At the dawn of the third decade of the 21st century, the existence of humankind has become highly perilous. We are cutting down our forests, exhausting our fresh water aquifers, and losing our vital top soils. We are stripping the life from our oceans and replacing it with hundreds of millions of tons of plastic waste. We are flooding our environment with toxic industrial chemicals. Our pollution is driving climate change that causes heat waves, droughts, and wild fires that shred the fabric of life on the continents. And we are bringing new generations into the world, millions who require access to the resources of a dignified existence. The scope and breadth of the threats to life are increasing day after day. This is not a sustainable mode of development.

The root cause of our ills stems from a mistaken way of thinking. What exactly does this mean? it means that we have been thinking of ourselves mainly as material beings, while denying our spiritual nature. Because we think that we exist as material beings and nothing more, we place first importance on protecting our bodies from harm and prolonging our material existence. Our spiritual nature, if considered at all, is treated as a secondary aspect of our physical being—something not to be taken seriously. To us, the only things that matter are the phenomena that appear in the material world—things that can be seen, or heard, or touched, or measured, but we know that our senses deceive us, the senses are a construction of the brain. What we consider a real world is an illusion. The domination of the positivist and materialist thought leads to irrationality and destruction.

Yet where has this approach led us? Has it brought us a sense of happiness and fulfillment? Rather than living each day in a spirit of joyful cooperation, with our hearts filled with bright hope and happy anticipation, we have isolated ourselves from others and viewed them as rivals or enemies. Our thoughts are flooded with suspicion, fear and greed, leading to an endless cycle of war, poverty, starvation, and environmental destruction. Unless we wake up soon and pay attention to our spiritual nature, there will be no future for humanity on Earth.

Words are life. Words are light. Words are power. Words are energy. Words are truth. Words can enliven and words can also kill. Words can give hope, or plunge us into despair. People use words to build peace, and use words to make war. Words can create walls between cultures, religions, and nations. And words can also build bridges. The existence of an individual, a family, a community, a country, and our planet is being led to good or to evil through the power of the words we speak. The words we speak are responsible for everything that happens in this world. We, therefore, must be responsible for the words we speak. On behalf of future generations, I hope that each of us will do all we can to speak only bright, light-filled words, so that one day, our descendants will be born into a world filled with light. There is no time to lose. Starting at this very moment, I hope all of us will take a close look at the words we have been using and make constant efforts to fill them with brightness.

No one is going to change our lives for us. No one is going to change the world for us. It is time for each of us to recognize the prodigious, creative power that is unleashed by each word we speak, and to consciously speak only words filled with gratitude, encouragement, and good intention. From this moment forward, let us choose words that resonate with love and forgiveness for ourselves and others. We can certainly do it if we take just one step forward. One step at a time, one word at a time, we can uproot the germs of tragedy and of isolation in our consciousness and convert them into waves of happiness and conciliation. For the sake of ourselves, for the sake of Mother Earth, and for the sake of future generations, let us use words that contribute to the positive evolution of humankind on Earth.