A personal statement

Imeschs supervision of the Mandala Monument of Peace project over a period of 16 years now has had a lot of people asking what his motivation actually was, what was the sense of his commitment. Does he want to build a monument for himself? Or does he see himself as a missionary, a starry-eyed idealist?

IM: “I am not a worldly innocent dreamer. My experience of life and my practice-oriented work in the here and now (see www.hans-ulrich-imesch.ch)  give me a relatively clear view of how the world ticks. I am not acting as a missionary for a so-called “better world” with this project and I have never claimed that world peace would be created by this project. The Mandala Monument of Peace is solely an instrument allowing peace to be lived and experienced. It is correct that this does not urgently need the Mandala Monument of Peace. A clearance in a forest, a sunset, a hike through mountains, the babbling of a stream, a bouquet of flowers, a nice gesture from someone serves as well. The Mandala Monument of Peace is simply a further option.

The difference to the natural elements is that the Mandala Monument of Peace is a work of construction and the difference to normal sacred buildings is that the symbolism of its design is explicitly not linked to a religion. Yet the Mandala Monument of Peace is plainly an expression or manifestation of the religious, in both its layout and profile. It touches the numinous (divine) in people. Therein lies the secret that the project, by its nature, is not self-evident, but rather demanding, unusual, ambiguous, difficult to see through and to understand.

The draft is what psychology calls a manifestation of the unconscious and that manifested in the draft can be regarded as an archetype of the “self”. This archetype in its core is just “divine” and is the same with all people. My credo is that the goal of mental and spiritual development is to come as close as possible to this core.

If the unconscious answers the question “what does the work of construction look like that solely has the purpose of reminding people that “peace”, “world peace”, is a worthwhile goal of their mental and spiritual development” with the draft of the Mandala Monument of Peace, I not only take that thankfully as a gift, but rather feel myself obligated to it (the unconscious). That is the reason for my commitment”