Sep 17, 2006 12:21:28 AM cite

Courage is that what you perceive it to be. If you can stand up for what you believe in, stand up for what you see as right,you have courage. If you can confront the issues of the day, not just the ones you see right in front of you but the ones, too, after thinking for a time, of the broader world , you have courage. And if some days, when the weight of all around you seems to falling on your shoulders alone, and yet you proceed ahead, perhaps without purpose or direction yet ahead just the same, then you have courage.

by RedSevenOne

Sep 10, 2006 2:34:48 PM cite

Courage means having heart. The kind of courage humanity needs now is to have the heart to face, accept and integrate our own shadows, the disowned parts of ourselves that we project upon others. Hatred, war, oppression, scapegoating, racism, abuses of women and children, of animals and nature - all have their roots in the psychological splitting off of our own shadows, that which we see in others and deny in ourselves. We will not have peace within or among ourselves, or with the Earth, until we humbly accept responsibility for the existence of our own darkness: our fallability, imperfection, potential for destructive behavior, vulnerability and suffering. If we have the courage to accept the truth of ourselves, and refuse to pass our suffering on to another, and to forgive, we can end the needless torment and transmute evil into energy for the vitality of the whole. (paraphrased from Thomas Berry) As long as we have the courage (heart) to look and see and feel deeply, we keep our humanity alive within us.

by mtnlion

Sep 9, 2006 5:08:49 PM cite

Courage is not highjacking planes and crashing them into towers or strapping explosives to yourself and committing suicide. It isn't dropping bombs on a city from the safety of more than a mile in the sky or using 'star wars' technology to annhilate a village. It isn't saying" if you aren't with us you are against us." It isn't fostering hatred for others or ficating on our own self interests. Those who have courage step forward in peace prepared to sacrifice their resources, time and life for the greater benefit of all. Stand against oppression, stand against military solutions, stand against extremists, stand with poor, indigant, and oppressed. There is more courage displayed by the victims of oppression than by any of the tyrants.

by everydayaction

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: This is what I have told about in the previous answer. Courage means to raise your voice in a critical situation, to rise up, because every crisis is a renovation and a way up to a new level. A situation, or the nature, or the Creator brings people into a challenge to show them a new level of soul-understanding. And the most interesting fact is that I could name thousands of mentally strong people: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Gandhi and so on, and their spirits could be reinforced just through obstacles. And they didn’t stop if they sometimes burned their fingers. If they did, it would be like if a little child burned his fingers on the oven and would never use fire again. Those people were not like a Russian fairy-tail character who burned a finger and when someone told him to spit on it, he spited in his hot soup. A human being can surmount many difficulties thanks to his strong mind. And this is courage. Courage means civil courage, when people raise their voices for peace, for their convictions despite personal disadvantages. It is wonderful. They call it heroism, and it has been praised since the beginning of the civilisation. This is the daringness of the braves. “We sing a song to the madness of daring!” [Maxim Gorky. Song of the Falcon] Such people are unique. They are “Human Beings” written with a capital letter, who have a full right to carry this name. They were crucified, put in prison but we still pronounce [their names] and realise [audio ends].

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I also do not know exactly what courage means. I think we can define courage depending on the situation itself. Sometimes I believe that courage is simply when one takes a decision which contradicts with his own advantages and makes him sacrifice. This is a simple definition but it is emotional, because for example we think sometimes that one of the achievements of bourgeoisie is to make people aware of their advantages, to defend these advantages and not to follow principles which contradict with the advantages. I think we can determine the courage depending on the attitude. We need always courageous people who prefer the moral principles on all other things and I think these people play major rule in our life although they are not a lot.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Courage means fighting for its own ideas, for its own believes. In my opinion, courage also means to live defending the truth, but first of all I don´t believe in heroism and I don´t believe in homeland. For this reason I believe that it is courageous to defend its own life and to defend the life of others. Defending the ideals of justice, defending the values of human life, means much courage to me too. In addition to all this, I think that word "courage" and word "love" are synonyms. In my opinion, love is the most active form of courage. To speak about love in a society like ours shows much courage.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea: ...we have to solve this problems inside of our country and the other international gouvernments don't have to interfere in the problems of other countries. The integration and the involvement of this countries has to define our process..... that we don't have our own problems and this is local and national.

