Destroy the Root Cause of War
explains Meher Baba

War and the suffering that it inevitably brings cannot be avoided by mere propaganda against war. If war is to disappear from human experience, it is essential to destroy its root cause. The life of illusory values in which man is self-caught is the breeding ground for the chaos that precipitates war; individual and collective egoism and selfishness, which hold most of mankind in their thrall, are its root cause.

Man alone is responsible for war; through greed, vanity, selfishness, and cruelty, he brings the recurring evil of it upon himself. God, in His grace, transmutes this man-wrought tragedy into a channel for the quickening of humanity to a concept of higher values. Appalling and devastating though it is, war is thus saved by the Infinite from remaining an unmitigated evil.

To purge himself, man has to become conscious of the redeeming God-design in man-created war. To understand the real significance of violence and nonviolence in this God-transmuted pattern of spiritual values requires a true perception of the meaning and purpose of existence. Man’s actions in war, therefore, should not be motivated by slogans, however high-sounding, that are based on erroneous concepts of violence or nonviolence; his actions require the prompting of spiritual understanding, which is above man-made rules, and of divine love, which is above man-conceived duality.

God’s design infuses man’s war with the capacity to generate and foster many qualities of divine importance, thus preventing it from being wholly without spiritual significance. When man’s mania for possessions and dominance forces a peaceful nation or people to take up arms for the sake of higher values, for unselfish considerations of general well-being, war becomes not merely inevitable, but spiritually defensible.

Under the stress of imminent danger, war inspires behaviour that is free from the limited self and action kindled by the impersonal spirit of willing sacrifice and suffering for the safety and welfare of others. It is better that such unselfish qualities be at least partially released under the stimulus of danger than that they remain wholly dormant; it is preferable for the pressure of collective calamity to free man—if only temporarily—from his petty self than for him to remain permanently enslaved by the ignoble pursuit of personal safety and the ruthless perpetuation of his selfish interests and existence.


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.