Saints on a Train

What’s made up of many colors, sings perfect pitch, and refuses to harm anyone? Stumped? It’s the Agape International Choir, singing at the upcoming Gandhi King Peace Train Procession and the Living Legends of Nonviolence Conference. The event is sponsored by the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT), and it will honor the sixtieth anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi’s passing and the fortieth of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s. Now for those of you who have never heard Rickie Byers Beckwith and the extraordinary collection of singers that she directs for husband Michael Beckwith’s Agape Church, let’s just say that they rock and they roll, and they’ve got all kinds of soul. And they’ll be performing their special brand of celebratory devotional music to kick off the conference in Los Angeles the day before attendees board an all-day train bound for San Jose.

The train ride itself and the larger event will feature workshops and seminars exploring that unique peaceful force that does no physical harm and yet managed to move some rather dramatic mountains in the twentieth century. Gandhi called it ahimsa, translated these days as “nonviolence.” And in order to help emphasize just how powerful peace can be when it springs from a committed conscience, the event will feature three individuals with names that are hard to miss—Yolanda King, Martin Luther King’s daughter, and Arun and Ela Gandhi, grandchildren of the legend himself. All three have committed their lives to spreading the message of peace and nonviolence, and they will be helping AGNT inculcate a new generation of spiritual activists with the knowledge, courage, and passion for transformation that once transformed an attorney into a revolutionary and a southern minister into a civil rights hero.

So get your bags together, go and bring your good friends too, because the Gandhi King Peace Train promises to be quite an event. And hopefully, after the LA–San Jose leg, we can get the train to begin service between Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip . . .

Tokyo Peace Foundation Embraces California Activist

Each year, the Goi Peace Foundation of Japan selects an outstanding individual or organization to receive its Peace Award. The 2006 recipient was author, speaker, activist, and WIE contributor Duane Elgin. In explaining its selection, the foundation cited Elgin’s “ outstanding contribution to promoting new vision, consciousness and lifestyle conducive to the creation of a new civilization.”

For Elgin, author of the 1981 bestseller Voluntary Simplicity, such recognition is well deserved. An eloquent speaker with a warm, engaging style , he doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to describing the earth’s precarious situation and our responsibility for it. Yet all in the same stroke, he infects his listeners with an irrepressible optimism and faith in humanity’s ability to come together and respond to the crisis.

Although this was Elgin’s first trip to Japan, he is no stranger to Japanese philosophy. In his acceptance speech at the award ceremony held at the Bunkyo Civic Hall in Tokyo, Elgin told the audience that the Japanese aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi has taught him that “modest things can, in their elegant simplicity, reveal a deeper beauty and mystery in the universe” and that it was one of his inspirations in writing Voluntary Simplicity. He also credited the Japanese teaching of Zen with helping him to appreciate the power of the awakened mind.

Elgin offered some cultural enrichment in return. A day before the ceremony, while addressing hundreds of youngsters from all over the world who attended the gathering, he showed videos of people who offer free hugs in the streets of U.S. cities. The next day, after Elgin received his award and delivered his acceptance speech, one of these youngsters called out “Group hug!” and before he knew it, Elgin was surrounded on stage by hundreds of hugging people. For pulling off this “good vibration” feat in Tokyo, of all places, we nominate Elgin as the State of California’s cultural ambassador to Japan.

Britpop Gets Integral, Says “Evolve or Die”

There’s a new sound coming out of the hazy clubs of England these days. Actually, it’s not that new, but the words accompanying it certainly are. Four youngish lads from Bristol—Timothy Hurford, Matt Bane, Luke Barter ,and Howlin Lord—are reinventing the lost art of psychedelic rock with some post-postmodern lyricism and a trans-ironic, heart-on-sleeve passion for spiritual evolution. They call themselves the Transpersonals, and they’re a band on a mission to change consciousness as we know it.

“The vision of the band is one of making the transpersonal vision exciting and accessible through the medium of popular culture,” they recently told WIE. “Today, we believe, there is a growing spiritual movement strongly rooted in the perennial philosophy, with strong foundations being laid and bridges being built (by Spiral Dynamics, integral philosophy, etc.) across previously difficult gaps.” The band’s modest goal is to be an “inspiring advertisement for those who are seeking and a celebration for those who have made it across to the transpersonal domains.”

Already gaining popularity through their regular UK performances and MySpace page—where a number of songs and videos can be found—they’re hoping to release their debut album, Evolve or Die, sometime later this year. And if their frequent references to the works of integral philosopher Ken Wilber happen to fall on certain “second-tier” ears, they may soon find themselves rocking alongside integral songsmiths Stuart Davis, Ed Kowalczyk, Saul Williams , and Kenji Williams (no relation) at the avant-garde edge of a revolution in music, culture, and the Kosmos at large.