Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (072) BOOK 5. Absolute Values and a New World Order CHAPTER 6. Absolute Values and the Search for Peace for Humankind
1. Today’s world yearns for peace
As you are no doubt already aware, the more chaotic the world becomes, the more human beings thirst for peace.
Then how can peace be achieved? In today’s world, orderliness is increasingly being disrupted in many countries and cultural regions. To establish peace means to restore a true order. To restore a true order, subject partners and object partners must find their positions and establish mutual, harmonious relations.
People desire peace not only on the world level but also on the level of nations, societies and families. Even individuals yearn for peace between their mind and body.
Of these various levels of peace, which should be established first? It is easy to think that if world peace were established first, then on that basis the peace of nations, societies, families and eventually individuals would also be established.
But this is wrong. This is actually the reverse of the sequence necessary to establish peace. It is individual peace that must first be realized. Then family peace can follow, and only on that foundation can the peace of societies, nations and the world be expected. This is because individuals are the basic unit of families, and families are the basic unit of societies, nations and the world.
Frequently leaders believe that through outstanding organization and superior policymaking they can restore the order of society and create world peace. In reality, however, the peace of humankind can never be realized through these two means alone.
International organizations such as the United Nations and thought systems such as communism and democracy have all tried to realize world peace in their own ways, but peace is still far from our grasp, and the world is experiencing more confusion as the days go by. |