The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids

"From the ancient sages and mystics to modern political activists, the essential reality of a life of peace has not changed. Love for our fellow beings is always superior to hatred and fear. It does not take a great philosopher to understand that peace and justice in the world would be for the good of all, while war and oppression benefit a few at the expense of many.Those who truly realize that love and understanding are more effective in peacemaking than hatred and force are the people who will be changing the world for the better by communicating and educating others. As Einstein clearly saw, what is needed is a chain reaction of awareness from person to person to person. Once the truth is known in one's heart, there is no way it can be unlearned. In this time of awful danger for our planet, everyone has a moral obligation to act in some way to save humanity from the horrible designs of the hateful, the fearful, the selfish, and the greedy."

"...Emerson's inspiring lectures, essays, and poems elucidated a philosophy of life based on the inner resources of the self and revelation from the divine presence of the soul. "Trust yourself," he would say, and live spontaneously and freely in harmony with nature. He described the spiritual laws of life in essays like "Compensation", "Spiritual Laws", "Love", "Self-Reliance" and "The Over Soul". He found his own insights echoed in the Hindu scriptures and the Romantic poets. He urged an American renaissance of culture and influenced writers such as Thoreau, Whitman, Hawthorne, and the Alcott family."

"...In a discussion with Thomas Carlyle at Stonehenge a few years later, Emerson put forward the pacifist philosophy of non-resistance and non-cooperation with governments which institutionalize violence, as an indigenous American conviction; this idea was championed by the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and others who would not compromise on this point as Channing had. Emerson gave one or two anecdotes which made an impression on Carlyle, and concluded, "Tis certain as God liveth, the gun that does not need another gun, the law of love and justice alone, can effect a clean revolution."

"For Emerson, the soul transcends all conflict and has no enemies; soldiers he considered to be ridiculous. War is "abhorrent to all right reason" and against human progress· From the perspective of spiritual oneness he spoke of "the blazing truth that he who kills his brother commits suicide".