"We call upon each leader, be they in the private home, house of worship or place of labor,
to be a living example of peace for only in this way can we expect peace to move
across the face of the earth."

– from the Universal Peace Covenant

Peace is achieved by those who fulfill their part of a greater plan.

ONE VOICE December 31, 2005-January 1, 2006 -- The Story

6pm
Bryon Parrino
I have read and recited the Universal Peace Covenant with every shift in time zones today. The more still and present minded I am, the more I feel the immensity of connecting with others across the globe, the more I receive the vision of the Peace Covenant, and the more I receive my connection with I Am. I have had many beautiful moments of alignment. I have had a way with words and pictures, when communicating with others today, that has surprised me at times. It is important to notice these benefits of stillness because my little ego still wants me to believe that I cannot trust Self, mind, the universe, or others; it tells me that with a busy mind I can ?figure things out,? which is a lie that keeps me from reaching my vast potential beyond physical thinking and experiencing.

At 6pm the expectancy and unified, captivated attention of the New Years shift reached England. I have many family members there, as well as a friend from highschool. One by one I placed my attention with each of them. Using what I’ve learned about thought projection and mentally connecting with others, I found it easy to establish a connection with my aunt, uncle, grandpa, and grandmother. I know that there was at least one moment where each of them could feel the unity created by connecting and them being stimulated to experience our mutual deep affection. They do not know what I know about the mind so I’m sure they do not fully realize what they experienced. What I do know is that they each thought of me and smiled. It was great to feel it. That was enough. It made me very grateful for what I’m learning about the mind and mental discipline! It added to my desire to share this study with many others. I received into my Self, more fully, a vision of how this world is transforming to reflect the underlying connectivity of all things. I am grateful to be riding the wave that ushers in this new world. It won’t be long before more and more people are having mind experiences they can’t explain or understand. This is when each person who can aid will be invaluable to humanity.

Dr. Christine Madar --Paul and I take turns attending the reading of the Universal Peace Covenant during One Voice so we can tend to Alexandra Grace our two-year-old daughter. I attended the reading during the noon hour when our focus was on Asia and India. I gave my attention to Pran during the 12:30 pm reading as he lives in Delhi. He was our guide during the Metaphysicians People to People Ambassador trip in 1999. He loved the Universal Peace Covenant when he read it and he kept hundreds upon our departure, promising to give them to friends and family. I always make a special effort to be present while our attention is on India. Our delegation literally handed out thousands of Universal Peace Covenants and I see them as points of light that get brighter when we read the covenant here.

Alexandra added her usual spice to this reading. She associates candles with birthdays and when she came upstairs with her dad she thought for sure the candles in the center of the Dome were for blowing out. She watched Ki lighting a candle and tried it herself and then followed suit by placing her hands in the bowl of sacred water. ?Peace is active . . .?

I returned to the Peace Dome at 6:00 pm for the reading of the Covenant that honored the people in Ireland and England and everyone else in that time zone. I experienced the most magical moment as Kelley handed me the candle that was being passed around the circle. Our voices synchronized and resonated as if they were one as we leaned toward each other, giving and receiving the symbolic flame. This is a phenomenon that occurs in the Dome when voices match exactly. It really seems as if there is only one voice. I experienced it as transcendence and noted the line we were saying -- “Peace is achieved by those who fulfill their part of a greater plan.” It was a moment of perfection.

6:00PM-8:00PM The two hour space when we meet for dinner...
Damian - What a fantastic day! The discussion that we had at dinner was one of the most enlightening I have ever participated in. Much learning about how we were all raised, how we want to raise our children, how to teach our students, how we can all evolve our thinking. I am so thankful for every teacher who has come before me. I am thankful for Hezekiah and the children of teachers in the School of Metaphysics. I am grateful to be here in this time and space.