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Sara thank you for this question. You know we’re so accustomed to seeing the sort of - very obvious sort of massive gestures that constitute courage. That in my opinion courage is now - or courage is when an individual is prepared to love, even when your own life is constituted around a certain - around circumstances where love has not been possible. Where your own life, to love - love is absent in your own life. Compassion, human compassion, takes an enormous amount of courage. Upholding another person’s right to dignity takes courage. And being prepared – being prepared to engage people around the upholding of the dignity of another person’s life. That’s what I think courage means.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Sara, that is one of the most interesting questions anyone has ever posed me because myself, I’ve been looking for courage all my life, courage to be myself, courage to be the best I can be, courage to speak for myself, to have courage to stand up for myself, and the courage to uphold anything I believe in within myself. Myself, just like you, I’ve been so depending on being liked by someone else in this great circle of life, wanting to be recognized and accepted for who I am, being loved and cared for and then when someone doesn’t like it then I become so defensive, so saddened, so I fall apart. So what does it all mean? Probably that I didn’t have the courage to be who I am and then look at the great circle of life, how many have had the courage to stand up for what has gone in life all throughout ages. Few. If everyone had the courage, do you think we would have been where we are now? I do not think so. I think we would have advanced ourself to a far greater degree than we have, had we had the courage to stand up for us. To have someone stand up for us. No. Sara, I don’t want to depend on others any more. I want to depend on myself. I want to have the courage to stand up for what I believe, what I know is right for me and the world in which I live. I pray to the Great One you too will have the courage to stand up for who you are and deliver to the world in which you live the very best you can give for times and times to come. I’m wondering within myself if I’ve been able to answer your question. Please let me know because I want to be able to answer that very simple basic question you posed.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: The question of what courage means now I think has often been taken in a context that I find distorts meaning of the word "courage". It is sometimes spoken about particularly in the West, in the United States that courage means speaking up, speaking out, speaking ones mind. The reality is I don’t think that takes nearly that kind of courage that for example it takes for someone who is in Columbia today to go into work every day, to try to organize a union in Columbia, a country where the government aren’t backed, supported by the United States. It is carrying out death squad activity, supporting militias or carrying out death squad activity against trade unions where people everyday just going to work are risking their lives just saying that they want to have a right to a [voice are] risking their lives. That to me takes courage. That to me is courageous or Iraqis today having the courage to voice opposition to stand up to resist US Empire. That to me is courageous. To be in the United States and denounce the war, to criticize the war, to me that doesn’t take courage, to me that’s a basic moral responsibility.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: Courage, that we have to speak honestly and to start with the person. Courage means to stop hypocrisy and speak out honestly.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, for me, I think the definition of courage hasn’t changed just because we are in a different time. Courage has always meant the same thing, which is being able to stand up to corruption, to oppression, to exploitation. But I think courage also means not just to struggle for something which affects one directly, but courage is really about struggling also for the rights of the others. That’s what takes real courage. But also for me personally, I feel courage is also not just about changing this world. It is really also about ensuring that the present day world has not changed me. So for me, more and more courage has come to mean that.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I love this question because the question of courage has always been alive in my feel of philosophy. To be courageous, of course takes wisdom. When we think of Socrates, for example, looking at the great virtues of courage and wisdom and temperance and justice, these are integral. And in terms of my understanding of the meaning of the "courage" - core rage or rage of the heart, enlightened rage, proper rage that comes for being outraged at injustice. That sense of the heart rage, "courage" and the real courage, what does it mean now? It truly does shift according your context, but what doesn’t shift is a genuine courage that comes from awakened consciousness and genuine knowledge or wisdom. And wisdom and courage are inseparable. And temperance and justice, these are all interconnected, as we saw from Plato and Aristotle and our Greek traditions. But, it was also clear in all of our great spiritual traditions, that it takes courage to be human being. It takes courage to be. Because in these great traditions, the attempt to step back from privileging one's ego and clinging to the ego as the true self, the illusion of the ego, takes enormous courage. It always has taken courage to let go of one’s ego identity and dare to have the courage and the faith in the wisdom to let go and cross into allowing the true awakened self, the self of interconnectivity, to come forth. All human beings are called to have this profound courage, to step back and let go of that artificial self, so that their higher self may come forth. And we are challenged for that kind of courage. And, whether it’s in ancient times or now, this courage of the heart to dare to become a true human being is more required now than ever, as we enter our global age of awakened human beings.