Peace on Earth: Orient Your Life Towards Peace

By VALSON THAMPU

The spiritual approach to peace-making is radically different from the worldly approach, said Jesus Christ. In the worldly approach, both peace and war are driven by vested interests - so the one is indistinguishable from the other. Wars, St Augustine warns us in The City of God, are waged mostly in the name of peace.

The road to peace is truly simple: Make peace politically profitable and war-mongering politically costly. There should be a constructive collaboration between democracy and spirituality.

Religion is rarely democratic whereas spirituality almost always is. Religion and politics are hierarchical. Peace and war are games only political leaders can play. The people have little to do with it. But spirituality is a people'smovement. Its role in creating a culture of peace lies in preparing the people for peace.

Take the longstanding Indo-Pak face-off. We have been conditioned to hate one another for over five decades. To change this culture of hate, we now have to begin the process of de-conditioning. We have to re-condition ourselves for peace. Jesus says: "I am the way, the truth and the life" (St John 14:6). Implied in this is the biblical formula for peace. The way of Jesus is the way of giving, rather than of taking; of generosity, rather than of greed. Wars stem from covetousness, implicit or explicit. In the re-orientation that spirituality brings about, the tendency to grab is replaced with the longing to give, which is the dynamics of peace. This is well-recognised in Hindu philosophy also.

Secondly, when Jesus refers to the truth, He is not talking about religious dogma. Instead, He insists on love as a pre-condition for truth, for truth can be seen only through the eyes of love. When hate is the prism, every neighbour becomes a potential enemy. Through the prism of love, however, every enemy is a friend-in-waiting. Prime Minister Vajpayee has extended to Pakistan the hand of friendship. But for it to bring peace, we have to shift from the current climate of negative propaganda to a willingness to know and speak the truth about each other.

Thirdly, Jesus says that for peace to be pursued in right earnest, all concerned must accept peace as an orientation to life rather than to death. Modern culture, says Erich Fromm, is necrophilic or death-oriented. War is the foremost symptom of this death-orientation.

Our goal should be to enjoy quality life rather than get blown up on the battlefield. Life-orientation is predicated on an uncompromising commitment to human welfare. There is a positive correlation between development and the preference for peace. Victims of wars, communal riots, cold waves, famines, or droughts are always the same: the poor. This doesn"t bother our conscience - could it be that we don"t value the life of the poor? This unspiritual outlook is a huge stumbling block to peace. The day we honestly believe that the life of a jawan and that of a prime minister have equal worth - for this is true spirituality - peace will flow like a river of benediction through the subcontinent.

Jesus'sidentity as the Prince of Peace is inseparable from his crucifixion. The Cross points to the price of peace and the willingness to pay this price. War-mongers, on the other hand, force others to pay the price for their covetousness. Moral courage is the essence of the Cross. Any breakthrough in the Indo-Pak detente will depend almost wholly on Mr Vajpayee'smoral courage to pursue peace at all cost. Ironically, it requires greater courage to pursue peace than to wage war. This is the challenge Mr Vajpayee has to come to terms with - the sooner, the better.

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See also: Peace of Mind, Peace on Earth, Life and Beyond, Love and Happiness, Body Mind and Soul)