| Children's Category 2nd Prize
HARMONY
by Mariam Tazeem
Pakistan, Age 11
No matter how important you think material things are in life-and
they do make it more comfortable-inner peace and harmony are key.
If you control your emotions, no one can control you. If you are
at peace, then all good things will come your way. Have a dream,
remember nothing is impossible. Don't let anyone or anything deter
you from your goals in life. Repel the negative, and absorb the
positive. Always be yourself and have a good time. Visualize yourself
as you want to be and you will be it.
Peace begins within our own being where God resides beyond our
seeing, and peace is one thing you'll never find, when you are at
war in your own heart and mind.
Love comes in all shapes and sizes. When it comes into your life,
grab it, hold tight to it, and allow it to warm your heart and soul
forever. How rare and wonderful is that flash of a moment when we
realize we have discovered a friend.
Friendships are the one thing in life that can be constant. No
matter whether you speak often to each other, or time passes. Sometime
you will find that your thoughts wing their way to your friend,
just as they are also at that time, thinking of you.
Peace within you must come first. It comes in many ways. It may
quietly overtake us, or it may burst upon us, showing us the way.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared
to what lies within us.
Today, something is happening to the whole structure of human consciousness.
A fresh kind of life is starting. Driven by the forces of love,
the fragments of the world are seeking each other, so that the world
may come into being.
Of course people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a
farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out
of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally ordinary
people don't want war in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter
in Germany either. That is understood. But, after all, it is the
leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always
a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy,
a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they
are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism
and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
I have so much faith in people. I just think they cannot all be
stupid. This is a time when the entire planet can see we have to
change. I think that really matters. I think it makes a difference.
A human being is a part of a whole, called the universe, a part
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts
and feelings as something separated from the restc a kind
of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind
of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to
affection for a few people nearest to us. Our task must be to free
ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pain, but
that we can mobilize it into a common search for life, that very
pain is transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.
I think it's possible that we can live in Peace in this World -
beyond, and in spite of, all our different belief systems. Surely
it is possible that we can let go of limited concepts that divide
us, and arrive at a place that includes all of us.
I believe there is a Source of all things, by whatever name we
call it, and whether we are scientific, religious, atheist or agnostic.
If we all have the willingness, we can live in a World beyond borders,
and enjoy being in a human family beyond race.
We can find a way to include all of us, and live in mutual respect.
I believe the World is my Family, and most of all, I believe we
all can be friends.
Life would be meaningless without the feelings of your heart, but
it is not enough to have them, you must share them.
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