Wars begin in the mind, so does peace

Looking at the situation of the world that we live in today, one factor that can be considered as the biggest cause of our downfall from an exalted stage of a divine being, is violence in all its forms. YES, it is violence that makes hell of heaven. In other words, paradise is lost when violence, in the form of five vices and their offshoots, enters the human mind.

These vices are nothing but violence in its various forms which violates divinity as well as spiritual and natural laws. We must understand the fact that a soul, in its original state, is a being of purity, peace, power and bliss. So, in heaven, all humans are divine because they are totally pure, which means there is absence of violence of all types. This means that no one causes harm to anyone in heaven and there is no dishonesty, greed, deceit, anger, selfishness or negativity of any other kind.

It is only when the soul comes under the influence of the vices does it start to act wrongly. Now, to see if all this is true, we only need to observe our state of mind when we have behaved badly with someone. This would make us realise that our behaviour was dictated by anger, ego, jealousy, hatred or some other vice. So, in short, all these vices cause pain to the self and make us inflict pain on others.

Such violence is a violation of divinity and it drags us down from a divine status to that of an ordinary human being. After all, what is the difference between the deities and humans? The former are always full of virtues and totally free of vices whereas humans have virtues in varying degrees and are prone to come under the influence of vices.

So rare has virtue become today that if someone remains steadfast in even one virtue — say honesty — he stands out among his peers and is half-jokingly called a saint or a deity. On the contrary if the vices become predominant, they can turn a human being into a devil. Remember! divinity cannot stay where there is violence, light and darkness, nectar and poison, because divine and devilish traits cannot co-exist.

So, if we really want to bring peace to this world, we have to first root out the vices from our minds. Without this effort no amount of political, social and economic efforts can ensure lasting peace. It is not a new idea. It was written into the preamble of the constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation that, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”

In fact, the battlefield is not outside but within us. The day we win over anger, ego, greed and jealousy inside, that very day the world outside will begin to change. Remember! True peace is not a gift handed down by governments or treaties, it is a conscious choice made by each individual.

When we return to our original qualities of purity, peace and love, we do not just transform ourselves, we become living instruments to transform the world. We only need to act upon it through spiritual effort.

(Writer is a spiritual educator & popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal & UK. Till Date 8500+ Published Columns have been written by Him)