Spiritual Exchange An Interview with the President of the Republic of Slovenia - A Spiritual Person Endeavoring to Raise the Consciousness of Humanity

I: Hallo, and welcome to Supreme Master Television. Today we are in Slovenia, a very beautiful and peaceful country in the heart of Europe. Slovenia is renowned for its beautiful landscape and wonderful forests. Slovenia also has a very enlightened president, Janez Drnovsek. Dr. Drnovsek is a vegetarian and a champion of animal rights and welfare. And it is my privilege today to speak to the president about his spiritual philosophy in life, his life as a vegetarian and his work for humanity at large.

In 2006, you founded a non-political movement for raising human consciousness called Movement for Justice and Development. Could you tell me a little bit more about your views and aspirations for this wonderful movement?

JD: Yes, my objective was to raise the consciousness of the people, not only in Slovenia, but around the world. I think that we need a critical mass of conscious people to change the present state of the world. There is too much suffering in the world and we destroy our planet, day by day. And it’s very necessary to raise the consciousness of the people so that they become aware of this. Only when most of the people of the world become conscious enough, then I think that politics will move and things will start to change. In looking at the politics, I don’t expect that change will be initiated from the politicians, from above. The pressure and the change must come from the foundation, from the people’s consciousness. And then the behavior of the politicians and of business leaders will start to change and we can create a better world.

Become Whole and Regain Our Connection to Universal Consciousness

I: You have also written, “We are not whole because we are not compassionate and we do not love living things,” and that we are losing our connection to universal consciousness. How do you feel that we can become whole and regain that?

JD: When we overcome our selfishness, then we become whole. When we start to think good and to do good; when we feel for other people, for other beings and nature, then we are whole. Otherwise, we do not really live per se. And selfishness is the point, the critical point for a human being or an individual to overcome - his or her own selfishness. But it’s also a critical point for humanity as a whole.

Today, we have so much selfishness, greed and striving for power, for recognition and for material goods. But we can see that the world is unjust and that the situation has gotten worse and worse. We have not improved the conditions of the people living in the less developed countries. There are still many people dying from hunger, and we are unable to change the decline of the climate, the continuation of the planetary change. We need a kind of leadership for humanity. Sometimes I say that politics ideally defend the interests of humanity as a whole. But they are always about the interests of some groups of people or of nations with economic interests. We can speak about geopolitical interests, but who defends the humanity as a whole? Who defends the earth? No one!

That’s why I think we have to organize ourselves as people in the world. Otherwise, all these mechanisms will drive us towards destruction. We can foresee that in the not-so-distant-time that the climate will be destroyed so much that it won’t be possible to repair it, and that we will pass over the point of no return. It will not be the end of the humanity at that point, but the agony will start with more and more weather extremes, with more and more natural catastrophes, and more and more severe conditions for the people living everywhere on the earth. And just imagine what the people, perhaps living thirty, forty years from now, will think about the generation that could have stopped these developments, but didn’t. What will they think about us if we don’t act, if we don’t move, if we don’t change these patterns of behavior, of politics, of big business, sometimes also big media and so on; that we will just allow this to go on, all because of benefit and profit and greed, because of selfishness, of eternal struggle between some groups of people or individuals or nations.

I: Talking about the climate, some spiritual masters say that this pollution is mainly because of our thoughts, not just the technological development and technology that we use. What do you think about that?

JD: I would say that it’s about our consciousness, because our consciousness is not strong enough for the development of technologies. The earth’s technologies have come so far, but our consciousness generally remains low and is not high enough to ensure that with these technologies, with this development, we will not destroy humanity. So it’s true that we need more clear thinking, that we need higher consciousness in order to ensure that with our own development we will not destroy ourselves. In previous times in our human history, human beings were never in a situation where they could destroy the whole planet or humanity itself. Now for the first time, we can; we have this possibility. There are different scenarios of how we can destroy ourselves: with wars, with massive terror attacks or simply with climate change, by doing nothing to stop it. So, we need a different kind of consciousness; we need more spirituality.

I: Do you think that in that case, just as we now have politicians as leaders of society, is it necessary to have also spiritual leaders, or would it be even better to combine both in one person, let’s say?

