The preamble to the United Nations Charter sums up the existential dilemma of today:
"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defences of peace must be constructed".
In a land where history had sought to be sketched in an arc from Gautama to Gandhi, it is appropriate reflect on such defences and revive them today when war and terrorism have cast their shadow on the world.
Peace on Earth (Pokoj na Ziemi, in the Polish original) is a 1987 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem.
Other related archivesPolish, Stanisław Lem, science fiction
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.
Most world leaders, international organisations and so-called peace summits tend to define peace in the shadow of war, as 'a situation where there is no war"between nations.
By doing so they are actually taking a negative view. By viewing the positive element in contrast to the negative, we will end up underrating the former'spotential. By defining light as the 'absence of darkness"or, life as the 'absence of death", we assign greater importance to the powers of darkness and death, or in the case of peace, to war, rather than peace.
Last spring, I visited a gurudwara for the first time in my life. Why not earlier? I was apprehensive: Would a Muslim be welcome?
Contrary to my fears, the experience turned out to be a happy one. It was so peaceful and tranquil in the gurudwara. I was there for an hour with Sikh friends. And then, it struck me how little we know of each other's faiths. What was holding us back?
Healing in popular parlance means to recover bodily health. In a deeper sense, it also means recovering our true identity in relation to the Self, cosmos, and God.
So when we say we need to heal the wounded subcontinent, it means three things - tending the wound, recovering health, and recognising the interconnectedness of our individual identities and that of the subcontinent.
The recent killings in the land of the Mahatma, the apostle of peace and non- violence, raises a very serious question. Is human consciousness being governed by the tenets of a few religious texts or is it capable of transcending all barriers for the sake of universal brotherhood?
Christians have killed Jews. Jews and Muslims are fighting all the time. Hindus have a long history of wars going back to the time of the Mahabharata. Despite the advancement of science, people continue to fight on national, religious or racial criteria.
More than 50 years ago, Mahatma Gandhi offered a startling truth: "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." To a country bogged down in the morass of war, this could be a beacon of hope.
Gandhi went further to show that the way of peace ends suffering and oppression, not by warring against an enemy but by bearing witness to wrongs and allowing sympathy and common humanity to do their patient work. Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa lived different aspects of peace, which was proven to be a viable way to achieve great things.
Even as we prepare to deal with the threat of war and conflict, we need to focus on the equally critical issue of the impact this has on people's hearts and minds. The signal failure of military action to produce a clear prospect for peace has left many feeling suffocated with illusions of powerlessness and dread.
The impasse could be broken through military force or other forms of "hard power". At best, however, such action only responds to the symptoms of conflict. To the extent it plants further seeds of hatred in regions already torn by strife, it deepens and entrenches antagonisms.
Politics and the concept of a global identity are two artificial constructs dominating our collective consciousness today.
A nationalist professes undying allegiance to his nation. Therefore he would find it impossible to love another nation or its nationalists.
Patriotism, on the other hand, is born of a deeper feeling of togetherness and bonding of a people in a particular civilisation/heritage. Hence a patriot would fully understand and appreciate similar sentiments in another pat-riot of a civilisation/heritage different from his own.
It is important to recognise the difference between bhagavan bhakti (love of God) and religious fundamentalism - however, desh bhakti (love of country) has its own significance. After all, you have to begin with a smaller constituent. People have to get on with their lives. Can you sit back and do nothing if your nation’s security is threatened? Or even if one state’s safety is compromised?
No religion preaches violence. If all religions advocate peace, why then do some who profess allegiance to their religion, commit violence to defend their peace-loving, peace-preaching faith? India is home to some of the oldest religious texts known to man. The Vedas and the Upanishads , for instance, do not preach a particular religion, nor do they spell out a list of dos and don’ts.
The Rig Veda says: “ Aano bhadrah kritavo yantu vishwatah ”, which means, let noble thoughts come to us from everywhere. These ancient texts did not have a single author, nor their philosophy a collective name. Because of its universality, this particular stream came to be known as Sanatan Dharma , or 'perennial duty’. Later it came to be called Hinduism. Unfortunately we now have its political version - Hindutva .
The materialist often views a religious person as being unsociable, dogmatic and lacking in intellectual insight.There is a certain perception that 'religious' people don't drink or smoke; they pray before every meal, frown at the free mixing of the sexes, are superstitious, impractical and way behind the times. Hence religious people are looked upon as social misfits.
However, the religious person understands that though he may be a social misfit, others are misfits of a different kind. They are spiritual misfits. They do not fit into the wider, more important, spiritual scheme of things.
Quite often we are faced with the dilemma of having to decide what is right and what is wrong. Our instinct tells us one thing, whereas our conscience tells us something else. Which are the good qualities that must be developed and which are those undesirable ones that must be abandoned?
Lord Krishna addresses this problem in chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita . Krishna explains that there are two basic types of inherently opposite dispositions in people - the daivic or divine and the asuric or demonic. Daivic qualities are the cause of liberation ( moksha ), and asuric qualities, the cause of bondage. Krishna lists 26 qualities as divine, which are self-explanatory. Fearlessness tops the list as the prime virtue. It is all encompassing.
Though the term Hindu is not of indigenous origin, I am proud to consider myself a Hindu. That pride has been deeply hurt by what others using that label have done in Gujarat.
What they did was typically un-Hindu, even anti-Hindu. What distinguishes the Hindu culture, philosophy and outlook on life from all other religions, faiths and civilisational traditions? In Hinduism alone you are able to say '' Brahmasmi ’’ (I am God) and to your neighbour, '' Tattvamasi ’’ (You are the truth).
Through the years, history shows that despite the existence of the caste system and its abuse by vested parties, the idea of equality has always ruled supreme in the minds of India’s sages. In fact, many of India’s most revered saints and philosophers came from the lowest strata of society.
Few are aware about the sacrifices made by some who, since ancient times, have silently worked to uplift human values.
Today, very few know of the invaluable contributions of the selfless humanists who have worked relentlessly for the uplift of the marginalised classes. The name of B R Ambedkar, however, is still fresh in public memory as the saviour of the Dalits. Atrocities continue to be heaped on the weaker sections, in one form or the other. Many saints and sages have stood by the Dalits and many of them were Dalits themselves. The work done by these saints are the real heritage of the Dalits.
Whenever I come across news of violence, be it between individuals, mob factions or between countries, a nightmare usually envelops me, of a return to the days of the caveman. But scenes of the incineration of innocents at Godhra and the retaliatory mass live-burning of hundreds in other parts of Gujarat brought back poignant memories of the Partition massacres.
In extenuation, apologists among us could seek to ascribe the latter at least partially to the departing Brits but who do we blame for our own Millennium Abel and Cain act this past week? Only ourselves: In a land which boasts of its sanskriti, sabhyata, and itihaas - noble words uttered from political pulpits especially at election times, what surfaced in the past week is bestiality at its best (worst?).
