Sustained good will creates friendship.
Sustained friendship creates trust.
Sustained trust creates compassion.
Sustained compassion creates peace.

A 2007 Holiday Message
Supporting Inspirational Leadership
By Azim N. Khamisa

The year 2007 has been phenomenal, a very busy year with an amazing amount of travel, public and corporate speaking, forgiveness workshops, the publication of my second book “From Forgiveness to Fulfillment,” a year with work weeks often running at 80 hours, a year where so much was accomplished with the grace and blessings of the Universe. As the year comes to a close and we enter the New Year – an election year – what comes to my mind is the lack of authenticity, compassion and integrity we presently see in the leadership of our country. With a few exceptions, it may be true for the world as well. I believe when the change of guard takes place a year from now, it will be important to focus on the qualities of authenticity, compassion and integrity to shift our country into a new direction … a direction of goodwill, friendship, trust, empathy and peace.

Through my speaking engagements, through the Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF) and CANEI (Constant and Never Ending Improvement), the work that I do today focuses on developing these qualities in children and adults. In fact, this newsletter’s quote of the month was inspired after the 9/11 tragedy and has become the focus of my fourth book: “From Fulfillment to Enlightenment,” targeted to come out in 2010. My second book “From Forgiveness to Fulfillment” was released November 10 of this year and is available for purchase alongside other products on my website. For this book, Marianne Williamson wrote the foreword, and Michael Beckwith has written the afterword. I am very proud of this work and invite you to get a copy for yourself; it makes a wonderful gift for the holidays. Portions of the proceeds from my speaking, workshops and product sales go to TKF, helping to continue its work with our youth.

My third book “The Secrets of a Bulletproof Spirit – How to Take a Hard Knock and End up on Top” will be out in 2009. I am writing this book with Jillian Quinn, an author who lives in New York and teaches English Literature at the college level. As a minister, she is extremely familiar with A Course in Miracles and loves the topic of forgiveness. Jillian and I are very excited about this prescriptive book, which will be published by Random House. It will have 40 chapters and teach – in clear and practical terms – how to develop a bulletproof spirit with values I have spoken of in this message. Think about what our country and the world would look like if we had leaders who possessed these important virtues. I met Jillian a year ago – in a synchronistic way designed by the Universe – and feel very blessed to be doing this book with her.

At year’s end, I also want to celebrate TKF, as it continues to thrive with the Universe’s blessings. Under the capable leadership of TKF President Mark Fackler and TKF Executive Director Lisa Grogan, it has grown to 14 employees and has secured a large grant from a private foundation. This grant will allow TKF to do a longitudinal study over three to five years with TKF staff based at a school cluster, including a high school and its feeder middle and elementary schools. I have been wanting to do a longitudinal study for many years and am thrilled to start on this important project, and feel much gratitude for such a generous grant to make it come about.

I have always maintained that violence is a learned behavior. If this is true, it follows that nonviolence can also be a learned behavior. But you have to teach it! That is what TKF does and does extremely well. The longitudinal study will evaluate TKF’s programs, looking to transform schools into nonviolent school grounds. In so doing, we will see – among other positive outcomes – an improvement in attendance, reduced suspension and expulsion rates, and an improved overall climate of the school. In fact, TKF is on the frontier of transforming our education system, which as you may know is in a dire need of reform. TKF is exploring a partnership with SDSU, on their invitation, to create a TKF Endowed Professorship on Peace & Nonviolence, which will be based on TKF’s work in schools over the past 12 years. SDSU produces more teachers than any other U.S. university, and its new graduate teachers can all be trained through this professorship to replicate TKF’s programs in the schools that employ them. There is a very exciting agenda for 2008 and beyond.

CANEI – a program I developed under the auspices of the National Youth Advocate Program based in Ohio – is now six years old and has expanded into six different markets. This program targets violent youth, many in gangs, who have been arrested and are on probation. We are showing that they can experience a pronounced shift, just like the one experienced by Tony Hicks, the person who killed my son. Utilizing the pillars of Spirituality, Restorative Justice (detailed in my first book) and Literacy, CANEI transforms how we as a country treat our incarcerated and marginalized youth.

It breaks my heart to see these young souls warehoused in juvenile prisons in terrible conditions. These reformatories need to be healing places where inmates can be reformed and invited back to contribute to society in a meaningful way. Tony is a good example of this, and CANEI is creating many more good examples. For the juveniles in need, I have also expanded my speaking at juvenile prisons, bringing a message of hope and teaching the importance of forgiveness. This complete process of forgiveness includes asking forgiveness from the people they have hurt, forgiving themselves and then redeeming themselves by helping another youth not make the same mistakes they have made. CANEI also has the capacity to build empathy and compassion in caregivers so we can save our young souls from the fate of a life of crime. I am honored to be working with NYAP and its founder Mubarak Awad and its CEO Marvena Twigg. From them I have learned a lot regarding the myriad of challenges our children, youth and families face. In existence for 30 years, with 500 employees in seven states, NYAP is one of the prime providers of exemplary services for children, youth and families in our country.

Besides work with TKF and CANEI, I have also been doing a lot of writing, speaking and workshops, with the support and care of the ANK Enterprises team. I continue to keep an extremely busy speaking schedule. The purpose with all this work is to inspire the important ethics and moral values so that we produce leaders who have the capacity to take conflict and create love, unity, brotherhood, sisterhood and peace. The qualities that foster this are empathy, compassion and forgiveness. I work tirelessly (though admittedly, I have been worn down of late) in teaching the key message: from conflict, peace is possible.

Mine is but one story. There are many who have taken the compassionate high road to conflict and, in so doing, fostered peace within themselves first, their families next and broadly into society. As we go to the polls this year – let us elect leaders who demonstrate clearly the qualities I speak about here. Let’s pick leaders who clearly show an unwavering commitment not to use violence as a means of resolving conflict but rather use the principles of nonviolence, compassion and forgiveness. This road will lead us eventually to peace, whereas responding to violence with violence perpetuates the cycle of violence, making our world unsafe for our children and grandchildren. You can not destroy dark with dark. Only light can destroy dark. So during the holidays I invite you to shine your radiant light on some dark spots in your lives, relationships and communities.

Closing out this message on a personal note, my daughter Tasreen continues to provide loving full-time care to my two grandsons who bring an immense amount of happiness into my life. Shahin turned three this year and Khalil turned one. They both are doing very well, and I’m amazed at the intelligence of today’s children. They also inspire me to continue the work we are doing to ensure that they grow up in a safer, kinder and a more peaceful world.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your love and support of this important work. Wishing you and your loved ones a happy, safe, joyous and blessed Holiday Season! 

With Kindest Personal Regards & Many Blessings,
Azim N. Khamisa