By: Nahal Mishel-Ghashghai

My name is Nahal. Nahal in Farsi (the language of Iran) means a seedling, a little tree. In many ways I still feel like a little tree, young, alive, ready to poke around and grow into my full potential.

I was born and raised in Iran. I came to the US when I was 19 to finish my college education and for various reasons decided to live here. I’ve now lived longer in the US than I have in Iran and consider the US “my home” and Iran my “birth country”. I love both countries.

In all my years of living in the US and throughout all the political ups and downs between the US and Iran, I’ve never once experienced hostility or prejudice towards myself or my family. Perhaps it is because I really like all people and do my best not to have prejudice towards any one in particular. I believe that deep down inside, we are all very similar and want similar things, health, happiness, peace of mind, safety and comfort for ourselves and our loved ones.

I believe people of different cultures, backgrounds and upbringing can live side by side in harmony when we respect and appreciate both our similarities and differences.

I believe increasing compassion in the world, even one person at a time, is the key to creating peace.

An act of kindness, a smile, a wave, a helping hand, no matter how small, cracks open the door to compassion and the reward is the wonderful “feeling good inside”.

I invite you to try this. Do a good deed for someone today without any expectations, and know that you are adding to the collective compassion and moving one step closer to a peaceful world. Imagine if every person on the planet did this!

Nahal is a former Microsoft Engineer and currently an Avatar Master who lives in Seattle, WA :: You can find her on Facebook or MySpace or just google her for contact.

Once a year, 2500 or so people from 75 or more countries gather somewhere in the world to participate in the annual Avatar Wizards Course. They are called, humorously enough in this post-Harry Potter world, Wizards and are they gather together for two weeks with a few very special goals in mind: to further explore their own consciousness, heal lifelong issues or patterns or habits, attitudes, or character traits that they no longer wish to have, generally clean themselves up, discover more about themselves, practice using “the wizards tools,” learn to live more deliberately, and live in the space called “enlightenment” more often in their lives. The mission being to “create a better world and an enlightened planet for all.” There are over 100,000 Avatars in the world today about 10,000 Wizards.

This video features a few random selection of Wizards from various parts of the world talking about their experiences.

To watch more videos online click here.

Watch video as people talk about thier own experiences.