Most crucial to this progress—what founds and informs today’s multiplying peace organizations, conferences and councils—is the growing corps of individuals whose peaceful spirits dissolve fear, untangle tensions and override self-interests, hatred and revenge.

“More people today are realizing that they are here on purpose,” says author and peace troubadour James Twyman. “And more stand ready to give of their self in service for transformation of the planet.”

Twyman’s own spiritual peacemaking mission has had him circling the globe since 1994 singing peace prayers of the world’s 12 major religions. World leaders regularly invite him to give peace concerts at trouble spots like Iraq, Israel, Northern Ireland, Serbia and South Africa. All cultures and countries see that current perspectives aren’t working. “Yet all I ever encounter,” he says, “are people like me striving for the same thing.” His 2007 “A Season of Non-Violence Concert Tour” will take him across America with 64 concerts starting next month.

In everyday practice, in personal and planetary affairs, people are waking to the fact that peace always starts with us. What we think, say and do counts. How we treat others fosters the general environment. And peace grows ever more powerful through constant expression.

A roll call with one’s self reveals how every peaceful or violent act begins with a thought. So, wrong thoughts are the real enemy. Right thinking manifests in right action. Inevitably, our vision widens to include the whole world, and we come to trust that others are operating in their own spheres of right action as well.

As we master our consciousness and bring peace to our own mental home, it affects all whom we meet. Dwelling in this fortress of stillness and inner tranquility, nothing can disturb us, for its foundations run deep. It becomes a habitual, unshakeable place of purposeful activity. We find we are able to do whatever needs to be done, calmly, without precipitation, but still with all vigor.

Patricia Smith Melton, founder and executive director of Peace X Peace, discovered the truth of this principle in launching a global network of highly effective grassroots women’s circles. “Most mornings before I opened my eyes my first thought would be ‘What do I need to know by noon so it gets done by the end of the day?’ and that day’s answer would come,” she says. “I stopped giving away energy on ‘I can’t possibly do that’ or ‘I hate learning that, that’s not me.’”

She says it was like shedding a skin of limited self-definition that set her free to achieve things that earlier had been beyond her reach. The result is a peace organization fast building a wider sense of harmonious community through practical communication and peer connection.

Spiritual peacemakers are quick to note that while peace of mind is a fundamental human right, it is not of human making. It’s a quality of the Divine presence within. Thus, says spiritual healer Geoffrey Barratt, “When we catch a wonderful glimpse of the reality of peace, right there and then we find the Source of peace itself…expressing its own borderless and serene being.”

An Active Answer of Peace

A significant sign of progress, she says, is women’s leadership in strong personal decision-making for peace. She points out, “Such initial decision-making is vital, for if you don’t make the decision you won’t be doing anything else.”

Peace X Peace (pronounced Peace by Peace) operates on the premise that individuals need a means of connecting and a venue of communication to effect needed changes. In conversations with women in far-flung locations, Melton repeatedly hears, “We need a means of income. With that, we can get the rest.” With that, people can achieve education, inclusive government, restorative justice and freedom of speech. Better health and quality of life naturally follow.

So Peace X Peace matches “Sister Circles,” pairing a small group of women in the United States with an existing circle of women in a developing country. These newfound friends dig in to solve local problems of violence, orphan care, domestic abuse and human trafficking. Some concentrate on supporting good candidates for political office. Some launch radio stations. Many provide micro-loans for start-up cottage businesses. To date, the organization has matched 800 circles, with a new circle forming every day. “Once a match is made,” says Melton, “we watch the magic happen.”

The immediate need is for a hundred more U.S. circles to join in this relationship of peers as men and women turn the limiting donor/recipient model on its head, move love into action, and experience unprecedented mutual rewards. Circles often take root in an existing book club, garden club, service organization or group of friends.

Melton notes that as cross-cultural communication grows, Americans cease to underestimate the sophistication, intelligence and courage of women in other countries. Internet and cell phone camaraderie quashes former preconceptions. Shared faith, resilience and love bring enlightened fruits of peace.

“If we have the ability to talk with our neighbor across the street, we can speak to a woman in Afghanistan or Kenya,” says Melton. Few groups need a translator. Soon, innovative cell phone software will simultaneously translate text messages into any of 71 languages.

Melton points out that when we work for individual self-harmony and stop there, we atrophy. Inner harmony must break out beyond tending one’s self to tending our world. It’s an essential step in the path to oneness.

International best-selling author, speaker, and pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, Deepak Chopra, counsels that the way to become a spiritual peacemaker is to be, think, feel, speak, act, create and share peace. A yoga sutra of Patanjali sheds light on how it feels: “When your being is perfectly established in non-violence, all beings around will cease to feel hostility.”

A spiritual peacemaker, says Twyman, sees past what isn’t happening to what is true and embodies that vision every moment to such an extent that he or she becomes “a living, breathing prayer of peace.”

“Peace occurs naturally wherever you go simply because the presence of peace is so strong within you,” he says. This sweet perpetual balm of peace is generous, reliable, helpful and always at hand. Those who come into its presence feel loved, peaceful, healed.

Unspeakable Peace

One proof of this sea of change is acknowledgement of women’s crucial peacemaking role by sources as disparate as taxi drivers in Afghanistan, vendors in Argentina, and a senior Lieutenant General at the Pentagon. The tide turned at the United Nations Security Council six years ago when it unanimously voted to require that women be present at world peace tables.

More tangible evidence arises in experiments with group meditation and prayer vigils that repeatedly show how even one percent or less of a population, all focused on peace, can halt violence, reduce crime, promote health, even dissipate destructive weather. Some call it the Maharishi effect. Others name it God.

Such are the signs that we are making progress in moving from combative competition to caring cooperation, from impoverished separation to abundant wholeness. The opportunity to change the course of history is ours.

As spiritual teacher Allison Phinney avers, “Peace simply isn’t something we can leave to others any longer—either the peace that closes down wars, or the peace we need in our own lives.” We no longer can afford to be peace-wishers. We are called to be peacemakers. Every day the media discloses what needs to be healed in the world.

Every one of us can learn to live peacefully, work peacefully and progress peacefully, hand-in-hand. We have the means to attain the all-inclusive peace the human heart seeks. A small united band of One Mind is enough to rock our world.