Interestingly, a number of influential people including Malala Yousafzai, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu recently signed "An Open Letter to World Leaders," which ended with this plea:
Let's be clear: the actions we take in 2015 will decide which way the world turns for decades to come. Please take the right path.
Yesterday was officially the Chinese New Year, and according to Chinese astrology 2015 is the year of the goat (or sheep depending on who you ask), symbolizing peace. People born under this influence are known to be gentle, amicable, and kind. 2015 is also the 32nd year of the current 60 year cycle that occurs in the Chinese calendar. In kabbalistic numerology, 32 is represented by the letters Lamed and Bet, which spell “lev” in Hebrew, meaning heart.
I believe that this is the year that the universe is calling us— all of humanity— to return to our heart. With so much negativity in the world, we can no longer turn a blind eye to the pain of others. History has shown us, however, that when enough people come together in the name of kindness, care, and human dignity, big things can happen.
If we look for massive change every single day, we won’t find it. But if we look for the small things that we can do in a day—resisting the tendency to be judgmental, changing the way we interact with others, being open to listen to the views of others that may be different from our own — then we have the ability to shift ourselves into a spiritual framework. It’s the conglomeration of all our seemingly insignificant thoughts, words, and actions that inevitably create our reality and the energy that we extend into the universe as a whole.
Ultimately peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is a state of global harmony where pain and suffering cease to exist because we are no longer have need of them to reach our most elevated selves. Let us hope and pray this year that peace is not as far off as it sometimes appears to be.
