Sunday, July 4, 2010

Peace

Terror and Violence are so common now days and we talk about peace on next few days, whenever such violence strikes any part of world and it may be few more days, depend on the number of dead innocent people. We can not stop such violent activities until the time more of the common population have peace with in them. The term ‘more of the common population’ indicates here as a minimum number of people in a society, if all of them initiate certain change with in themselves as individuals so that the effect can be perceived on the society. In other words, it is minimum number of individual minds required to adapt a change so that the ripple effect can be perceived on the ‘Social Mind’

In my opinion we, almost every one of us, cannot say we are living peacefully – may be with very, very few exceptions. When we ourselves, the constituent of our own society, are not peaceful, can we except the society to be peaceful? If we do except, it is a clear indication of some thing seriously wrong with us.

If such question arises we may go into a defensive mode and define yardstick for measuring peace and violence. May be, the outcome shall be that if it is physical damage or loss of life, it is violence or terror activity, if not it is peace. If we happen to have such yardstick, we are just fooling ourselves. Whatever we talk about peace in society or peace in country are just for our time pass or just to prove our intellect.

For any person involving in any terror activities- not the one involving in such activities for money or similar personal gain, is doing such activity with the belief that it is the noblest activity of his life. The key point is the “belief”. The belief drives such persons into to mad state of mind. It is the strong ‘belief’ which is the reason for all violence and terror in societies. It is certain that we are all also strong believers of certain beliefs. The only difference is that the belief of them (so called terrorist) is directed to certain direction and that of us are directed to some other direction. But essentially both are same – both are source of violence. In fact, the violence with in us, the common people, is the reason for the change in direction of violence with in so called terrorists. This is not to justify the activities of terrorists or against the punishment awarded by law of court to such terrorists. Such law is indisputably required to maintain certain order of society.

But every one of us is responsible for such terror activities. We are full of violence with in us – probably unable to perceive by us due to the fact that it has become our way of life. We are nurturing such violence and terror within our children – do any thing to score in the academics, like killing their simple joy on playing, killing the evolution of their mind, killing their passions on certain field and so on. Every one of us is doing this with out exception - in most cases unknowingly and in some of the cases by imposing our own desire over the children.

How to change the violence and terror in society? As indicated earlier certain part of the society has to become violence free with in them as individuals and that will have ripple effect on the ‘social mind’ so that the violence within the society slowly disappears – probably over a period of many, many generations.

The hard fact is that we are not willing to make such changes within us. Or we are unable to recognise the field of violence within us, to initiate such change. Certainly it needs some effort from us. We need to look into our beliefs – any thing we are taking as granted with out even understanding it as our belief. The term ‘understanding’ does not mean a conceptual understanding - it means the strong perception within us with out any need to have some concepts or assumptions to prove it. Again it is not a belief that we think as we perceive! It is our being. For sure, one needs to observe oneself extensively. And understanding this is slightly complex due to the way our mind act.

Only by observing our mind by our own mind, a revelation of the content of our mind may be possible. That is the only possibility available to study or analysis ourselves. In other words the mind as observer, observe the same mind as observed. In other words, the observer and observed are same. When the observer and observed are the same, the observer needs a great deal of honesty to observe him/herself. The observer should have enough openness to see the fact when it observes itself. When such openness is not there, for sure, the observer sees only a biased opinion about the observer – the observed. This is the reason that we are fare away from truth.

For perceiving the violence within us, we need to be aware of the fact that the observer and observed are same and the problems associated with such observation. When we are observing somebody else, we can clearly indicate the problem. That is the reason we are able to identify violence with the so called terrorists. But when we are observing ourselves, being the observer and observed are same, not able to cognize the truth. The very understanding that self observation is the observation of our mind about its own existence, the mind may throw out some of the yardsticks created by it and start observing itself. Such observation may start revealing truth. As the yardstick is created by our own mind, is based on its own functioning, any amount of measurement with that yardstick can not revel any mistake in the measurement. This is because the yardsticks are created by our own mind with its content as reference.

Such an observation without any yardstick can possibly make us to understand that we are also violent in our effort to earn wealth, status, position, security of ego and such numerous factors. When we are violently suppressing our peers on our quest to earn a position in the organisation we are working, we call it normal. When somebody else violently performing some action to uphold their belief or fight back against the suppression, we call it terrorism. Is it not double standard? This is not to support the action of terrorism, but to identify that the root of terrorism is also with in each one of us.

We just want the so called terrorists to change, being ourselves as well terrorists – in the sense of violence within us. It is nothing but violence towards others (or towards so called terrorists) by us. We just want to talk about violence, terrorism, etc. We really do not want to eliminate terrorism. It is the real fact! For understanding this fact, we need to really look into ourselves – our own ego!

And one word of caution! Understanding all our problems with in as does not mean losing of our ‘self esteem’. In fact ‘self esteem’ it self is an escape from ‘what we are’, and possibly in some cases indulges violence.

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