Promoting Peace

The Foundation seeks to build a culture of peace. Such a culture needs practice in daily living throughout the community. We look to be involved with people locally and from afar to join the efforts made to promote peace world-wide.

The Foundation's entire body of work aims to contribute to individual, community and global well-being by bringing a focus to the factors that contribute to peace.

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We feel peace is more than the absence of war. It is about creating a safe, inclusive, respectful and positive community. Personal peace is a pre-requisite for any efforts at promoting peace more widely. Overcoming factors within us that disturb our minds and our relationships with others needs more than just a wish but a life based on practising principles that lead to personal growth.

Our publications (books and free articles) are one way of helping. We also promote understanding of parenting which is the basis for a child to grow into a positive, contributive human being. Over many years we have engaged in the study and promotion of classical Yoga as a means for self-development and finding inner peace.

We have organized many seminars, workshops and symposia that have dealt directly or indirectly with peace. We are focusing on making the knowledge of the many eminent presenters who contributed to these events more widely available by publishing it on this website (see free articles).

In 2005 the Foundation organized a major symposium and cultural program "Pathways to Peace" at Griffith University. Following this the Foundation organized a series of festivals to involve the local community in celebrating peace. A diverse festival program including art, drama, film, multicultural fair and football carnival made a contribution to peace in our community.

The festival was initially inspired by Vijayadev Yogendra who wrote a short monograph “Peace -– A Way of Life”. The theme for each festival reflected a positive approach to a recognized community need. Festivals themes have been:

  • 2005 - “Finding Peace in our own Backyard”
  • 2007 - “Finding Common Ground”
  • 2009 - “Creating Connections”
  • 2011 - “Everybody Counts”
  • 2013 - Building a Culture of Peace

Since the local events calendar became crowded, our attention has turned more towards the effort to support the development of peace through education, namely through the School of Total Education and through the work at the Centre for Healthy Living.

One of the many events that brought peace into a practical, personal focus was a seminar Ordinary Blokes Finding Peace.

This seminar did not rely on experts to discuss the concept of peace, but was about how three men had lived with values that promoted peace in their lives. Their stories are personal and an inspiration to young people, in particular young men, to see how one can progress through life experiences, utilizing role models and other inputs to come to a place of maturity and balance. The three speakers were (from left to right with chair for the evening):

Chris Clayton - martial arts instructor
Andrew Borrell - research scientist
Clive Duffy - family counsellor

You can download their talks here:

Ordinary_Blokes_-_Chris_Clayton.pdf
Ordinary_Blokes_-_Andrew_Borrell.pdf
Ordinary_Blokes_-_Clive_Duffy.pdf

 

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Nurturing Spiritual Growth, Health, Education and Peace

Credit: Quotes from "PEACE A Way of Living"

Contact us

14 Freestone Road, Warwick
QLD 4370 AUSTRALIA
Phone: 617 4661 3340
Fax: 617 4667 1333