How to Save the World

Yes, the way to save the world is to save yourself. The way to bring joy and peace into the world is to bring joy and peace into your heart. The way to alleviate pain and suffering in the world is to alleviate it in your heart.

There’s no mystery there, and if that was the end-all and be-all of this article, you might stop reading here, figuring we weren’t really going to get around to what you hoped we were, what the title of this article led you to believe we were: how to improve the situations going on in the larger world. You want to know what you can do about war, crime, poverty, and injustice, right? So let’s get into it.

For starters, let’s spend a moment discussing what not to do, what you may be shocked to realize that you’ve already been doing all along. First, stop fighting. The War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, the War on Poverty, the War on AIDS: all this War consciousness only attracts more war consciousness – more thirst for war, more justification for it, more things to fight against.

By perceiving the situation as one that must be fought against, you place yourself (and therefore the world) in a state of constant resistance. Your “fighting the good fight” only succeeds in creating more fight - more fighting and more things to fight against.

Secondly, stop dwelling on what’s wrong in the world. Global warming, racial intolerance, world hunger – all these things are part of our shared present reality. And being aware of them is different from being fixated on them. Being informed is okay; being inundated is not.

So are we advocating ignorance and inaction? Of course not! On the contrary, we’re advocating putting your attention where it can promote actual change for the better rather than perpetuating and reinforcing a prevailing problem.

The best way to illustrate this shift is with a statement made by the beloved Mother Theresa who said she would never attend an anti-war rally, but would be happy to attend any peace rallies she was invited to.

Make your immediate world, starting from the inside, one of peace, tolerance, justice, abundance, etc. As your immediate reality starts shifting to accommodate your internal shift, it will start a chain-reaction, attracting more of that energy around you and, in so doing, expand that energy outward into more and more of the larger world.

If you take action in the name of any of these larger, humanitarian, environmental or other causes, take positive, proactive action to nurture, foster, and create more of the world you want to live. In a world like this, there’s no room for fighting, and the more you focus your consciousness on better things, the more the fighting inside and out will simply fall away.