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Chairman, office bearers and members of the Indian Philosophical Congress, distinguished thinkers and educationists, representatives of the media and
friends
Peace and harmony have been sought by humanity ever since the dawn of civilisation. And yet the whole of human history, from the very earliest times,
is replete with wars and violent conflicts from the tribal right up to the international level, All religions preach peace, but in fact religion has been one of the major sources of violent conflict down through the
centuries, and remains so even today. Science was supposed to help establish peace, but it has created increasingly deadly weapons of mass destruction, so that a single nuclear warhead now packs explosive power
equal to one thousand of the bombs that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki half a century ago. Communism, socialism, capitalism, democracy, have all claimed the desire to establish peace, but inevitably have all
waged war.
These facts point to the disturbing conclusion that violence is perhaps built into the very texture of human consciousness. Despite the great
peace-makers like Lord Mahavira, Lord Buddha, Jesus Christ, EmperorAshoka, and in our own days, Mahatma Gandhi, there seems to be no appreciable decline in the human propensity towards violence.
Indeed, this twentieth century has surpassed all records of violence, killing and maiming more human beings than in the last ten centuries put together. ArthurKoestler suggests that as a result of an
engineering defect in the human cortex, man is a creature programmed for self-destruction, while the poet A. E. Housman ends a memorable poem with the following lines:
"The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity and shall not fail
Bear them we can, and if we can, we must,
Shoulder the sky my lad, and drink your ale."
If Promethean defiance is all that we can do, then there is really little to add, and this whole conference will lose its raison d' ๊tre. However,
all the great traditions of the world tell us that there is, deep within our consciousness, a creative power that if invoked and honoured can bring about a transformation which may appear to be miraculous. The lives
of saints and seers drawn from all the great religious traditions of the world bear this out, and though it may be unrealistic to expect such capacities in ordinary people, it does impel us to look deeper into this
whole problem of peace in its varied dimensions. In this paper I have identified five dimensions of peace which need our consideration. I look upon these not so much as parallel lines, but as concentric circles,
beginning and ending with the only two irreducible and indivisible units the individual on the one end and Planet Earth that we inhabit on the other.
Let me start with the entity with which we arc expected to be most familiar, ourselves. It is a common misconception that just because we are aware of
our outer existence, we really know the depths of our own psyche. In the East it has been accepted for thousands of years that the outer personality is simply an ever-changing and temporary habitation for an inner,
immortal spark call it the soul, the Atman or whatever. In India there has developed over the last twenty centuries an entire science of introspection and inner development known by the generic term Yoga. This,
of course, comes from the same route as the English word 'yoke', and is a vast and fundamental discipline designed to unite the divinity immanent and the divinity transcendent, of which the outer physical exercises
known by that name in the West are merely a small part.
With the development of depth psychology in the West, particularly with C. G. Jung
who must be ranked as one of the most creative thinkers of this century, modern psychology has also at last realized that our conscious minds are simply like the surface of an ocean, constantly buffeted by waves and typhoons, harbouring in its depths numerous creatures, friendly as well as deadly. Deep within, we are told by the spiritual and mystic traditions of humanity, there resides the divine spark which, under certain circumstances, can be fanned into the blazing fire of spiritual realization.
Unless we are able at least intellectually to comprehend this inner spiritual link that binds the whole human race into a single family, cutting across
all barriers of nationality or religion, caste or creed, sex or social status, we will not be able to establish ourselves in the inner peace. What the Hindus call antarik shanti and the Christians "the
peace that passeth all understanding" is, therefore, the first pre-requisite in our quest for peacc and the ultimate. How we achieve this, whether through Jnana Yoga, the way of study and contemplation, Bhakti Yoga, the
way of emotional outpouring towards a personalized manifestation of the divine; Karma Yoga, the way of dedicated works and good deeds; Raja Yoga,the way of internal spiritual practices, meditation and
ecstatic enosis; or a combination of these various paths, will depend on the inner and outer configuration of each individual's life situation. But the point is that the effort has consciously to bc made; spiritual
progress does not occur automatically without strenuous inner effort.
