One

See http://www.onetheproject.com/ about the 2006 movie 'One: The Movie'.

A simple idea: 20 questions. How would you answer them?
Write your answers down or ask somebody else.

Here are the questions:

1. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world?
2. What is the relationship between science and religion?
3. Why are so many people depressed?
4. What are we all so afraid of?
5. When is war justifiable?
6. How would God want us to respond to aggression and terrorism?
7. How does one obtain true peace?
8. What does it mean to live in the present moment?
9. What is our greatest distraction?
10. Is current religion serving its purpose?
11. What happens to you after you die?
12. Describe Heaven and how to get there.
13. What is the meaning of life?
14. Describe God.
15. What is the greatest quality humans possess?
16. What is it that prevents people from living to their full potential?
17. Non-verbally, by motion or gesture only, act out what you believe to be the current condition of the world.
18. What is your one wish for the world?
19. What is wisdom, and how do we gain it?
20. Are we all One?

Here are my answers as a gift.

1. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world?

As with all words, it depends on what you mean with poverty and suffering.
Depending on what the meaning is, the reasons for their existence could be different.
But once we agree on the meaning of words, we must agree that it exists.
Some things 'exist' in reality, but is poverty and suffering one of them?
Some things 'exist' only in our mind, in our memory or in our fantasy.

If we had agreed on a different meaning of the words, we would also agree that they exist.
This means that those things the words refer to exist, because the words exist to describe them.
That is, words have the power to become real.
Everything that is put in words becomes real.
And everything real can be put in words.
But words and reality are not the same.

However, once we believe a word refers to something real, we are ready to experience it and its decay.
If there is something, its decay is there.
Therefore, even if it exists, it does not have to exist always.
If we start to use the words that we want to use to describe our world, certain words would not turn up.
Some words are just memories, some words are just imaginations.
We do not have to use them.
We can use other words to transform the experience.
Once we can apply different words to something we earlier had agreed on, our experience widens.
Poverty and suffering belong to the past if we agree on it.
Then we would describe them as lessons to be learned and as indicators of great rewards when we learn them.

2. What is the relationship between science and religion?

Science and religion are two ways of answering questions about reality.
Science has methods and religion has different methods.
The success of science and religion lies in their ability to repeat results by applying their methods.
If we are not satisfied with the results, we change our ways and find a different way of answering questions about reality.
Science and religion are both non-exhaustive methods to answer questions about reality.
Science and religion are both expanding their methods.
Science and religion are converging and absorbing all the methods to answer questions about reality.
Science and religion are symbols for the infinite wisdom that could be ours if all our questions are answered.
Science and religion are distracting us from our own investigations (relevance) and our own mystery (immediacy).

3. Why are so many people depressed?

People are depressed, because they do not understand why they are depressed.
Their minds perhaps give reasons that nevertheless are not the real reasons.
Therefore, to be depressed is to be in a state of belief in a lie that nevertheless is not the truth.
The consequence of believing in a lie is to become depressed.
The inability of the mind to distinguish between a lie and the truth makes a state of depression a vicious circle.
Once the mind can be triggered into different thoughts, that is, if the mind is willing to put its attention on different things than with what it is preoccupied when in a state of depression, different feelings start to emerge.
This experience should be the hope of the one that feels depressed and one should know that relief is nearest to his heart.
In fact, it is possible to feel happy in any situation, and only if you find out how that works, do the circumstances start to reflect your happiness.

4. What are we all so afraid of?

We are afraid to succeed, but we are also afraid that we don't have enough information to succeed.
The truth is, that if we conquer our reasons to be afraid, by dismissing them, we seize to be and we start off to have success.

5. When is war justifiable?

A more cautious question would be: "Could war be justifiable?" In the state that the question is put here, it presupposes that the more cautious question has already been answered with 'yes'. Of course, 'never' could be an answer, but it negates the question and not the validity of the question. If we believe that there is a reason, the only reason is ignorance. If you are not ignorant, however, then there is no justifiable reason. Instead of war, all efforts should be invested in the increase of understanding and the education of the ignorant. But that poses the problem of self-understanding and self-education that lie at the core of any increase of awareness. What can trigger the inner will to expand one's consciousness away from its conditioned state and produces a free mind that is not interested in the posed question because it is not an essential question?

What if there is a knowledge that could save people from war and that knowledge is at risk of being destroyed. If a war could prevent the destruction of that knowledge, would that mean that certain knowledge is more valuable than the people that cause the destruction of that knowledge? But what if that knowledge could never be destroyed, but could always be retrieved, even if it were destroyed? Then war to save this knowledge would only save some time by eliminating the effort to restore the knowledge if it were to be destroyed. With a war to prevent the destruction of this knowledge, more lives would be destroyed than the value of the knowledge, that supposedly could prevent wars. Hence, wars have a time element in them, and it is perceived as justifiable only with a belief that time is of the essence to reach a certain goal, namely peace or the absence of war. But this is paradoxical. The war that wants to install peace could be countered with another war, to prevent it, so that peace becomes something that will not be caused by the first war, since it is prevented, but it will be caused by the second war, which prevents the first war. In this endless scenario, based on dualistic thinking, there is always some place without peace, even if the knowledge to prevent wars is already available. There is only peace if there is no justifiable reason for war and it requires that war itself must cease to be part of the thinking mind. However, since we have a word for it, that word must cease to have meaning - again causing no justifiable reason to persist.

Although we may understand the dynamics of war, war itself can not be justifiable in the face of total knowledge, when that knowledge is available to all.
In that context, the Internet could be a blessing, even if it also is a platform that could promote war. We need to have access to all available knowledge and we need to grow up in the understanding that all knowledge belongs to everybody. More to the point, we need to come to personal individual understanding that all knowledge is already always available within. This is a mystery.
If war would prevent the spreading of knowledge, those who participate in that war must be ignorant about this mystery themselves.

