Sir Peter Ustinov was speaking in Frankfurt where he received the Planetary Consciousness Lifetime Achievement Award from the Club of Budapest.

Best known as an actor, Sir Peter’s has played an important role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court as President of the World Federalist Movement.

One of the Club’s goals is to develop Planetary Consciousness, a holistic vision of people, society, life and theuniverse.

The Club’s president and founder, Professor Ervin Laszlo, author of You Can Change the World, said: “We all know that we have now entered a critical phase in the history of humankind. The future of the human species is at stake.

Deep down, global unsustainability is due to the way we relate to each other and to nature. We polarise society into haves and have-nots and we exploit and, indeed, overexploit nature. If we continue unchanged we will press ever more millions to the very edge of physical survival, and provoke frustration, hate and violence in the process. So what must we do to change?”

The change we need is rooted in the thinking, feeling and aspirations of ordinary people.

“The dominant culture today sees the world as made up of self-concerned, mutually isolated people and groups, pursuing their own narrow objectives. But we need the consciousness that understands that we are like islands in the sea ñ separate on the surface but united in the deep. That consciousness is planetary consciousness.”

Planetary Consciousness is not a mere theoretical abstraction; it is already evolving and few people are as effective as Paulo Coelho, the winner of the Planetary Conscious-ness Prize for Literature in helping people to achieve the awareness we all need to survive and prosper on this planet.

The best-selling Brazilian author of such books as the Alchemist, translated into 47 languages, tells us, “In life what counts is the reality of the moment. I am part of a quiet revolution and move therefore as if in the underground of society. My belief is no longer naÔve, as in my hippy years, but I see signs that something is really changing. Many people have recognised that all things are one and that all things concern all. My readers are part of this movement. Not that I would teach them something; they have long known these things. A book or an artist is just a catalyst, who raises from the bottom of the heart things we hide from ourselves. I challenge my readers to break chains, to follow dreams.”

Accepting his Award, he said some people were well known because their dreams were visible because they were published all over the world. Others are invisible because their dreams are not written in publications. But we are all warriors of the light and we have the power to say No.

Referring to Germany’s refusal to endorse America’s call for war on Iraq he said, “I am proud to receive this prize in Germany because, now that we see very stormy weather on the horizon, Germany has said No.
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“We have the power to change the collective dream.” That is the power to change the world.
You Can Change the World’ is available from Positive News for £5.
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