A Call to All People
Chief Arvol Looking Horse

"My name is Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nation,... Humankind has to make a decision and have courage to make a stand for Peace, even when their relatives’ minds are restrained from spiritual awareness of healing the mind. We still have a chance to choose to make a change.

Our prophecies tell us that we are at the crossroads. We are faced with either chaos and disaster, or we can unite spiritually in peace and harmony. It is time to bring the message of the need for peace throughout the world. As a keeper of a sacred bundle, I ask for prayers for Global Healing!

Our Mother Earth is suffering. Her wonderful gift of water, trees, and air is being abused. Her children the two-legged, the four-legged, those that swim, crawl and fly are being annihilated. We continuously see these atrocities.

Our relatives, the animal nations reflect our well-being. What happens to them, happens to us. The buffalo, wolf, salmon, bear, caribou, eagle and other relatives in this fragile ecosystem are all in danger and suffering. Their voices must be heard. They need our help.

This is a call to all peoples. We ask that all people join us in prayer. Please begin to learn to understand the meaning of "Walking in Harmony and Peace" in having the courage to transform our spiritual consciousness to love and compassion! This is the real challenge and courage in life.

In our circle of life there is no beginning and no ending. The process of mending the sacred hoop continues. May peace be with you, my relatives.

Mitakuye oyasin, 

Chief Arvol Looking Horse
http://www.worldpeaceday.com/2000/arvol.html 

Chief Arvol is the 19th Generation, Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. His work on International peace & global healing includes: meeting with the Dalai Lama in 1995 to establish a relationship between Tibet and the Lakota Nation, and speaking on sacred sites & freedom of religion in 1998 before the Special Reporter of the United Nations. This was the first time in history that a representative of the UN came to the USA to listen and compile concerns of indigenous religious freedom for discussion at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland.

BUFFALO WOMAN 
continued from page 15 

She spent four days among our people and taught them about the sacred bundle, the meaning of it. When she was done teaching all our people, she left the way she came. She went out of the circle, and as she was leaving she turned and told our people that she would return one day for the sacred bundle. And she left the sacred bundle, which we still have to this very day.

The sacred bundle is known as the White Buffalo Calf Pipe because it was brought by the White Buffalo Calf Woman. It is kept in a sacred place (Green Grass) on the Cheyenne River Indian reservation in South Dakota. It’s kept by a man who is known as the keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, Arvol Looking Horse.

When White Buffalo Calf Woman promised to return again, she made some prophecies at that time. One of those prophesies was that the birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that it would be near the time when she would return again to purify the world. What she meant by that, was that she would bring back harmony again and balance, spiritually.

Challenges & Choices 
by Arun Gandhi

A favorite story that Grandfather liked to tell us was the story of an ancient Indian King who was obsessed with the desire to find the meaning of peace. 

What is peace and how can we get it and when we find it, what should we do with it, were some of the issues that bothered him. Intellectuals in his kingdom were invited to answer the King’s questions for a handsome reward. Many tried but none could explain how to find peace and what to do with it. At last someone said the King ought to consult the sage who lived just outside the borders of his Kingdom:

"He is an old man and very wise," the King was told. "If anyone can answer your questions he can."

The King went to the sage and posed the eternal question. Without a word the sage went into the kitchen and brought a grain of wheat to the King.

"In this you will find the answer to your question," the Sage said as he placed the grain of wheat in the King’s outstretched palm.

Puzzled but unwilling to admit his ignorance the King clutched the grain of wheat and returned to his palace. He locked the precious grain in a tiny gold box and placed the box in his safe. Each morning, upon waking, the King would open the box and look at the grain to seek an answer but could find nothing.

Weeks later another sage, passing through, stopped to meet the King who eagerly invited him to resolve his dilemma. The King explained how he had asked the eternal question and this sage gave him a grain of wheat instead. "I have been looking for an answer every morning but I find nothing." 

The Sage said: "It is quite simple, your honor. Just as this grain represents nourishment for the body, peace represents nourishment for the soul. Now, if you keep this grain locked up in a gold box it will eventually perish without providing nourishment or multiplying. However, if it is allowed to interact with the elements - light, water, air, soil - it will flourish, multiply and soon you would have a whole field of wheat which will nourish not only you but so many others. 

This is the meaning of peace. It must nourish your soul and the souls of others, it must multiply by interacting with the elements." 

Arun Gandhi, born 1934 in Durban, South Africa, is the 5th Grandson of India’s late spiritual leader, "Mahatma" Gandhi. At age 12, in 1946, he was taken to live with his grandfather and witnessed India’s struggle to free itself from British rule. For 18 months he learned of nonviolence and witnessed world history unfold before his eyes. These experiences had a great impact on the course of his life.

For more information visit the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

http://www.gandhiinstitute.org/nonvio21.html