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| Swami Suddhananda |
The war cloud seems to loom large in the horizon. The world may experience yet another devastating war. Who has to decide? Should the Iraqis, Americans, Israelites, Palestinians, Indians, Pakistanis, South Koreans, North Koreans, Chinese, Tibetans or Taiwanese decide? Or should the presidents and the prime ministers of those countries decide? And how do they decide? Of course, according to the laws of the land or under the international law.
But the framers of those laws were not human beings with absolute impeccable identity. Even if one or a few of them were just human beings, the majority had their identities first as the national of a country and then only they belonged to the world. All the national or international resolutions will have similar limitations, as the United Nations or any such world body is not the meeting point of the human beings to consider universal human interest but is keen to protect the individual nation’s interest. The same is the truth about the international or inter-religious conferences where people do not meet to discuss the interests of all men but to safeguard and highlight the interest of the followers of different faiths and the faiths within the faiths.
Hence, all political, religious, social, national or international conferences always end in highlighting the differences and people return from those conferences with greater resolve to safeguard ‘their’ interest at the cost of human interest.
No war or battle is in the interest of any unknown soldier or a human being. There is absolutely no reason why a precious human life must be snuffed out, being sacrificed at the altar of patriotism which can be viewed as nationalism, jingoism, terrorism, etc., from different standpoints. If this can be absurd at a national level, this is still more absurd at an individual level. Most individuals sacrifice themselves at the altar of different ‘individual’ roles. A son, a husband, a brother, an executive, an Indian, a man or a woman, a lover or a beloved, a follower of a faith exacts revenge on somebody or a nation to destroy others or to be killed in the process without even giving himself/herself a chance to understand the full potential of himself. ‘A’ single role, just ‘any’ role is good enough to destroy a person or others completely.
The family, society, nation or the history of the world sings ‘the glory’ of such a person who may be the hero of ‘a’ group, a nation or a race or a faith, but certainly he/she becomes a villain from the standpoint of many other societies or countries in the world. A national hero may be seen as a criminal in another nation. A religious or political icon can be viewed as the most dangerous influence by the followers of other religious or political philosophies.
These inter religious, political or social fights have their roots in the intra-religious, political or social conflicts. And the latter fight has its root in the inter-personal fights where different persons identify themselves with different aspects of the same political, religious or social group to gain a much-needed identity to escape emptiness within. And the inter-personal conflict has its root in the intra-personal conflict where ‘an’ individual has so many roles within and he/she has to defend and protect the role or the roles. Each individual desperately holds unto a role to protect himself but paradoxically ends up in protecting/defending that role.
Therefore, there is a battle going on between the two different roles where the ‘I’ has taken shelter in both and each identity demands its own pound of flesh at the cost of the other. It is a ‘rebellion’, if one role fights against all the other roles. It is a ‘battle’ if the ‘I’ is caught between two different roles. And it is a full-fledged war if the ‘I’ is pulled by many different roles. The whole mind becomes a battlefield, a war zone, in which many different roles, emotions, faiths are killed, wounded or taken prisoners and the ‘I’ never feels a hero or a conqueror as the ‘I’ lies shattered among the ruined roles. The victor is a victim in many roles and the victim breathes heroics in many different roles. The ‘I’ carries with it the memories of many different rebellions, battles and wars with the marks of wounds as well as medals from different battles in time.
Who divides the fight within? Who frames the laws for different roles? Each role will demand its own laws. If ‘a’ student in you will demand to study all the time, ‘a’ son or daughter misses the parents or food and is home sick. A lover or beloved in you is love struck and nothing else matters. The ‘poor’ or ‘rich’ in you is full of complexes – arrogance, humility, inferiority or superiority of different shades. When thus, we have to write a law book to take care of all the roles, we must never forget to take note of the ‘I’, who is occupying all the roles. The ‘I’ seems to be a ‘nomad’ with no specific country or a role for its residence, but a homeless nomad who seems to occupy and devastate all countries or roles within. And while destroying other roles or the countries within, it destroys many people around if they affect the role or a country of his residence! ‘A’ prince of Kathmandu did not kill the king, the queen, sisters and brothers. It was ‘a’ lover who removed the obstacles on the way to meet the beloved. The ‘son’s role’ remained unoccupied at that moment and he was not killing the parents or the siblings. But just imagine the devastation any occupation of the country or a role can cause!