JD: It would be better, certainly, if politicians could be spiritual enough or have high enough consciousness. But it is difficult, because the pattern of politics is such that it’s very difficult to act in a different way. If an individual starts, then he will have a lot of problems, and it’s not easy for him to change things. So that’s why I think that we need much broader support from many, many people around the world. It would be really positive if spiritual leaders and also religious leaders joined in the efforts to improve the state of the world. Now we need everyone to join these efforts - all religious leaders in the world and all spiritual leaders - to raise the consciousness of humanity. Then the politicians will have to respond to the people.

Education Should Contribute to Developing Spiritual Awareness and a Higher Form of Consciousness

I: We all know that our children will be the ones to confront survival on this planet. Do you have any suggestions how we can educate them or prepare them to do their job?

JD: Education is very important. I think that education should contribute to the formation of the consciousness of children. This is much more important for them than to have an accumulation of all kinds of knowledge. They have to develop awareness in themselves, a consciousness or feeling that we are human beings who are interdependent, who must care for each other; that we cannot survive without this kind of connection or solidarity with other people, other living beings, animals, nature and so on. And of course they should be taught how to overcome their selfishness, not taught to do things just for themselves such as how to succeed, how to make a career or how to earn as much money as possible. These are old patterns, ones that can not ensure the survival of humanity. So new methods should be taught. But this is not easy because then we need teachers and parents with a high level of consciousness. Also, we don’t have so much time to pass all of these tasks to our children. We have to educate them properly, but at the same time we must do our job; we must first raise the consciousness of the people, and then act in a way that will stop the destruction of the climate, of the planet and also to ensure even more just laws that will stop these wars and conflicts that go on repeatedly over time because of greed consciousness, the desire to prevail over others and so on.

I: It may be the first time in history that all this knowledge and all this wisdom about life is available to everyone. We have the Internet, and there are so many Masters, teachers, lecturers and so on. Yet still we have so many miserable people. What’s the problem that this just doesn’t work?

JD: It’s true that we have this situation today. On one side, we have the possibility to use all the knowledge and experience of humanity and spread these new technologies, using the Internet and the media. On the other side, the same tools can be used to spread other consciousness such as materialism and selfishness, just to provide everyone with a comfortable life - especially if we speak about the people in the developed world - without thinking about the problems in the world or about other people. They just concentrate on themselves through the TV when they aren’t working or shopping to buy something. So, the flow of consciousness is derived from the way of life that develops.

So we must find a way to use these modern technologies, especially the Internet and also others like the media to spread a higher consciousness, to spread the spiritual awareness, and to wake up the people. But it’s true that often it’s very difficult to wake up someone who somehow is quite comfortable in his or her life and who just thinks about himself, not about others and not about the future of the world.

That’s why it’s very possible that a kind of shock will be needed. I think that we have had these kinds of shocks; we already now have more and more natural catastrophes, and probably there will be more and more serious ones, and it will become more and more difficult to ignore and to forget. For example, the catastrophe that happened in New Orleans, which everyone very quickly tried to forget - the conditions, our responsibility for doing nothing before, and for responding badly during the crisis. Even the media backed off; everyone just tended to forget, instead of really thinking about it. But this could be just the beginning. So, another catastrophe, perhaps even bigger than this one, might follow. Something must be changed in our societies, in our states. Unfortunately this one was not enough. But I have faith that bigger shocks are on the way; and probably they will help to wake up humanity’s consciousness, together with our efforts, so that all of us will be aware of the state of the world, that the future is in danger.

Patterns Need to Be Changed in Order to Raise Consciousness

I: You mentioned that some patterns need to be changed in order to raise consciousness. Do you think that a powerful step would be for more people to become vegetarian? Would that have an impact?

JD: This is an important question. I think that today we can produce enough vegetarian food to feed everyone in the world. We don’t need to kill animals. It is just the low consciousness of people again, in continuing this preference without thinking about it. We could tell someone in the restaurant, “If you order a steak, they will have to kill a cow for you. And then they have to take a part of the cow for the meat, and the cow will suffer. This is what has to be done, just when you think you would care for a steak. But it’s not necessary that you eat this. You have a variety of good vegetarian foods.” Many people just eat automatically. People think this is what everyone does and they just continue with this, without thinking. So we have to raise the consciousness here, too.

I: They begin to see animals as other sentient beings.

