Peace Begins With Us
John Lennon wished for it in 1971 when he sang,
“Imagine all the people, living life in peace”.
Jill and Sy Miller knew where it started in 1955 when they wrote a song that has since been sung world wide by multiple artists,
“Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.”
Six centuries BCE, the philosopher Lao Tzu expressed this universal truth:
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
You have tracked your interest in Peace
to the website of
Greater Orlando Center for Spiritual Living – GOCSL
We are a Central Florida member of the international organization, Centers for Spiritual Living.
Below is a brief introduction to our philosophy’s thoughts and stance on peace.
The Centers for Spiritual Living describe the path between individual peace and world peace this way:
With peace at the center of our spiritual awareness, we can then extend peace into every relationship we encounter, one relationship at a time, and move toward greater realization and demonstration of peace on Earth.
Here are excerpts from a statement by the Spiritual Leader of Centers for Spiritual Living released shortly after the invasion of Ukraine February of 2022 embracing all the areas of our planet impacted by violence:
We stand with people everywhere who are standing for peace and protesting violence. We stand with people everywhere who are praying for all leaders and all governments. We stand with people everywhere who dare to grieve the use of violence as a means to attain dominance and economic security.
We stand humbly with people everywhere who can look to their personal and national history of complicity in violent means without losing courage or hope for a better world. We stand with people everywhere who help in times of crisis and who refuse to celebrate death, innocent or otherwise.
We call you to join us in teaching strategies for peace and what it means to engage in peace consciously. We call you to share your views and concerns with family, community members and congregations, considering the question, “What can be done to end conflict?” We call you to connect with other spiritual and religious communities to discuss these issues and take collective action.
We call you to join us with affirmative prayers, vigils, meditations and hymns of peacemaking. And we call you to reaffirm your trust in the power that these tools have to help mend feelings of helplessness and contribute to peace.
If you are interested in answering this call, please join us – in-person here in the Orlando area, on-line as directed elsewhere on this website or at any Center for Spiritual Living worldwide.
Greater Orlando Center for Spiritual Living’s vision is: Love connecting a world that works for all. Our mission is: To be a conscious and inclusive community sharing spiritual principles that inspire and empower.
And finally, here is a prayer for peace for the world by our founder, Ernest Holmes
A Prayer for World Peace
I know there is but One Mind, which is the Mind of God, in which all people live and move and have their being.
I know there is a Divine Pattern for humanity and within this Pattern there is infinite harmony and peace, cooperation, unity, and mutual helpfulness.
I know that the mind of man, being one with the Mind of God, shall discover the method, the way, and the means best fitted to permit the flow of Divine Love between individuals and nations.
Thus harmony, peace, cooperation, unity and mutual helpfulness will be experienced by all.
I know there shall be a free interchange of ideas, of cultures, of spiritual concepts, of ethics, of educational systems, and of scientific discoveries–for all good belongs to all alike.
I know that, because the Divine Mind has created us all, we are bound together in one infinite and perfect unity.
In bringing about World Peace, I know that all people and all nations will remain individual, but unified for the common purpose of promoting peace, happiness, harmony, and prosperity.
I know that deep within every person the Divine Pattern of perfect peace is already implanted.
I now declare that in each person and in leaders of thought everywhere this Divine Pattern moves into action and form, to the end that all nations and all people shall live together in peace, harmony and prosperity forever. So it is….Now!
– Ernest Holmes