Kelley --Alexandra wanted to play Hide and Seek during the dinner conversaiton so I missed some of the end. I so enjoyed playing with her. It’s fulfilling to make everything new all the time. She radiates such joy. She teaches me so very much about infancy. When I went down to help with dishes, it was almost time to read the Covenant. I helped put stuff away and realized it was five to eight. I wanted to finish serving - doing the dish crew tango - because I felt like I had missed helping by playing. Then I stopped and thought... Alexandra, and giving to her, is more important than dishes right now. Do I feel that way about my own childhood, like I wasted my time by playing? I certainly feel like I missed the proper perspective lesson sometimes. I asked Tad if he was going to the Dome and he said all those who wanted to go should follow their soul urge and go. I did. I think I need to seriously expand my idea of service.

Laurie --The conversation at dinner was delightful and thought provoking.
I received gratitude and love in my heart. I love children as those who know me would tell you. The talk around the table gave me an opportunity to share an earlier expereince I had with Hezekiah and Alexandra. Hezekiah likes and is fascinated with the fire and candles, as most boys his age are. I, myself, love watching and learning about fire. Many times during the day he would light an extra candle or two and watch the wax drip onto his hands. Gentle during the day I had guided him to be mindful.

This time Alexandra had come up and loved the candles (Birthday!) I was filming so my attention was expanded through the room. I watched as Hezekiah once again took an extra candle and lit it, playing with wax. Alexandra watched and then proceeded to imitate, only stopped short by her mindful parents. Then Hezekiah went to put it out in the water bowl and Alexandra once again followed suit. I saw this as an opportunity to teach Hezekiah about his influence. At first he said that Alexandra wasn’t even near him, just then Alexandra came running up as if on cue. He stopped.

When I explained this to the others at the table I myself began realizing how many times I had forgotten someone is watching me. Am I being the example I want to see in the world? That is the reason why I do One Voice. I recognize how thoughts influence and has an effect on myself and others. “World peace begins within ourselves” I imagine as more and more realize this truth how the planet will evolve.

8:10pm
Dr. Laurel Clark-- I recited the peace covenant silently at 6 a.m. this morning in St. Louis, MO, and thought about everyone in the peace dome who had been reading the peace covenant since 4 a.m. As I drove to Windyville later in the afternoon, the sun streaming through the clouds made an awesome display, stimulating the thought in my mind, “peace is achieved by those who fulfill their part of a greater plan.” I felt very fortuntate to be going to such a blessed event as the Universal Hour of Peace and One Voice vigil at at the peace dome. Such a nourishing way to usher in the New Year.

At dinnertime, we had a discussion about respect, about teaching, about how to go beyond old childhood brain pathways to learn in the present moment and produce understanding. At 7 p.m. (during the discussion) the thought from the peace covenant sounded in my mind, “peace is built through communication. The open exchange of ideas is necessary for discovery, for well-being, for growth, for progress whether within one person or among many. We vow to speak with sagacity, listen with equanimity, both free of prefudice, thus we will come to know that peace is liberty in tranquility.”

At 8 p.m. we sounded the bell and lit a candle for a new continent as peace moved across Brazil. I read the list of cities, including the one where Marcia Roismann (former correspondence student who lived with us at the College for several weeks) lives.

9pm
Jennifer -- I was reciting the UPC, tears once again began to form. This time it was because I just had a conversation with an old friend from childhood who is constantly in pain and misery in her life. The tears are formed because of this thought, “Will she ever be able to experience peace?” I do not know that it will happen this lifetime, she is too asleep to any possibly to something different.

After reading the covenant we came inside the main building where I read the article that was written in the Springfield News-Leader about ONE VOICE: “A Call for Peace” The article was so eloquently written and my heart swelled with joy as I read. The article was a full almost two page article that related a picture of what we are envisioning for the world. Thank you Springfield News Leader for your support.

10:00 PM
Damian - After the ten o’clock reciting of the Peace Covenant twelve of us got to use the Universal Law of Attraction to choose a passage from a holy work to be interpreted in vibes next year. I chose the Bhagavad Gita and my passage talked about shining like the Sun. How wonderful! There are many references to the Sun in my life. I wrote a poem called be like the Sun in the Kundalini Poetry book. This is important to be because I am diligent to shine forth my light and my enthusiasm consistently. The other holy works were very appropriate and some were quite inspiring.

