We Are All Related

The Rt. Hon. PATRICIA SCOTLAND, KC, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth speaks at the Global Spirituality Mahotsav in Kanha Shanti Vanam about the role we all have to play in supporting peace with each other and the environment.

- PATRICIA SCOTLAN

It is a great honor to participate in this significant and seminal moment in our history. It would be easy to underestimate the enormity of this event. For Daaji to have brought together so many sages and faith leaders across the globe to this spiritfilled place is a matter and a moment we should all celebrate.

Some have asked me, “SecretaryGeneral, why have you come?” And there is a clear answer. The Commonwealth is made up of 2.5 billion people, 30 percent of whom are under the age of 30, and 1.5 billion who live here in India. As your SecretaryGeneral, I have been entrusted with the sacred task of helping to maintain, foster, nurture, and support peace.

Peace today is so endangered, so precious, so needed. And the truth is, if we wish to have a peaceful world, it must start with us, each one of us, because we are the arbiters of that peace. As Daaji said this morning, when we talk of peace, we are not talking about tolerance, but about respect, acceptance, and the word we have avoided today, the most important word, love.

We must love one another. The essence of every faith is love. But we have also heard something else; every single person here today is my brother or my sister. And why is that? According to scientists, all of humanity has come from six individuals. So, why get confused about the color of our skin, the size of our girth, our height? Ninetynine point nine percent of our DNA is the same, which means whether we like it or not, we are truly brothers and sisters.