Audrey Kitagawa - Stepping into Global Citizenship

Audrey Kitagawa works as a full-time volunteer for the United Nations in the rescue and rehabilitation of child combatants forced to fight in civil wars and insurgencies throughout the developing world. Formerly a successful attorney in Honolulu, Kitagawa is also the sole heir to the spiritual legacy of her guru, the Divine Mother, and fulfills the role of teacher, guru, and spiritual mother to her own students around the globe.

In this talk, recorded in New York City, Kitagawa discusses the state of global consciousness—particularly the state of consciousness right here in the USA—and points unequivocally to the necessity of first elevating one's own consciousness in order to contribute to the state of human consciousness as a whole.

Alternately speaking about her work at the U.N. and about the greater spiritual dimension of life, Kitagawa builds bridges between our highest altruistic aspirations and the stark, often primal, reality of our actual condition. Only by striving—and succeeding—to uplift our own perspective, from an individual, national, and even global point of view, to the highest cosmocentric perspective, can we begin to make a difference that really counts.

To illustrate the general state of things, Kitagawa points out that the top three expenses annually in America are: $463 billion on defense or defense- related items, $400 billion on illicit drugs, and $150 billion on alcoholic beverages. Given that a mere $13 billion would insure health and nutrition for all the worlds poorest people, you have to wonder about the average condition of the human psyche and spirit today, and how radically it can and needs to change.

BIO

Audrey Kitagawa was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is a cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California, and a graduate of Boston College Law School. She practiced law in Honolulu for twenty plus years, and at the time of her retirement in 1996, she had a Martindale-Hubbel AV rating, the highest rating for professional and ethical excellence in the legal profession.

Kitagawa is the head of an international spiritual family based in Hawaii. She is also Advisor to the World Federation of United Nations Associations. She serves as a member of many advisory boards and councils, including the Toda Institute for Peace and Global Policy Research, the Executive Council of the World Commission for Global Consciousness and Spirituality, the National Council of Global Action to Prevent War, the Executive Council of the Spiritual Caucus at the United Nations, and the World Wisdom Council. She is also a co-facilitator of the United Religions Initiative Cooperation Circle at the United Nations and sits on the boards of the Apeadu Children's Peace Center in Ghana, and the Vermont Peace Academy.

She has published articles in World Affairs: The Journal Of International Issues, entitled "The Power of Om: Transformation of Consciousness,” and "Practical Spirituality," and in Vision In Action magazine, entitled "Globalization and the Common Good: A Call for Ethics and Spirituality." A chapter, "Crossing World Views, the Power of Perspective in the Hawaii Japanese American Experience," will soon be published in a book about multiculturalism, communication, and Asian women. She has written a chapter, "Globalization as the Fuel for Religious and Ethnic Conflicts," for a book that will be published as part of the culture, religion, and citizenship action research team of the GRAD Project (Globalization, Regionalization, and Democratization) of the Toda Institute for Peace and Global Policy Research and the University of Hawaii. She has also written a chapter, "The U.S. in Foreign Affairs: Source of Global Security, or Source of Global Fear?" for a journal that will be published as part of an initiative of the Spark M. Matsunaga Peace Institute and the Toda Institute.

Kitagawa has been listed in Who's Who of American Law, Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who In America, Who's Who In the World, and Prominent People of Hawaii.