Barbara -- "We must realize that all peace desire peace." Our tradition of opening twelve holy works, one for each month of the new year, is carried out during this hour. The combined wisdom of the philosophers and leaders before us is like the fountain of immortality. To read whole literature is to be in the company of great thinkers. Such thoughts bring forth like kind in you. What a joy to recognize and appreciate Truth where ever you find it. What a freedom to love learning for it releases us from the pairs of opposites, the attachment to being right or being wrong. What a thrill to know "peace is first a state of mind."

11:00 PM
Tad -- At 11 p.m. I focus my gaze on the central candle. It is my center and I recite the Universal Peace Covenant as I connect with my physical birth center in Rochester, New York. I know my Mother is reading it with me and I am in the center of the light. The dome and the energy is moving around like a planet, rotating within a solar system that moves around within a galaxy that moves around. All of us are rotating within each other and we are all part of a greater plan. I smile within as I feel the Creator’s presence within the space that connects the whole. I feel as one in many life times and I experience my being connected with Self, with beings in galaxies far away and with my neighbor whose voice echoes within me as I am in the candle, in the experience, in the ever present now. I AM God.

Laurel - As we recited the peace covenant, I thought of the cities in Eastern Time where students in the School of Metaphysics were reciting the peace covenant at midnight: Indianapolis, Lexington and Louisville, KY, and Cincinnati. I also thought of my sisters in Atlanta and Miami, Tad’s mother in Rochester, my sister-in-law and nephew in New York City, all joining in One Voice.

Paul Madar-- I got to ring the bell for the first time. The scene from Dharamsala, India flashed through my mind--how fascinated I was to watch the buddhist monks perform their rituals of praying, sounding instruments, cymbals, bells and chanting. It was poetry in motion. I relish sacred moments, sacred space. It’s not so much the sacredness but the stillness of mind that a bell can call. At that moment there was a ceasing of miscellaneous thinking and an entrainment of purpose in everyone’s mind. That movment, that transition to a collectively still mind in a group is beautiful, powerful, mystical. The lesson of the bell is in the purposeful hand that rings it, and why it is rung.

Kelley -- After the bell sounded, I had this incerdible urge to pray. Up until now my thought projections had been very intense and directed to the vision I hold in mind of the Earth and all of its inhabitants, concentrated on the candle flames. As I assumed prayer pose, the image that I have been holding in my mind thrughout all of the readings came into my image maker. I see the Earth, surruonded and engulfed by the gentle light of peace, infusing all things. The Covenant became my prayer to Creator. Eyes closed, I prayed with my whole heart. As we began the lines, “We come together, all of humanity, young and old, of all cultures and all nations. We vow to stand together as citizens of the Earth...” I felt the tears well from within me. I knew in that moment that the unity I greatly desire for humanity was also the unity I desire for all the parts of myself. As above, so below. I felt joy. Then the most wonderful connection of all came into my mind unbidden. The images of the Pyramid burst into my vision. That’s it! A representation of the unity of all humanity, gathered to master conscousness as creators, all cutures and all nations living here on this campus! It made me wonder, in the very classical sense of the word, what it would be like for all of us in this vehicle to expand our selves enough to include that manifested creation as a reality. I realized the tears were no mere emotinal reaction, they were a real movement of emotional energy. Now I know the difference.

Dr. Terry - Laying the final tile (in the Peace Dome mandala) of 2005, my mind is very still and I feel very centered in the work we at the School of Metaphysics are doing. I feel as though this day has brought us much closer to ushering in Spiritual Intuitive Man. The concentrated thought of peace allows the spirit from within to express naturally. I look forward to the New Year and to the expansive growth in consciousness for all of humanity.
Hallelujah.

Kelley -- Last tile. What a wonderful, growth-filled and change-charged year. I live at the College of Metpahysics. Whoa! Gratitude.

Diary continues

tel. 417-345-8411

email: peace@som.org

Return to Index