
notes in an attempt to make the patterns of complex genetic codes more
discernable. In another experiment, Ohno reversed the process by
converting phosphoroglycerine kinase, an enzyme that enables humans to
metabolize sugar, into a mathematical formula and then played its
musical equivalent to a group of Japanese kindergarteners. He found
that it always put the children to sleep because "It sounds like a
lullaby." In another, he reversed the process, translating the notes
of Chopin's funeral march into chemical equations and found the entire
passage appeared almost identically to a cancer gene found in humans.
Ohno concluded, "This is not surprising, as nature follows certain
physical laws, the universe obeys them, as does the process of life.
Music follows the same patterns as well."
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
Researcher Dorothy Redlack performed strictly regulated scientific
experiments to measure the affects of different types of music on
plant growth. In her experiments, music was piped into
atmospherically-controlled cabinets that housed seedling plants. Over
the course of several weeks each of the cabinets/planets were exposed
to different types of music for a period of three hours daily. One
group was exposed to acid rock, another to classical music, and a
third to devotional music. Within ten days, plants being exposed to
acid rock began leaning away from the speakers and after a month they
died. Plants exposed to classical music leaned towards the speakers
and grew at a normally-expected rate. However, plants exposed to
devotional music leaned towards, rapped around the speakers, and grew
two inches taller than the other plants being played classical music.
"I don't read music. I have the music in mind and sing with my body."
- Pavarotti
In a recent article in Scientific America, the Nobel-Prize-winning
quantum physicist Brian Josephson, Ph.D., theorized, "that music stems
less from superficial cultural influences than from timeless universal
'structures' of the mind." By probing the human response to music,
Josephson stated, "Researchers may discern these structures." Carl
Jung, the renowned psychiatrist, referred to these "timeless universal
structures" as archetypal symbols which, in essence, formed the
subconscious software from which human emotions are experienced and
from which thoughts are created. Jung also believed that each
person's thoughts contributed to a planetary matrix he termed the "The
Collective Consciousness," a unified data base, from which, each mind
both received and contributed information. Jung's thesis was later
substantiated by the scientific research of world renowned biologist,
Rupert Sheldrake.
"O believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the
round world,
which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate in thyne ear." - Emerson
In Sheldrake's experiments he measured the learning curve of
individual rats (of the same genetic lineage) as each ran in
succession through a maze. The experiments showed that when Rat A ran
through the maze in X time, its' thought process (or learning curve)
was broadcast to and received by the proceeding Rat B, thus reducing
its time to run through the maze. Sheldrake found that when Rat F
finally ran the maze it benefited from the aggregate learning curves
of Rats A, B, C, D, and E. From these experiments he concluded,
"Everything we do . . . thoughts, feelings, emotions, behavior, is
deposited, if you will, in a sort of gigantic information bank that is
encoded into this planetary thought field that represents the
collective experience of the human race." Sheldrake called this
thought field the "morphogenetic" or "M-Field."
"The presence of those whose minds are not purified and still becomes
a source of unrest for others as well as for themselves... Everyone is
tired by their presence, and their atmosphere causes uneasiness and
discomfort."
- The Sufi Message
In Dr. William S. Condon's 1975 article in the Journal of Autism and
Childhood Schizophrenia entitled, "The Multiple Response to Sound in
Dysfunctional Children" he writes, "Just as our internal rhythms are
locked on hold with one another, they are also entrained with the
outside world. Our physical and mental states change in rhythm with
the seasonal swing of the earth and the sun, with tides, with the
day-night cycles and perhaps the cosmic rhythms that present-day
science has yet to isolate and define. When these rhythms are forced
out of phase, disease is likely and dis-ease is inevitable."
Through foolishness they deceived themselves into thinking that there
was no right or wrong in music - that it was to be judged good or bad
by the pleasure it gave. By their work and their theories they
infected the masses with the presumption to think themselves adequate
judges . . . As it was, the criterion as not music, but a reputation
for promiscuous cleverness and a spirit of law-breaking. - Plato,
(Laws)
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
"If one desires to know if a kingdom is well governed, if its morals
are good or bad, the quality of the music will furnish the answer." -
Confucius
The Journal of the American Medical Association's report on epidemics
recently found that there have been dramatic shifts (increases) in
depression worldwide, specifically citing that "younger adults are
getting sick at higher rates." This finding supports a hypothesis
that the collective thought patterns of humanity, especially young
people, may be negatively-oriented or fear-based. According to the
most recent U.S. Census, there are some 68 million young people
between the ages of 5 and 25 living in the United States.
"Everything we do is connected to music. Civilization is based on a
certain level of discipline and order, and this is the essence of the
structure of music." - Isaac Stern, renowned violinist
Is there a relationship between the music that children listen to and
the way that they might act and grow up? An article in ADWEEK noted,
"Teenagers and young adults buy more albums than their elders and are
more likely to take their message to heart, whether philosophy,
politics, or style." If this is so, we might consider how Nirvana's
1993 album "In Utero" (meaning 'in the womb'), which sold over 9
million units worldwide and featured the song written by Kurt Cobain
entitled, "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," might have influenced its
listeners. Coincidently in this same year the American Psychiatric
Association's Annual Report found "3 to 6 million U.S. children are
clinically depressed." In 1994, Pearl Jam sold almost 4 million
units of "Vitalogy," an album that featured a song that lyrically
described a child explaining to a therapist why spankings are better
than hugs: "Because you get closer to the person." A review by KRT
News said the album's lyrics provided a "harrowing observation that
reminds us how effective Pearl Jam has been in using pain to make that
valued connection with its fans." In this same year, UNICEF's
year-end report found that the U.S. ranked third in the world in youth
suicides.
