The 9 Petalled Flower Of Peace: Foreword

Having been involved to write a document summarising what I had sensed to be the "mood of the conference" which met in Jaipur in January 2014, I meditated long and hard on this task. It came to me, as if from above, that it should be conceived as a flower, with a series of petals, emanating from a central stem. This was because it is a known fact to all philosophers and thinkers who have dwelled on the complexity of peace and nonviolence, that it impinges on all areas of life and society, and therefore any declaration of value must address, in some way, all those separate areas, yet at the same, make clear that they are all interconnected. Having conceived this idea, the separate petals and their contents, more or less filled themselves in as I was writing, and based on my experiences in the various workshops, plenaries and from private interactions with others at the conference, as well as my experience of over 30 years campaigning, writing and teaching about the philosophy of peace and non-violence. As a further confirmation, when our conference visited the samadhi of Acharya Tulsi, we sat in meditation around the beautiful shrine, in the town of Bikaner, where we had travelled to meet with Acharya Mahashraman the successor to Acharya Mahapragya, and I found copious flower petals scattered around the shrine, as if a sign that the petal concept was indeed the best way to sum up our conference. As my further contribution to the proceedings of the conference, and by way of a formal academic paper to present to those who attended, in retrospect, I have decided to give some detailed comments and references to the Jaipur Declaration itself, so that colleagues can see the thinking that underlies the wording chosen. Hopefully this contribution will stimulate others to think through the issues involved, so that together we can work on creating a truly non- violent world, or at least, a less violent world, than we are living in at present. Such a world would be more beautiful, more tolerant, more creative, more alive, more loving, and more compassionate. There would be more flowers, and fewer guns, tanks, bombs and rockets. So may this declaration and these footnotes help, in some small way, to usher in such a world!