Peace and Non violence, Harmony and Unity
Peace and non violence, harmony and unity are some of the topics given. I see redundancy in these two topics. Where there is peace there cannot be violence and where there is harmony unity is obvious.
I would not like to delve into philosophical enquiry and produce reams of treatise as to what is peace and what is harmony and engage in verbally entertaining the readers. I would like settle for the simple statement that peace and harmony are two wonderful states that exist in nature and universe or to put it the other way they are the two natural and universal states.
The very reason as to why we debate on these two states is that they have been damaged and therefore have created lack of peace and harmony which are problems for the whole of humanity socially, psychologically and physically.
We need to find solutions to these problems, namely, lack of peace and harmony.
To find solutions we must explore the facts as to who or/and what caused these problems.
While exploring the facts we must desist getting distracted from the following major traps:-
1] Mutilating the facts,
2] Analyzing them with preconceived notions or prejudices,
3] Generalizing the particular and particularizing the general,
4] Approaching facts with unloving criticism or uncritical love,
5] Evaluating facts with our pet isms or philosophies,
6] Resorting to statistical justifications,
7] Unleashing unworkable utopia,
8] Mask them with logical fallacies,
9] Bury them in pleasant jargons, and
10] Give historical justifications.
Human race, unlike other species, because of its sixth sense and enhanced faculties and its inherent urge to perform things beyond just the physical alone, tend to perceive, act and react at different levels with varying degrees of intensities based on the multiple influences that it has been and is being constantly subjected to. So manifestation of variety in each individual not only in physical form but also in psychological perceptions and ensuing actions and reactions is inevitable.
At the same time human beings will have to live inevitably as interdependent social beings. Society is an organization formed and functions to carry on collective living of individual human beings. I am not getting into the merits and demerits of different forms of social set ups. I am approaching the basic fabric of what a society is. So this social set up has to frame certain rules and regulations for the collective smooth functioning that can help the activities of the various individual psyches and souls. Very often interdependent human psyche also becomes gregarious and willingly accepts certain set codes of conduct and helps formation of specific social set ups in certain geographical areas with specific socio-cultural commonalities and common religious beliefs. In such situations the specific social set up helps the life and enhances the life aspirations of many individuals. So for so good.
The problem crops when the promoters and proponents of a specific successful social set up with its tested brand of socio- cultural characters, geographical suitability and religious activities try to replicate and enforce it in other locations. They carry too far and presume that their brand of homogenization that has worked in a particular area should be the best option for the rest of humanity.
History bears witness to this obsession with homogenization. The obsession is because homogenization also offers opportunity to hegemonize. It has time and again disturbed peace and harmony and delayed the progress of western civilization and destroyed global development. It has been carried out in various ways through indoctrination, by force, through cultural invasion, through war etc and throughout history it has failed miserably, be it the Roman Empire’s greed to spread its tentacles, be it the attempt at religious homogenization which failed with the Spanish Inquisition, be it Nazism, be it Colonialism, Communism etc. Now that these same proponents of homogenization perceive economic power to be the panacea for all human ills have got hold of GATT and making trips into the global economic activities through TRIPS.
Now all types of homogenization are carried out very easily through the mass opinion molders, the ubiquitous Media. The negative effects of media are like the negative effects of nuclear technology.
Another important fact is as individuals we have certain inherent, either hereditarily acquired or cultivated, tendencies, tastes in every aspect of life that it becomes difficult to accept everything and everyone. An A to Z free verse on these different aspects.
Our ambitions are too achievement oriented to accept everything and everyone;
Our beliefs are too blinkered to bear everything and everyone;
Our cleverness is too corrupted to care for everything and everyone;
Our dexterity is too delicate to deftly handle everything and everyone;
Our emotions are too entangled to entertain and engage everything and everyone;
Our faith is too firmly fixed to fly freely and find everything and everyone;
Our generosity guarded to give into everything and everyone;
Our hearts are too hypocritical to harbor everything and everyone;
Our intellect and ideologies are too impervious to include everything and everyone;
Our judgments a
re too jagged to justify everything and everyone;Our knowledge is too knotty to know everything and everyone;
Our life span is too limited to learn about everything and everyone;
Our mentality is too meanly molded to manage everything and everyone;
Our notions are too narrow to nurture everything and everyone;
Our occupations are too overloaded to let us observe everything and everyone;
Our perceptions are too prejudiced to permit everything and everyone;
Our quests are too quirky to quench everything and everyone;
Our reasons are too restrictive to realize everything and everyone;
Our senses are too selective and selfish to s
atisfy everything and everyone;Our thoughts are too conditioned to tolerate everything and everyone;
Our urges are too utilitarianistic to understand everything and everyone;
Our values are too vacillating to vindicate everything and everyone;
Our will power is too weak to work with everything and everyone;
Our x-axial greed is too xiphoid not to cut off everything and everyone;
Our yearnings are too yummy to let us yield to everything and everyone;
Our zeal is too zigzagging to give zest to everything and everyone.
There is only one single human quality, that can act an antidote to these factors that cripple peace on social level that is the obsession to homogenize and hegemonize and at individual level the things listed above, and that quality is supreme among all the human qualities, and that is Tolerance. In fact I would like to reproduce another A to Z free verse on tolerance that I had published in my old name [v.karthikeyan] in a magazine called ‘Story Of Life’ of which I was one of the editor. A small note on tolerance. Tolerance is not that easily possible through intellectual analysis, emotional approaches, rational perception, social ethics, legal enforcements, political slogans or even religious morals; for, all these are essentially conditioned and have an inherent filtering system; besides, all these edifices are built on the foundations of thought and passion, the two great factors of discrimination and division. Tolerance is possible only through an unqualified love born out of a comprehensive understanding of the fact that everyone and everything is the result of Divine Will and Divine Manifestation.
A TO Z OF TOLERANCE
Tolerance is a natural Attitude and the Attitude of nature;
It forms the Best Behavior and it is the Best form of Behavior;
It Characterizes the Cream of a society and is the Cream of social Character;
It Dwells in the heart to make life a hearty Dwelling;
It is an Enlightened Emotion that leads to Emotional Enlightenment;
It is a Faithful Foundation that makes the Foundations of Faith;
It Generates Glory and Glorifies your Generation;
It is a Humane Habit that Helps Human Habitation;
It is an Important Inducement that Induces Importance;
It Joins everyone with Joy;
It is a Kind of Knowledge that Knows Kindness;
It is a Lovely Lead that Leads to Love;
It Matters Most in Most of the Matters;
It is a Nice Necessity and a Necessary Nicety;
It Observes really with Openness and Opens up real Observation;
It Provides peace and a Peaceful Providence;
It is a Questionless Quietude and an unquestionable Qualification;
It Reaps Reciprocal Reactions;
It is the Seventh Sense that Sobers other Six Senses;
It causes Total Tranquility and tranquil Totality;
It Unifies humanity and helps humane Unity;
It is a Vital Virtue and a Virtuous Vitality;
It Works, Wise Wonders and is a Workable and Wonderful Wisdom;
It causes X-axial compatibility;
It Yields high dividends and You too Yield;
It Zeroes the differences and the indifferences are Zeroed.
TOLERANCE is Truly Offering Liking Encouraging Respecting Accepting Nurturing and Caring for Everyone and Everything.
Any method to bring about peace and harmony without emphasis on tolerance will not be permanent remedy.
Balayogi
written on 2nd october 2009 for an international forum