"Even music can be intoxicating. Such apparent slight causes
destroyed Greece and Rome,
and will destroy England and America." - Henry David Thoreau
In 1993, Dr. Jonathan Klein published his research in which he
surveyed 2,760 adolescents ranging from ages 14 to 16. He found that,
"There is clearly an association between embracing heavy metal-music
and risky behavior (smoking marijuana, cheating, stealing, drinking,
alcohol and having sex)." This same year Snoop Doggy Dog released his
album, "Doggy Style" which sold almost 1 million units in it's first
week on sale. Lyrics from the album stated, "Walking down the street
smoking indo (marijuana) sipping on gin and juice . . .Later on that
day my boy Dr. Dre came threw [sic] with a gang of tangeray [sic] and
a fat ass J of some blue bonic chronic (marijuana).
"The three goddesses of Beauty, Truth and Goodness are independent and
jealous ladies, each with their own particular sphere of activity...we
must clearly differentiate their distinct roles if we are to lay the
basis of a valid aesthetic judgment; and it would be perverse to
allocate music to any except the first." - Francis Routh
A 1995 University of Michigan study found that, "One in four school
children have used illegal drugs before reaching High School." This
same year Green Day, Rolling Stone magazine's Band-of-the-Year,
released their album, "Dookie," which sold over 5 million units. Lead
band member Dirnt was quoted in a feature article interview as saying:
"I think drinking and doing drugs are very important. Everybody
should drop acid at least once." In this same interview Billie Joe
Armstrong, lead guitarist and vocalist for the group, stated, "Say you
hate somebody, and you sit and think about every possible way that you
could kill them. You're like, 'I f..king hate'em' . . . That's what
I like to write about."
"Rome fell not because of political or economic ineptitude, not even
because of barbarian invasions; Rome collapsed through a leaching away
of meaning and a loss of faith. Rome fell because of a barbarization
from within."
- Lewis Munford, renowned historical scholar.
POSITION PAPER: PROJECT—PEACE ON EARTH (con't)
". . . the purpose of human life is to achieve our own spiritual
evolution, to get rid of negativity, to establish harmony among our
physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual quadrants, to learn to
live in harmony within the family community, nation, the whole world
and all living things, treating all of mankind as brothers and sisters
- thus making it finally possible to have peace on earth."
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.
In order to transform our world we must first transform ourselves. The
Disciple Paul stated, "If you want to be transformed, be not of the
world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Confucius
said, "Do not fight evil. Strive consciously to create the good."
Similarly, Jesus stated, "Resist not evil (with evil). Evil should be
resisted only with its logically effective opposite: Good or Love."
Sophocles proclaimed, "One word frees us of all the weight and pain of
life; that word is love." In the epic 1926 film Metropolis, the
dialog states, "Without the heart, there can be no understanding
between the hands and the mind."
"No one is without love, only some cannot see it. Love is the force
that brings all living beings, into being, Being together, in love."
- Lyrics by Chris Spheeris from his album "Pathways to Surrender."
Individual emotional and physical healing, as well as the eventual
attainment of planetary peace, all begin from the same place, the love
of self. Music that is inspired and composed with an intention to
promote love, and inner peace awakens the mind and opens the heart to
actualize the wisdom of Jesus who stated, "Love thy neighbor as
thyself."
"Music can minister to minds diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted
sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with its sweet
oblivious antidote, Cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff which
weighs upon the heart."
- Shakespeare -
Great composers like J.S. Bach wrote at the head of their compositions
"A.M.D.G.," the Latin initials for "To the Greater Glory of God."
Thus, when musicians create and perform from a devotional and
self-realized state this intent, at the level of quantum physics,
formats their music into a sacred energetic formula that expresses the
enlightened perspective of love or what Pythagoras called 'Music of
the Spheres.' When this music is experienced by the listener, the Law
of Sympathetic Vibration dictates that their mind will resonate
correspondingly. Therefore, the process of listening to
spiritually-inspired music establishes the protocol whereby the mind
stills and the body relaxes. In this state, the mind, is moved into a
present-time reality where the sacred vibration of harmony (OM, Aum,
Amen, or Cosmic Vibration) is least distorted and the mind is quiet
enough to both witness and remember the Song of the Self, or the
mystical principle of the "I AM," the Divinity within. Here, the
mind is moved from passive hearing to a conscious listening of the
"Word" or "Primary Harmony." In other words, the process of listening
to sacred music empowers the mind to perceive and release illusions of
fear, pain, and suffering so that it experiences and remembers the
reality of the love that it already is. Thus, atonement and the
integration of Divine Will is made possible.
"Music should be healing, music should uplift the soul, music should
inspire; then there is no better way of getting closer to God, of
rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection,
than music, if only it is rightly understood."
- The Sufi Hazrat Kahn -
One person cannot give to another what he or she does not first have.
Peace from emotional disorders and physical disease, peace between
cultures and on our planet are inextricably linked to our ability to
first find peace within ourselves, to find what Jesus called "The
kingdom of heaven that dwells within."
"The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is my one
goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my
function and my life. The Salvation of the world depends on me." – A
Course in Miracles
"The healing of ourselves is the healing of the whole nation."
- Buddhist poet Thich Nhat Hanh –
