WHITHER PEACE? [EDITED AND REVISED -- ORIGINAL ESSAY PUBLISHED ON 17 SEPTEMBER, 2014]

WHITHER PEACE?

[EDITED AND REVISED -- ORIGINAL ESSAY PUBLISHED ON 17 SEPTEMBER, 2014]

It is difficult to establish peace on earth so long as fanatical ideologies persist, be they religious or political. The variegated nature of phenomenal existence makes for these ideological polarisations. Situated as men are in different cultural terrain, they tend to view things through the prism of such location. The evolutionary process not being standardised or uniform throughout the terrestrial plane, wide divergences of culture manifest overtime which with material contamination play havoc with human civilisation. Ancient superstitions get rooted in the psyche of nations and peoples, and scriptural certification of irrational beliefs and practices make for intransigence in existing mores and modes making progress towards global integration difficult and keep the doors of strife and war wide open. In such a mental climate Summit Meets and Peace Talks, although political imperatives, prove utterly ineffective in bringing about harmony and peace or even a modicum of settlement towards these prized objectives.

The peoples of the world, rooted as they are in local archaic arbitrary assertions of faith, dogma and ideology, necessarily remain a divided lot as per the dynamics of the divergent perspectives and can scarce combine to produce a workable harmony that may enhance the peace process. Despite tall claims about the efficacy of the dialogic process and even the utter necessity of it as the core principle of diplomacy, surface medications for the world's ills have failed to cure this divergent disparate disease of worldliness and have merely prolonged the agony of man along the line of a perilous prognosis where uniformity is attempted by force and the natural beauteous diversity is rooted out to bring about a catastrophic homogeneity. The consequence has been the systematic destruction of the finest elements of manhood down the ages, devastation of culture and decimation of entire civilisations. Bathed in blood humanity is being ever reborn to yet attempt a renaissance, a revival of the ancient spirit of unity in diversity that has been sung in the hymns of the Sama Veda, a resurrection of the primeval peace of Paradise before pluralistic ignorance split peace up.

But whither peace? The arrogance of superior wisdom clothed in the clergy's cloak continues to spit venom on the mass consciousness, religious fanaticism armed in the delusion of prepossession of the absolute and inviolable truth persists in its perennial threat to peaceful co-existence, racial complexes keep up their barbarous modes of inter-racial persecution often tending to wipe off whole populations and absolutist political ideologies threaten to force the world into a mechanised uniform self-oblivious mass. So long as these forces freely operate stifling human freedom, there is no hope of sustained peace for mankind.

And yet there is no way these forces will die so soon as to usher in the age of light and freedom for they hold vast masses of populations in their grip through age-old indoctrination that merging with provincial culture is so difficult to shake off. While art and architecture and even science at times flourishing from the apparent inspiration of totalitarian religious philosophy have been sublime, its foster-soul, the doctrinaire creed, has been highly baneful for the healthy growth of thought and civilisation otherwise. Throughout history these fanatical philosophies or rather the absence of real philosophy therein have resulted in mankind perpetually being plunged in a 'deluge of blood', to quote Vivekananda.

Seldom has peace been in a pluralistic human society and that is the irony of it all. Whenever there has been any political stability anywhere other than in hoary India of sublime spiritual catholicity, it has been at the expense of all contrary opinion and the allowance of the exclusive existence of a single ideology or belief-system.

The universe which is so variegated and functions by the stupendous harmony of forces and fields necessitates even at the organic level the harmonious application of its cosmic principles. Thus, the Rishis of the Rig Veda have in trumpet voice on the banks of the Ganga, the Sindhu and the Saraswati, and in the high hills of the Himalayas declared: 'Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti'...'Yo eko varno bahudha shakti yogat'...'Ekoham bahushyam' ('Truth is One but sages speak of it variously.'...'That is of a single colour or element but Cosmic Energy manifests it as the manifold.'...'I am One, I wish to be many.'). In India, thus, from prehistoric times there has been the culture of religious pluralism based on the foundation of the Oneness of all existence. There has been perfect freedom of spiritual expression here in this land of the Vedas with sects multiplying ever, giving vigour to the evolution of spiritual thinking. The Sanatana Dharma or the Perennial Philosophy or the Eternal Religion has been India's contribution to world thought and is the sublimest affirmation of the divinity of all sentience, nay, of all existence. Having the Oneness of existence as its underlying philosophy, it holds that all the varied thought systems that have operated or are operating in the world are but the various expressions of the same eternal truth of transcendental unity of existence and their variance of expression is due to the differences of perspectives owing to differences of phenomenal location and evolutionary level. In essence all religions and philosophical systems are attempting to unravel the 'riddle of existence' and discover for man his lost heritage of pristine purity and transcendental unitary consciousness. The core principle is the same everywhere if one is to read into the spirit of the law and not get entrapped by the letter alone. It is ever the Book of Life revealing its pages through the smears and smudges of corporeal life. It is the One Essence attempting to express the inexpressible, faltering, fumbling, failing to fill the void but ever leaving behind in whatsoever form the imprint of the Divine, the message of the imperishable Self, the signature of Truth as the final residuum. But few can decipher this hieroglyph, fewer still may hear this song of the soul, this symphony of the supernal element, this rhapsody of the Divine. Thus we war on to force the truth on others while we ourselves stumble in the dark devoid of Truth.

This then is the rationale of all that is irrationally being perpetrated in the name of religion, ideology and its ilk. These clouds of ignorance have been hovering over us for thousands of years and their day is not done yet. These superstitions will have to run out their course, says Vivekananda, for the next three or four thousand years before sanity comes to mankind. Till then all measures to bring about lasting peace may backfire as mankind may not yet be ready to apprehend truth in its entirety and fractional understanding will mar the message of the messiahs of mankind. But then that is our lot and we have to wade through the murky waters of our own design, this terrestrial life of light and shade till in the fullness of time we arrive at the citadel of Truth and enter its portals to attain to our divine inheritance. Then shall we be enlightened, then all will be blissful and endowed with peace that passeth understanding.

Written by Sugata Bose