Radhanath Swami on War and Peace

5 War and peace

Wars sometime occur in the material world. People do not know what peace is and how to achieve it. As long as there is no peace in people’s heart there will be war, there will be crime. There will be cruelty, as long as we don’t respect the soul, the soul of human beings, the soul of unborn humans, the souls of animals. If we are not living in harmony with nature and all the other living beings, then we are all actually creating a situation where individually and collectively there will be reactions. It’s the law of nature.

The scriptures explain that the only uncontrolled enemy is the uncontrolled mind. It is the uncontrolled mind of people that performs such wicked acts. What is this fighting over a piece of land? It’s actually ridiculous! Has anyone of you ever been to the Gaza strip or the Golden heights that we keep hearing about? That’s what people are fighting for. It’s only a piece of land– and a desert at that–and yet there’s practically a world war fought over it.  This is just one example and there are many such examples in world of people fighting over some property, building nuclear bombs to kill each other for just a piece of property. And in a few years when we die, we are not even going to know that the property ever existed.

People who are so obsessed with thinking of destroying their neighboring states are going to be probably taking birth in the neighboring state in their next life because they are always thinking about them. And the bombs that they created are going to fall on their own heads in their next lives. That’s material world. Until we learn how to live in harmony with the nature and all the other living beings, we are always going to fight. That learning is only possible through purification because theoretical thinking may give us some direction but realization is required to apply the theory.

An article by Radhanath Swami

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