Moving beyond conflict and war

It’s a proven fact today that disharmony in human relations gives rise to not only the wars but to almost all other problems directly or indirectly related to us. The phenomenon of split in families, the rising number of cases of divorces, even most of the psycho-somatic diseases which are caused by stress or mental tension are due to disharmony in human relations only and nothing else. In the recent past, we all have witnessed how an extreme conflict between 2 countries over a border issue resulted in mass exodus of people from their homeland as well as deaths of innocent people in massive bombing during night time. Hence one cannot deny the fact that the forces that are leading to disintegration of nations, communities and political parties crop up primarily from disharmony. Today we see that extremism and fundamentalism in many parts of the world, especially in Asia is mainly due to religio-political disharmony only what else? In fact, most problems of law & order and even the commotions and disturbances in major Legislatures also are due to disharmony in relations between political parties or various linguistic groups, religious communities, etc. It is, thus, very much essential to find a solution so as to eliminate this problem lest it will eliminate us. But what is the way out? How does one move ahead?Well!! It is quite clear from some of the examples that have been given of the world-events that these problems are mainly the creations of our mind, our own attitudes and our own negative thinking. Hence, in order to create harmony, we need to first of all disarm our minds in order to dismantle the forces of disharmony. In other words, we need to learn new ways of thinking in order to create a new world for ourselves because our age-old negative thinking will not liberate us from our problems but will, instead, create more problems and make our life worse.

It is estimated that world over approximately two trillion dollars are spent every year by various countries on what is called ‘Defence’ or ‘Security’ and yet it’s quite surprising that insecurity is increasing rather than decreasing. What’s more saddening is that all the diversion of resources to war purposes deprives the poorer sections of society the help which they need or in fact deserve. In this respect, it is essential to redefine security and to break the link between security and military force. We need to understand that our security lies not in an armed state of readiness for war but in friendliness, love and peace with others. Our real enemies are not men and women but suspicion, fear, hatred, violence and feeling of revenge and these enemies cannot be eliminated by military means. It has, therefore, rightly been said in the Gita: ‘Arjuna, the soul is its own best friend and it is its own worst enemy’. We must therefore know that it is love that can eliminate hate, kindness that can kill cruelty and compassion that can calm down passion.

A deep study of history of human civilization would reveal that presently, there are prevalent certain wrong beliefs which have led us to this kind of a negative culture, negative life-style and negative attitudes, one of these wrong beliefs is that there has always been disharmony in the world and there was absolutely no time in the history of mankind when there was total harmony. If that were really so, then why today do we have a greater number of wars which are more devastative and which result in mass-killings? Why are we today inventing more and more deadly weapons? It shows that there was a time in the distant past when there were less and less wars and there was also the earliest era which was free from all kinds of disharmony. The old scriptures call it Paradise, or Satyuga. Thus, there must have been a time when the world-population was small, the environment was clean and there were no wars and people lived in amity and peace. Such an era was known as the Golden Age. That was the time when there was Universal Harmony. It is that new world which we wish to usher in again. And, we want those attitudes and that thinking which can restore harmony in human relations again. So, how can we bring about that change? It’s very simple, for that we need to realise that most of our problems arise from our spiritual illiteracy which has to be eradicated. If, therefore, we can get rid of this kind of illiteracy and have a new lease of consciousness beyond war and enmity, then we can open to a new paradise, otherwise we will end in eternal darkness.