The second circle in which all of us move is the family, which is the most fundamental social grouping. Despite the widespread erosion of this
institution, particularly in the West, it does remain the bedrock of society. If our family relationships are full of conflict and struggle, we are unlikely to be able to find inner peace or make any contribution
towards establishing it in society. Family relationships have two basic dimensions, the husband-wife relationship and the parent-children relationship, in both of which tension and strife are becoming increasingly
widespread.
An important point here revolves around the status of women. Particularly in developing societies, this status is still far from satisfactory, and
women tend to be relegated to an inferior position, In the West, I sometimes get the impression that the pendulum has swung in opposite direction, perhaps to compensate for past injustices. What is needed is a
harmonious balance between the two. In the Hindu tradition, we have the remarkable concept of the Ardhanarishwara, Lord Shiva
as half male and half female. This creative fusion is ideally reflected on the social plane in the concept of the wife as ardhangini, equal sharer and partner in the adventure of life. Thus neither the
traditional Eastern custom of the woman walking three paces behind her husband, nor the curious Western practice of their walking three paces ahead, is satisfactory. Walking side by side is symbolically the ideal
arrangement.
With regard to the conflict between the generations, one reason that they are getting more pronounced is that so much more change now takes place
within a generation that it did in earlier times, as a result of which the psychological gulf between children and their parents is steadily increasing. Here again, the interests of harmony are best served by
steering a middle course between the parental domination of traditional societies and the virtual alienation of children in Western society. The basic point is that in our quest for peace we have got to begin with
our immediate family, as that is the experimental workshop in which we can learn the virtues of understanding and love, compassion and co-ordination.
As we move beyond the family circle, we come to the third dimension in our quest for peace, which involves the wider society in which we live. There
are many areas here including religious communities, caste groupings, linguistic groupings, professional association, political bodies and so on. Modern man necessarily interacts with a wide spectrum of such social
groupings, and in each one of them we have to work towards a peaceful settlement of disputes and a creative interaction of different visions and opposing viewpoints. Each one of these areas can contribute to the
growth of social cohesion, but can also be a source of acute conflict as we see from our own experience in India and other countries.
The rapid changes in technology have also brought about a major shift in social intercourse. Gone are the virtually self-sufficient villages, or the
professional guilds of artisans and craftsmen bound together by their commitment to a common undertaking. Much of modern production tends to be impersonal, and the growth of industrial slums in great parts of the
world represent a potent source of social tension and conflict. The malign underworld of drugs and drug-related violence, even in the great capitals of the affluent western world, represent a grave danger to the
quest for social peace and harmony.
We come fourthly to that social structure which has played such a predominant role in human history over the last few centuries, the nation state.
Although its claim to complete sovereignty has become increasingly untenable, the fact remains that the nation state is still the most powerful form of social organization in our present civilization. Here again,
its record has been mixed. While on the one hand it has certainly led to great progress and cohesion, on the other it has resulted in endless conflicts between nations and between various ethnic, linguistic and
political groups within nations.
Today we have on the one hand the extraordinary spectacle of nationalism being transcended in the development of the European community, which is a
truly historic event in human history, where nations which were at war with each other for centuries and, what is more, due to their colonial dimensions kept the whole world in a state of turmoil, have at last
overcome their animosities and are moving rapidly towards a common market, free travel, a common currency and perhaps a common Parliament. On the other hand, we simultaneously witnessed the disintegration first of
the Soviet Empire, and then of Yugoslavia both of which broke up into their constituent ethnic units.
This dual process of the reassertion of subnationalism and the transcending of nationalism is one that is likely to continue well into the 21st
century. There are many serious implications involved, but for our present purpose the point to be made is that the process involves a good deal of strife which may well affect our quest for peace. While the larger
threat of the cold war erupting in a nuclear holocaust has receded, there is enough inflammable material and modern weaponry in Europe and Asia to keep the fires of conflict burning for several decades. Somehow the
whole process has to be contained within a larger framework, whether of regional groupings like the European. Community, ASLAN or the United Nations system itself.
