While reading The Sacred Tree many things came into my mind. First I thought of all the knowledge and the truth that could be (and hopefully will be) applied to my personal life. On a second level, I kept thinking of the people I wanted to share this book with: my family, friends, relatives, teachers… I could not help but read a certain passage and think: “Oh, my father would love this” or “ this or that friend could really use this bit of knowledge here”. I believe there are so many irrelevant or even damaging discourses in contemporary life, that when you finally stumble upon something good and important, a tiny flame of hope sparks within yourself, and you just can’t wait to share it with any person patient enough to listen. That’s me, at least. This time, however, I went beyond the point of wanting to share the teachings of The Sacred Tree with my relatives and friends.

I have been living in the United States for almost two months now, but I assure you that is not nearly long enough to forget the city and the country I left behind me. My city is one undergoing a war, it’s a city with so much hatred and so much violence, that good people have to struggle really hard every day to keep just the amount of hope necessary to continue with their lives. We avoid watching the news and reading the newspapers, we close our ears to the shootings on the streets. We pretend that we don’t care as long as our family is OK, we pretend it will soon get better. We learn how to take care of ourselves, and pretend that is enough of a fight.

Reading The Sacred Tree, and doing the bit of research on the Four Worlds Development Project, made me re-think the whole situation I’ve been living with for years. It made me realize I’m tired of pretending. No, it is not OK, and it will not be better until we change it. And there is a way of changing this, the way of the Sacred Tree. My community has the power to heal itself. Since I discovered that, I’ve been daydreaming about writing to schools, telling them of this wonderful book, incorporating its teachings on my social service with children, spreading the word.

The problem is, both public and private schools are now afraid of touching the spiritual aspect in the classrooms. They ignore the emotional and spiritual parts of the human being under the flag of freedom of thought and belief. They would never agree to teach a book that states that we have many gifts, bestowed upon us since our birth by the Creator. Well, I believe it is the deliberated exclusion from this aspect what makes communities sick with hate and violence. Our emotional and spiritual self must be nurtured and guided, so that we can learn about love, kindness, generosity and compassion, and so that we understand that we are connected to everyone and everything in this life. This has nothing to do with religious affiliations, or with the freedom of our thoughts, this is about ourselves developing as complete, balanced human beings. If and when we can do that, I am absolutely sure things will get better, not only in my country, but everywhere.