Representing a synthesis of the author’s decades of multidisciplinary work in meditation, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and spirituality, Creating Peace by Being Peace guides readers in creating peace on seven levels of engagement, from the body to the ecology to God. Author Gabriel Cousens addresses the increasingly urgent need to transform humankind with the ancient peace wisdom of the Essenes, a Judaic mystical group that flourished two millennia ago. He begins by explaining the Essenes and the lessons they can teach us as creators of peace. Individual chapters cover a wide range of possibility, from the personal (“Peace with the Mind”) to the political (“Peace with the Community”). The final chapter, ""Integrating Peace on Every Level,"" presents a comprehensive plan for peace with the body, mind, family, community, culture, ecology, and God as a pervasive experience in life—moment to moment, day by day. Cousens blends documentary evidence with original interpretation to show that the Essenes actually did live this experience of peace. Most importantly, he transfers their gift to modern seekers as a breathing blueprint for realizing this reality as we walk in our lives; work according to our gifts, joys, and sacred design; and live the path of spiritual awakening—the sevenfold peace.

“Gabriel Cousens’s call to wake up from the herd mentality, to move beyond dualism and become, in our eating, in our living, and in our sexuality, the unity to which we aspire is the harbinger of the peace that our planet so badly needs.”
—Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine and chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives

“Creating Peace by Being Peace is an act of universal love offered by Dr. Cousens to all sentient beings. My prayer is that it will be appreciated not only as a scholarly spiritual study, but as the practical solution to the challenges of twenty-first-century living that it is.”
—Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder of Agape International Spiritual Center and author of A Manifesto of Peace and Forty Day Mind Fast Soul Feast

“I consider Rebbe Gabriel Cousens, MD, to be a true follower of the Essene tradition. He has penetrated the meaning of the Sevenfold Path of Peace.”
—Norma Nilsson Bordeaux-Szekely, successor to Professor Edmond Bordeaux-Szekely and director of the International Biogenic Society

“I love Creating Peace by Being Peace! It gives us golden keys to human fulfillment: body, mind, and soul in harmony with humanity, the earth, and the heavens. It is an excellent manual for our evolutionary transcendence into the third millennium.”
—Robert Muller, former assistant secretary general of the United Nations and chancellor of the University of Peace

“Gabriel Cousens is a gentle master on the path toward health for ourselves and our planet. He brings the great tradition of the Essenes to us in modern language so that it can be used in every aspect of our daily lives.”
—Barbara Marx Hubbard, author of Conscious Evolution and Emergence and stateswoman and founder of Foundations for Conscious Evolution

“Cousens’s innovative, holistic vision of peace is a welcome new insight that deserves the attention of anyone concerned with living more consciously.”
—East West Journal