Jan 10 2009
Are we ready to welcome Peace ?
Peace is one much-uttered term. Peace is the term uttered repeatedly or almost everyday and in every part of the world right from the miserable days of the First World War or even from much earlier time. It is natural for this word to get prominence during the days of war when arson, blood-shed and loss of life and property are the signatures of the day. Movement of the people for peace has been undeniably a feature of the twentieth century and John Lenon’s “Imagine” has been considered by many men and women as the best musical rendering of the last century.
Still peace-seeking to human beings is nothing new. This is well-noticed in the Vedic period of the ancient India. There are more than one beautiful hymns on peace in the Sanskrit language composed by the ancient bards some centuries back. What else other than peace could have been the spirit of the time when a lone hermit used to sit before a fire surrounded by the followers paying total attention to the search for truth and to the search for the purpose of life on the earth!
On the other hand, history of human beings, that too from the days of the epics, is replete with the innumerable stories of persecution, annihilation and genocide. Many a times a few characters of the Mahabharata attempts to have or attempts to establish what we feel as peace. And the epic ends, at the end of the great battle, the Battle of Kurukshetro, with persons countable at the fingers successful in challenging death because the rest have been killed by the ferocious warriors either of the Pandavas or of the Kouravas. That Vedavyasa, the great bard of the Mahabharata, has named the battle between the brothers of Hastinapura as the crusade appears to be a mockery only. Since then, or since much earlier than the epic epoch, one may find mankind to have been engaged in feuds and battles and wars only and it is very clear to all that much of the energy of the latest and the most-gifted animal of the blue planet, which is none other than mankind by chance or by the mysterious permutations and combinations inside nature, has been exhausted for the feuds or for the preparation of the feuds or for resetting everything after each ruin caused by the feuds.
Thus human beings have been observed as an ever-feuding entity. This tendency to get engaged in a feud or any kind of feud may not be his basic nature or may be that this is his acquired nature or may be that he has become such under duress and because of uncontrollable constraints. Whatever may be the ground we should admit that the first important weapon or instrument to a man was the long pole of hook with which he had found measures to pluck fruits from the higher branches of the tall trees. And almost by the same span we have other weapons, the weapons made of hard stones. The course has been a non-stopped one. Today we have arms of any imagination and we are confident that thousands we can slaughter at a very short time. We have been with the wars almost daily. Our men are being murdered, our women are being raped and our children are being orphaned, yes, daily. Vietnam, Campuchia, Afghanistan, East Europe, Iraq. Who knows which region will be the fortunate next! Death-chambers have been shifted and shifted even after the worst nights of the second World War and even after the disasters in Hirosima and Nagasaki.
We must admit that voices for peace and for a peaceful world have been heard from the mankind again. The Buddho and Jesus and Chaitanyo and Gandhee. A long line no doubt. Should we not ask ourselves at least once how little of the total time of our conscious knowledge we have spared for the prayer and for the rule of peace against the horribly much and much and much greater time that have been devoted to the culture for war ? Before bidding goodbye to any thought or endeavor for war should we not swear once that we shall be ready in the face of any short-term loss to stand like a pillar for the cause of peace ? Should we not practice peace for a century embracing all kinds of loss from the worshipers of wars ? Let us admit that peace needs more strength and readiness for any sacrifice than what a war does.
Are we ready to welcome Peace ?