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: Courage today is courage of yesterday. It is really a state of [inaudible], a state of -- internally as well as externally, it is the ability to keep getting up every day, facing the challenges in your life, facing challenges that are posed to our human family, facing challenges that are on the global arena and not giving up. It means that each day we must find our inspiration within ourselves, within the lives of others, to see the beauty, to live life with gratitude and to know that we have the capacity to lead a meaningful, fulfilled and fulfilling lives. If we would look for that which is positive, look for our purpose and meaning in life and to know that life itself has value and that we have to honor it, we have to respect it and to recognize that life in all forms is sacred. Living life with courage is having guts.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: In my opinion courage means moral courage. For me courage means to be strong enough to fight against the own environment too. You are brave, if you fight against your enemy, if you fight for your nation. This is a kind of bravery that is connected with the general public. You are doing what everybody else does. You swim with the current, you go together with the others. You are brave, if you stand alone - against others and especially against your own people. So members of Resistance during the Second World War were very courageous people. Resistance fighters need more courage than soldiers on the battlefield. But members of Resistance in Germany not only had to fight against the political power, the public authorities, the state of terror, but they also had to resist the contempt of their own friends, neighbours, of society, even of their own family - they were really courageous. Moral courage is very, very difficult. Not only because it means something for others and for your own people, but also because it lasts for a long time. A battle can be short - you can lose your life there. But to offer resistance against your own society, your own friends for years - for this you need a tremendous amount of courage. Once again: In my opinion courage means moral courage.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Courage, what does courage mean now? I only can speak from a place of my heart, of what courage means? In courage means to stand up for what you believe in, to go deep down into your heart, to deep down into yourself and into your spirit of what moves you, of what you feel is right. To find that place that inner chamber of your heart of what you know is right and sacred and special. And when instances come where you are minimalized, where that knowing is suppressed or minimalized or disrespected, disregarded, to stand up and speak, to stand up and exhibit, or to stand up in your mind, and acknowledge a compassion for those that don’t understand where you’re coming from. This type of action of stepping up in what you truly believe in, what you truly know is right within your heart, to stand up in this way is a courage, and there are many different type of courage. And here at this table, a 112 people, coming from different places and different cultures, different forms of courage, accept this courage. It’s true, sounds like the same type of courage in different forms.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: Sarah, sometimes in life you feel that because of your opinion, you're standing alone. And that's the moment when you should feel that you should continue. Many years ago, in 1992, there was something where everyone have their faith that was gonna change the history of the planet. And what happened in 1992 was the earth's - first Earth Summit in Rio. Was the first time leaders around the world came together and make major decisions for us to have a better planet. The reality was that ten years or eight years after there was the result of that was Rio plus zero minus zero. There was almost few advancements. Many countries had changes government [over a] five or seven years, and there was no follow-up in decisions or policy or agreements or commitments that was made by previous governments. So, there was a force or a process to try to make a change of the situation. And in the second Earth Summit in Johannesburg, when everyone thought that there were gonna be also major commitments from governments, the result was, more - some governments, some of the most powerful governments, didn't - decided some very important things that were gonna have positive impact; intense issue like global warming, for instance. So, the people that was at Johannesburg found that there was a situation of a loss of hope. But then, from there, we came up with the courage, the spirit, that the only thing that was gonna make difference for humanity in the future was personal actions and personal responsibility. So people stand up and have the commitment that we, as individual, we need to make the difference. We need to make the difference in our societies, we need to make the difference in our communities, in our countries, and internationally. We need to take actions. We need to take responsibility, and that means courage. That sometimes when you take these steps, you’d feel that you’re alone on yourself. But there is when you need to continue.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 1:50:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger