Destroy the Root Cause of War (Page 2 of 2)

In war, people are roused to make unlimited sacrifices and endure untold agony for the sake of their countries or principles. In doing so, they demonstrate their capacity for similar or even greater sacrifice and endurance for yet higher stakes: for the triumph of the soul.

War reveals that even the man in the street can rise to the greatest heights of sacrifice for the sake of a selfless cause. It also teaches that all worldly things—wealth, possessions, power, fame, family, the very tenor of life upon this earth—are transitory and devoid of lasting worth. The soul-searing incidents of war are enriched by the divine endowment to teach man lessons that will ultimately win him over to God, lessons that have the power to initiate him into a new life inspired by God-Truth and founded on imperishable spiritual values. If man fails to learn these divine lessons of war and to profit by them, he will have suffered and died in vain.

To claim special dispensation in war for any particular race, religion, or ideology is indefensible. All such assertions are based on the false doctrine of division and duality. Since the law of the universe is synonymous with oneness, and oneness precludes soul-separation of one individual from another, there is no justification whatsoever for any one side in war to claim that God favours it exclusively. God does not scale His grace to suit man’s temporal quarrels and prejudices. His favour knows no discrimination, for His love is all-embracing.

The time has come for man to acquire a new vision and to proclaim the ultimate truth that all life is one; that all life merges in God, who is the only Reality; that God alone is worth dying for and living for; that all else is a vain and empty pursuit of illusory values.

The spiritual oneness of all souls remains inviolate in spite of war; and from the point of view of ultimate Reality, no soul is ever actually at war with any other soul. War is a conflict between different ideologies and concepts, which extends to and involves not only the minds but also the bodies of people; but the undivided and indivisible soul of mankind remains one in its unimpeachable and integral unity. The divine catalyst that keeps the oneness of all souls in creation intact, even in the midst of the most devastating war, is love.

All collective efforts draw upon some aspect of love for their functioning, and wars are no exception. They too are often motivated and conducted by a form of love; but it is a love whose nature has not been understood. For even though wars demand the large-scale organizing and functioning of cooperative endeavor, the spiritual potential of such a collective undertaking is artificially restricted by identification with segregated groups or limited ideals.

In order for love to come into its own, it must be freed from all impediments and released from all limitations. Love manifests in all phases of human life but is restricted to and often poisoned by personal ambition, racial pride, narrow loyalties, individual and national rivalries, chauvinism, and attachment to caste, sect, religion, or sex. To usher in the resurrection of humanity, the heart of man will have to be unlocked and a new love generated in it: the love that knows no limitation or corruption, the ultimate love that is wholly free from individual and collective greed.

Only through such a universal interflow of selfless love will it be possible for humanity to eradicate greed, intolerance, and exploitation—the three demons responsible for war—in all the gross and subtle forms that they assume in civilized life. In no other way can the mass mind be purged of the age-old psychosis of war; through no other means can it perceive with redeeming clarity that war is not merely abominable but in truth never necessary as a means of adjusting differences of any kind between nations. The chief task of those deeply concerned with the regeneration of humanity is to wage a holy war against the pernicious state of mind that justifies aggression in any form. This can be accomplished only by dispelling the spiritual apathy and ignorance that hold the mass of mankind in bondage.
If humanity is to redeem itself, it will have to emerge from the dreadful cataclysm of war with unimpaired spiritual integrity; with hearts free from the poison of malice and revenge; with minds disburdened of blows given and received; with souls unscathed by suffering and filled with the spirit of unconditional surrender to the divine will that is to inspire and ensoul the New Humanity.