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His Holiness 333 Sai Das Baba, the International Chairman of the Sai Foundation Organizations. "Sai" is a word meaning service, and His Holiness's organization is an independent Sai organization, not connected to any other. He is a wide traveler who preaches on the spiritual development of the individual and spreads the message of obtaining world peace through faith and selfless service. We stand poised at a very critical juncture in time. It is an important time, one that might very well be the beginning of a new era and the end of an old. On the one hand, we have nations fighting to establish peace in the world by trying to eliminate all those that seek to sow discord and violence. On the other, we have people calling forth their kinsmen in the name of religion and faith to fight what they perceive as injustice. It may not be our place, nor may this be the time, to sit in judgment as to who is right and who is wrong. But this is indeed the time, and none more appropriate, to seek and discover alternate means to establishing peace in the world. For it is indeed common knowledge that war has never been the means of bringing peace to a strife-torn world. Today the world has no dearth of wealth, technology, or power. What we really do lack, however, and what is the need of the hour, is peace. It is therefore quite appropriate, and in fact even necessary, to stop and ask ourselves at this moment a question whose answer we have always assumed: what really is peace? Is it merely the absence of war, the mere presence of a semblance of unity among people? We must understand what peace is if we are to know how to gain it. Peace can be defined as a state of tranquility or concord. This definition holds the key to our understanding: peace is a state which is free from strife, violence, and disharmony. Almost every time we speak of peace, we tend to think of it in global terms; we associate peace as existing between nations and groups. Even this conference is aimed at world peace. However, what we overlook is a more fundamental aspect of peace, and that is individual peace. We can hold conventions and conferences on world peace, but without understanding the need and means to establishing peace for the individual, all our efforts would be only a futile exercise. Nations are made of individuals, and unless the individual is at peace with himself and his fellow men, there can be no talk of world peace. Only when there is peace within each man can there be peace within a family. Only when there is peace in the family will it extend to the society. Only when there is peace in little communities can there be peace in the state. If every state in a nation is at peace, then there is peace in the country; if every country is peaceful with itself and its neighbors, we automatically have world peace. This pyramidal approach is the only way to attain world peace; therefore, we must concentrate our energies in helping every man find peace. All of us, as individuals, know exactly how and when we lose our peace of mind. It is our common daily experience, and in truth, no conference is essential for us to discover our own selves. Yet, we are so busy with our day-to-day activities, rushing about in this rat race of life, that we simply do not find the time to sit quietly and introspect. We require an international conference to trigger us off on this task of introspection. In reality, peace is our birthright; we are all entitled to peace, and yet we labor so often in strife with not a trace of peace in our lives. The only time most people find peace in their lives is when they are asleep, and rather unfortunately, there are many who do not find peace even when they sleep. What makes us lose our peace? Why do we, made in God's image, wander about searching for peace when God's peace should be upon us? A careful analysis of this question would readily give us the answer. Our search for world peace would begin and end in ourselves. If we subject our lives to a dissection and analyze root causes, we would soon discover that it is our own selfishness and desire that make us lose our tranquility, and as a consequence, we lose our peace. We live all our lives thinking about only one person, and that is our own self. All our living time is spent in trying to satisfy ourselves; we rarely find time to think of others. We are so thoughtless and inconsiderate of others in our quest for success and excellence that we so often trample upon others in trying to get there. We do everything that brings us happiness and avoid everything that causes pain, without a thought of the outcome of our actions in the lives of another.