And, therefore, the law must be for the ‘I’ while having functional rules for the roles. We have all the rules highlighting as to how a son, daughter, a professional, a citizen, a follower of a faith or a political system, a lover, a friend, a husband, a teacher or student should behave but we have absolutely no rule for the ‘I’ who can turn all the rules or the laws topsy-turvy because of the inevitable individual, selfish considerations!
We have been so obsessed with the roles, we have been so conditioned by both the secular and religious identities that any average person finds it difficult even to grasp that there is a difference between the ‘I’ and the roles! And it is a rare few who will understand the still subtler but conspicuous idea that the ‘I’ itself is a role, a ‘name’ which stands for something nameless and is not equated with another name or a role.
The laws are framed not only for the son, the individual but also for the sons. All sons have to function under that rule, but that universal rule is flouted by the individual ‘son’ as his situation as a son can vary from other sons. When thus, each ‘son’ tries to justify his not following the rules because of his ‘unique’ special circumstance, that applies to all and the result is total chaos in human society. This role of a son can be the ‘X’ – just any role at anyone level or at all levels and one can justify, condone as well as condemn the rule of law or the absence of it.
The ‘sons’ of the world have never united to become grateful to the parents of the world, but the ‘sons of the soil’ have united to fight the other sons of the soil or the sons of yet another soil, when all the soils, in fact, belong to one earth! The followers of ‘a’ particular political system or religious faith have united to defend or to destroy. But never ever has the world recognised that the ‘I’ itself is the follower of many rules, faiths or the systems and that when ‘the followers of the world’ have to meet, it is not the followers of a faith, a nation, a race or a creed, but ‘the follower’ – the ‘I’s should meet.
It is the ‘I’, the universal first name, the first identity, the first follower who diversifies into different followings identifying with different roles. This ‘I’ frames different rules for different roles. And all the rules, where the ‘I’ is not involved while framing the rules, can be very objective, but when it comes to the dominant role that the ‘I’ is saddled with, all objectivity will fade away and that is how the discriminatory laws come to exist!
That is why in every human law we see the reflection of objectivity or discrimination depending upon the
angles or the roles which become our standpoint. If we clearly understand this then we will see that nobody must or need be killed, destroyed, wounded, eliminated, victimised or manipulated either in the name of the law or lawlessness but everybody must be made to be aware of himself; to be the meaning of the word ‘I’! Then all roles will be a pleasure and no roles shall need to be protected or defended but to be enjoyed as they are. This will be naturally, effortlessly so because each person enjoys himself/herself for who he/she is – the Nameless Reality behind all the names. Or else we may be ‘legally’ right or wrong but individually we shall always be deficient, because who we ‘are’ is not a role but a concept, our idea – limited, bounded or restricted in anyway!
We can have all the social, political, religious, national and international laws. But all these laws shall be flouted by all the individuals, either individually or collectively, for their own selfish, individual interest. The fallout will be: while punishing the individual we are imposing a collective selfish opinion or while punishing a group we are imposing the collective selfish considerations against another group or collection of people.
Depending upon the collective strength or weakness, the rule becomes right or wrong. The materially more powerful, the intellectually more powerful may road roll others but that is not necessarily right or wrong as we have forgotten to take ‘the Absolute’, ‘the universal’ into account. No relative role can take decision for another relative role. What to talk of the relative theorising about the Absolute! But once we appreciate the Absolute, the universal ‘being’ that we all are, relative considerations will fall into place and there no violence of any kind is needed to kill, to destroy or to eliminate. What it requires is a happy change in the perception, the very individual looking at himself/ herself.
This is the silent evolution or revolution of learning we require in the world and not the battle of wit or interests! All the resources must be directed to teach the individual ‘how to think’ and how ‘to be’ himself and never not to think, or to think wrongly to negate, to dismiss or to assert and to indulge mindlessly.
The war clouds over the world will disappear the moment the individual mind ceases to be a battlefield, a war zone! We must train our guns on the ‘I’, where with the bullets of flowers of wisdom we make ‘the soldier’ understand that the biggest enemy is the ‘ignorance of one’s own Self’ and never another role of any physical, social, political or religious kind! We must help remove the ignorance of one’s own Self by knowing our own nature and not perpetuate it by imposing or facilitating relative roles to identify with. We need all the relative roles to function, but never at the cost of the Absolute – the Self – which is not a role but a universal reality!
Let the world know it!
Swami Suddhananda
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