“Four points has my religion.
I make them my philosophy and I make them my action.
Live, believe, love and do.
That is also my petition.
Live your philosophy, love your art,
believe your religion and do your part.
But don’t use your religion to suppress one another.
We are seven billion minds in this world,
and expecting everyone to believe in the same thing is a little bit insane!
I respect all who have faith.
I respect all who do not.
I respect those who believe in a god, and I respect those who don’t.
I like those who have faith in the universe.
I like those who have faith in themselves.
I like those who have faith in verse and I like those who wander freely.
A hug for those of science, a hug for those of God.
A hug for those of art and a hug for those of atheism.
Axé for those who are of axé, amen for those who are of amen.
Blessed be for those of magic and love for those of goodness.
Religious intolerance has its own contradiction.
‘Religion’ comes from Latin ‘religare’ which means coming together.
So stop dividing the world between those who will enter paradise or not.
Is our world completely sick
while we waste our time fighting over this?
Instead of separating religions between those evil or good,
why not put your ideologies aside and help that guy
who is dying of cold in the street, helpless and alone?
The great masters have already said that we need union,
so why not make respect also your religion?”
(Applause) (Cheering)
Hey! Gratitude!
This poem was born from some of my thoughts
about how much we need to integrate human values
in our acts of faith, like respect, for example.
I believe that religions are, in fact, supposed to bring out these things in us,
bring out our virtues,
bring out the human values that make us a family on Earth.
So, this poem was born from that, to say these things,
to say we can become united,
that everyone has the right to be themselves, that’s okay,
and we don’t have to fight over this.
I believe we can learn
from all religions and philosophies of life in the world,
if we wish to.
The only problem, in my perception,
is when these tools that should be used for human development
are used as tools for social manipulation.
This is dangerous and we have to be wary of this.
But it’s very easy for us to notice
when we are on the path of evolution
or when we are walking on a path that hinders us.
On a path that draws you back, you’ll have intolerance,
you’ll have prejudice, you’ll have anger, you’ll have hate,
in the name of a deity or deities.
On a path that allows you to evolve, we have unity,
we have respect, we have awareness,
we come together, we become a family.
So, I believe that everything depends on how we react
when facing these things.
After I published this poem,
wonderful things happened to me.
For example, I am here, and very happy to be here.
And I’ve met lots of people, I’ve been to lots of places
and I intend to meet many more people
because of this poem.
So, I believe that it’s a message that has to somehow reach people,
and this is great.
Whenever people come and talk to me about this poem,
they say something like,
“Wow, I didn’t know there were people who thought like this in the world!”
“Wow, imagine if everyone in the world could think like you do, right?”
Or, “Listening to you gave me hope.”
I’m very happy and thankful that I can give someone hope,
somehow,
but I don’t think that everyone has to think like I do.
We have to be united in respect, that’s all.
When they say these things, I always wonder,
“What is it that makes us lose hope?
What makes us stop believing that changes are possible,
that changes are real?”
If we didn’t have hope, an event like this wouldn’t make sense.
So, changes are real and are possible,
but we have to be active agents of the changes we want in the world.
If you want to see change in the world you need to do something
for the change to happen.
In my writing, in my poems,
I like to speak of things that are important to me,
things I believe are relevant to other people.
So, education, religion, art are things that interest me deeply.
Everything about human development
and which I believe makes us better interests me a lot.
So, I will recite to you a small piece of another of my poems.
“In education that flourishes, I want to be patience
because I know that education is a form of resistance.
I won’t change the world by knowing how to make verse.
The world changes constantly.
The constant transformation is a law of the universe.
But if all that we focus on becomes greater,
I will focus on good, lucidity, and reason.
I won’t let me be swayed by this distorted reality,
which says that those outside the norm must hide themselves,
because the norm is a box where nature doesn’t fit.
The power that created me created the flower,
created the bird, created the tree.
From the outside, I can even do what the system wants from me,
but from the inside, the bird that beats its wings will want to fly until the end,
and I want it to fly.”
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Cheering)
”
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