JD: Indeed, animals are beings who suffer and who can be happy, as we can. They have consciousness and they are conscious of what is going on. Animals are conscious that we are going to kill them. They suffer, they are afraid, they feel; and then people eat all these things. Certainly in a more harmonious future, humanity will have to treat animals in a different way, much better than today, and to live also in more harmony with nature.

I: Do you think positive energy is very important for people to understand more as well as how it can help them?

JD: Positive energy is crucial, and we need it so much because there is much more negative energy in this world. We create negative energy with our negative emotions, thoughts and deeds. All this fight for survival, for material goods and for power creates a lot of negative energy. On the other side, there is not enough positive energy to balance this negative energy. So we have to create. I think that we start to create positive energy when we overcome our selfishness, when we and become aware of other people, when we are compassionate, when we feel the suffering of others. At this point, we start to create positive energy in our positive thoughts, positive feelings, and by doing positive things, like helping other people and animals. So we need a lot of this.

Raising the consciousness means to create much more positive energy for everyone everywhere. It means making more good, in order to create those effects. And the media and these kinds of programs are very important. We have the stories to make everyone conscious, but generally we do not use them enough. So we will have to spread much more positive energy everywhere in the world. I think that basically all the religions want to make human beings better, to do good things, to develop the values of honesty and also understanding and helping other people. So let’s focus on this and try to gather all different concepts, to raise the consciousness of humanity.

I: Is there then any difference between spirituality and religion?

JD: Religion is one of the ways to develop spirituality. It’s not the only one, but it’s an important one.

I: In Slovenia they are preparing a law about religion and religious leaders. Do you think that we have to make people also more conscious or become more responsible for the life we live?

JD: The law will not achieve this. What is important, if we speak about religions, is that every religion is good if it is sincere, if it is deep. Every prayer is good, because every prayer creates positive energy. People, through religion and through prayer, try to come nearer to the higher universal consciousness. So it’s important that the religion is really sincere and deep; it can help. It can help the individual who is religious in this way and also it can help other people. So this is the most important; but this we cannot achieve through laws, I think.

I: Do you support the role of complementary healing?

JD: Complementary healing is important. I think that one of the problems in today’s society is that it depends too much on so-called official medicine, which is based very often on the selling of pharmaceutical products. People consume too many of these, which are chemical products. And people depend on their doctors; they don’t feel the basic responsibility for their health and their life; they just don’t know. So it’s very often mechanically, without thinking or doing bad things, that they suddenly are shocked and trying to find someone to help them. Then they will pass their life into the hands of someone who perhaps can help, but perhaps not. So I think it’s very important that we feel responsible for our health and we live consciously in a healthy way, developing our self. This is very important; it’s the inner feeling or inner voice, the intuition, which can help a human being in many situations, to do the best and also to live in the best possible way avoid disease.

And we have to live much closer to nature. Our lives have become too artificial. We have lost our contact with nature; so we must find it whenever it’s possible. If we deal with sickness, then let’s go to the parks as often as possible, or to go to nature. Nature can somehow help us to overcome all the negativities that we accumulate in our hectic lives, which are not very healthy and can result in so many diseases of civilization today like cancer or AIDS. I think a remedy for any disease can be found in nature, not in the chemist, or chemical or pharmaceutical products. But for this we must develop a different way of life, and be in touch with nature.

The Thoughts of Life and Awareness

I: It would be nice in schools if the children had the opportunity to hear things like that. Instead, we have a lot of subjects about many things except about life, love and how our mind works. That’s what is very important for our life, how to live it.

JD: It’s true. It’s very difficult for many people to live and to learn through life. That’s why I decided to write, and wrote the book, “Thoughts on Life and Consciousness.” I tried to transfer my own experience and knowledge about life and consciousness to other people. And many people reacted, saying that it has clearly helped them to change their life, to change their life patterns and to find the ways they did not find before. So I think that everyone has to do what he or she can, also in helping other people to learn how to live.

The book “Thoughts on Life and Consciousness” (Misli o življenju in zavedanju), written by Dr. Janez Drnovsek, President of the Republic of Slovenia

I: We would like to thank you very much for sharing this time with us, and your wisdom and inspiring ideas. We wish you God’s blessing for your very important work and good health. And we thank you in the name of all the Slovenian people who support you. We think it’s very important and very nice in this time to have a president who is such a spiritual person and who is going along on this path of development of the consciousness.

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