6. How would God want us to respond to aggression and terrorism?

With compassion for the agony of the aggressor.

7. How does one obtain true peace?

By integrating the paradoxical nature of reality. What we believe, becomes the truth; when we change our beliefs, the truth changes. We can choose the world we live in. "That is just the way it is" is never the way it is. What if it is possible to free ourselves of any beliefs? We need to investigate this psychological process for ourselves and find a way to operate our minds consciously. We will find that it is operated by the heart. Then we can consciously obtain true peace by developing true peace in our heart without the mind interfering.

8. What does it mean to live in the present moment?

It means that you can observe reality without judgement and feel whatever you want to feel no matter what. Only if you live in the present moment can you possibly keep your inner balance and know yourself.

9. What is our greatest distraction?

Our greatest distraction is the confirmation of our beliefs in our experiences. This is why we believe that certain things are true and others are not.
However, it is a distraction, since reality allows for different beliefs and they also will be confirmed if we choose to believe them.
It would be best to have a single belief that allows for everything that exists to be part of the truth. That single belief must change over time to include whatever exists in any moment. So, every belief is a distraction, but the flexibility to change your beliefs is the activity of a conscious mind.

10. Is current religion serving its purpose?

Religion is the result of a technology of the mind that we haven't yet understood. Just like we do not yet understand everything about the human body. Religion therefore has the capacity to unite or to separate people according to the working of its technology. If we would understand that the technology present in religion can be used to change our perspective at will, then religion would cease to have a function. As religion is not always explaining the details of its technology, most of the results of it are unconscious and unrecognized. If indeed religion is serving its purpose, it is creating exceptions to the rule until all individuals are exceptions and religion becomes superfluous to its own purpose. We may therefore conclude that as long as there is religion, it is serving its purpose, showing that not everybody has understood their own human nature.

11. What happens to you after you die?

After you die, your body withers away. But it is not really your body, is it? Since you are not your body, but part of a great consciousness, nothing really changes. When you became conscious, you took on consciousness. When you die, consciousness takes what is not yours. Hence, what is really yours, consciousness, is never lost and in essence your life is a contribution to the development of consciousness. Science is barely coming to grips with consciousness. It is the last frontier and it involves everything. Religion provides symbols of consciousness, but nothing can make you become conscious but only you yourself when you investigate yourself and start translating the symbols into actions of the mind and heart. Instead of asking what happens after you die, a better question is what happens in the moment you die. That moment is postponed until we find out never to tell about it. However, the mystery rather is that every moment you truly live, you truly die. If you are not currently truly dying, you are not truly living. To die means to wake up to this infinite moment. After that, you die again and you wake up again and so on.

12. Describe Heaven and how to get there.

First of all, Heaven is a wrong translation of a Hebrew word pronounced 'shamayim'. This word is written with 4 letters, Shiyn-Mem-Yud-Mem, and it contains the mystery of how anything can exist and persist at all. Heaven is a state of bliss, not a place. In this state (symbolized by Shiyn) existence (symbolized by Yud) is obscured by 'water' (symbolized by Mem) on both sides - and at the same time created over time according to this state. Heaven is the redefinition (death) of words to make them come alive so they bring life.
If enough people understand the meaning of this word and stop describing the symbolic place, the world as we know it will be transformed conformable to the idea we have of Heaven. We must, however, believe that Heaven is the response to our own state of bliss, if we can sustain that bliss. We can not expect anybody else to create our world as we would have it.

13. What is the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is to define its meaning. In order to be able to do that, your first task is to know yourself.

14. Describe God.

We must distinguish between the word 'God' and what it signifies. In reality, we only deal with words and their interpretations. You are not asking me for the interpretation of the word 'God', but you presuppose that there is a God (and not just the word for God). Now, when the word 'God' signifies something, it becomes what we suppose God is. In psychology it is known that it is a tool to anchor behavior. You can accomplish anything if you believe that God wants you to accomplish it. In fact, God is your inner divinity that generates a life power that enables you to do anything whatsoever and overcome fear. However, in relation to the previous question, you will find that you can not escape the meaning of life if you are to find out what or who God is. And before you do, you fear the God you worship, because you avoid self-knowledge.

15. What is the greatest quality humans possess?

Their greatest quality is to realize that they are not only biological creatures, but possess a heart and a mind that can work together to accomplish anything beneficiary for other humans. In fact, if by any cause a human finds out how to sustain happiness, his life will be a miracle and his goal is accomplished whether he lives or dies.

16. What is it that prevents people from living to their full potential?

Belief in false beliefs and the ignorance how to discard or change one's self-destructive beliefs into empowering beliefs prevents people to live. Once you truly live, however, you always live your full potential.

17. Non-verbally, by motion or gesture only, act out what you believe to be the current condition of the world.

The current condition of the world non-verbally: my own current condition. I would sit and observe you.

18. What is your one wish for the world?

Let it find a way to disclose for everybody the key to self-knowledge.

19. What is wisdom, and how do we gain it?

Wisdom is self-knowledge and from it stems knowing that it can only be gained by becoming honest to yourself about the working of your inner world.

20. Are we all One?

Yes. We are like facets on a diamond where all the facets are eyes. Each eye sees all the other eyes except themselves. Whatever the eye sees, defines his own position on the diamond, given the light source. Since the diamond is moving in relation to the light source, each eye sees different things at different moments. But once the eye becomes aware of the light source, he will be only concerned with enjoying the outlook, knowing that he is in the right spot on the diamond to complete its beauty.