This brings me to the fifth dimension that I wish to discuss in this paper. As I said earlier, in the final analysis it is the individual on the one
hand and the entire planet on the other that constitute indivisible entities. The quest for world peace is now no longer merely a mystical vision or an idealist utopia. It has become a sheer necessity for the very
survival of the human race. The growth of weapons technology has been so awesome that with nuclear weapons we can destroy not only the human race but all life on this planet. Even a non-nuclear conflict like the
Gulf War caused massive casualties and appalling damage to the biosphere and environment of our planet. Therefore, it is imperative for us to find mechanisms for a peaceful resolution of disputes between nation
states.
We live in an age of great conflict and turmoil, outer as well as inner. We have to develop a whole new symbology to help us in our journey towards
peace, And that remarkable photograph of Planet Earth taken from outer space is, to my mind, a powerful and evocative symbol of the new consciousness. This is Mother Earth, Gaia in the Greek tradition, Bhavani
Vasundhara in the Hindu, that has nurtured consciousness up from the slime of the primeval ocean to where it stands now. We have to rediscover the ancient myths relating to the earth which have been smothered
under the din and hustle of modern civilization. For, as the late Joseph Campbell, one of the greatest scholars and mythologists of modern times, wrote "Myth is the secret opening through which the
inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation." These creative energies are essential if we are to structure a human civilization based on peace, not on war; on convergence, not on
competition; on holism, not on hedonism.
Like the roads in Robert Frost's poem, or indeed in the Katha Upanishad, two paths now lie before us. One could lead through a concerted and
multi-dimensional quest for peace towards a sane and equitable world civilization, in which the scarce resources of planet earth are used in such a way as to ensure the necessary material, intellectual and spiritual
inputs for all human beings to live a decent civilized life. The other is the path of conflict and disharmony, which will inevitably result in the destruction of human civilization as we now know it.
I believe that now it is largely through human consciousness itself that the divine will is working out human destiny. At the end of the Gita,
Lord Krishna tells Arjuna:
"... the divine Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, motivating them with His divine power as if they were mounted on a machine. In Him alone
seek refuge with all your being, all your love. By His grace you will attain supreme peace and the eternal abode."
This implies, firstly, that the entire cosmos is permeated by the divine, a fundamental tenet of Hinduism. Secondly, it means that the divine is both
immanent, seated with the heart of all beings, and transcendent. Thirdly, the Gita teaches that it is through our dedicated work that we can worship that divine being and move towards perfection. Thus as Sri
Aurobindostressed so eloquently in his monumental works, what is needed at this stage of human destiny is neither a philosophy of total transcendence which would leave human beings essentially powerless, nor a
philosophy of immanence alone which leaves the world at the mercy of the hostile powers. Rather, the contemporary discussion has to revolve around an integrated, holistic philosophy in which human existence is
looked upon as a rare gift which must be utilized both for inner development and for the welfare of society and the world. This places upon us a tremendous responsibility, but also gives us the opportunity to
explore spheres into which none of our forebears ever ventured. In this lies the unique privilege of our generation, particularly of those who claim the privilege of being thinkers and philosophers.
Let me close with one of the most ancient prayers for peace known to humanity, one that has echoed and re-echoed down the ancient corridors of time,
and that is chanted in India today as it was thousands of years ago in the incomparable glory of the great Himalayas:
Peaceful be heaven,
Peaceful the earth,
Peaceful the broad space between.
Peaceful be for us the running waters,
Peaceful the plants and herbs!
Peaceful be all the devas,
Peaceful be the Brahman,
Peaceful be the entire universe,
May Peaceful and only peace prevail, And may that peace come unto me.
Aum Peace, Peace, Peace.
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