The last time I traveled to India was over six years ago—on my honeymoon. My new wife, Christiana Briddell, wanted me to meet the great Indian saint, Swami Chidananda, who had been her family’s Guru since her parents first met him during the West to East migration of the late 1960s. So rather than spending [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:BMW·Colonel Sanders·Fareed Zakaria·globalization·India·Krishna·Mahatma Gandhi·mega-malls·New Delhi·sacred cows·Sri Aurobindo·Swami Chidananda·Thomas Friedman·Westernization
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here’s an excerpt from his final speech–a sermon known by its most famous line “I’ve been to the Mountain Top,” that he gave at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee on April 3rd, 1968, the day before he was assassinated. He nestles all of his Civil Rights work [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:civil rights·History·I've Been to the Mountaintop·Martin Luther King·Martin Luther King Jr·mason temple·memphis·MLK·religious·speech·spiritual
Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, and his acceptance speech, a forum in which legendary statements are often made, was a bit of a dud—at least that’s the impression I got from the media. “War President Accepts Peace Prize” said the headlines…or “President Accepts Peace Prize, Defends War.” Even the Huffington Post headline was [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:Andrew Cohen·Barack Obama·conflict·Gandhi·King Ashoka·Michael Nagler·Nobel Acceptance Speech·Nobel Peace Prize·Nobel Prize·non-violence·Obama·peace·Thomas Berry·war
Today is the closing day of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions. Over the past week, our team (EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen, director of education Jeff Carreira, and former EnlightenNext magazine editor Amy Edelstein) have spoken to many of the world’s leading religious voices gathered in Melbourne about how the religious traditions can begin [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:activism·Amy Edelstein·Andrew Cohen·Davos·Dr. A.T. Aryaratne·Dr. Kao·Jim Wallis·Katherine Marshall·parliament·Parliament of the world's religions·Poverty·Rabbie David Saperstein·Sri Lanka·sulak sivaraska·UN Millenium Goals
All of the footage coming out of Iran over the last few weeks has revealed to the world, in living color, a new generation of web-connected young people foretelling radical change making its way to the Middle East. In the current issue of EnlightenNext magazine, we interview Elza Maalouf, CEO of the Center for [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:Barack Obama·Education·Elza Maalouf·gen y·internet·Middle East·Oil·Politics·Spiral Dynamics
I was just sitting down to write a memorial for Jacqueline Péry D’Alincourt (1919-2009), whose courage during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II was beyond measure, when I read Carter Phipp’s most recent blog post that contained a quote from a young Iranian woman on the eve of the June 20 protests against the election of [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:Ahmadinejad·autonomy·choice·courage·dignity·freedom·Holocaust denial·Iran·Iran election protests·Jacqueline Péry D'Alincourt·Jews·Legion of Honor·Nazis·Neda·Ravensbruck·Sisters in Resistance·Sophie's Choice·women
As we watch events in Iran unfold, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the current regime. I’m not saying that an overthrow or coup is imminent. But the general sense of popular legitimacy that the regime in Iran has had over [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:Culture·current events·democracy·freedom·Iran·Politics
A few years ago, in 2004, I wrote an article called “Is God a Pacifist?” It was a wide-ranging piece that covered many areas—peace, religious violence, nonviolent activism, etc. But it also was a philosophical analysis of the moral issues involved with the use of power and force. And one of the many interesting realizations [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:Barack Obama·Buchenwald·Cairo·Egypt·government·Idealism·Leadership·Middle East·Moral Clarity·morality·Normandy·pacifism·Politics·Saudi Arabia·Susan Neiman·Values·violence
In July, 2004, EnlightenNext sent a team to Barcelona, Spain for the Parliament of the World’s Religions, an international event that hosted over nine thousand religious leaders, teachers, activists for a fascinating week of dialogues and discussions exploring the future of religion. While we were there, we conducted twenty-six video interviews with leading religious figures, [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:barcelona·carter phipps·conflict·future·islam·muslim·parliament·peace·Religion·tariq ramadan·violence
There are few issues in the political world right now more vexing than the problem of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the so called AfPak issue. In fact, it’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the outcome of the AfPak issue over the coming decades could have a profound effect on the development and stability of our [...]
[Read more →]
Tags:afghanistan·conflict·geopolitics·Integral·pakistan·Politics·robert kaplan·steve mcintosh·thomas barnett·war