This is a paradox that those who have spent fantastic money of the tax- payers over acquiring nuclear sock-piles have been themselves forced to find out The some solution to destroy them. They realise the dread and futility of an atomic war. It seems that war has lost its dynamics. Nuclear power has not remained the monopoly of a single nation and no nation, however small or big, lives in utter isolation. The concept of geopolitics has been made redundant. paradox is that nation aspire for peace, but they prepare for war. It seems there is mal-adjustment with world-psyche, Unless we find out the solution of this malaise, our life in the 21st Century would be miserable. We shall not die but neither we shall be able to live with peace and happiness.

 

Hence before we embark upon global peace, we should learn the art of peaceful living. Non-violence is not an outward ritual, it is our life-style. The concept of nuclear preparedness, though anti-life and anti-civilization, is only the bye-product of our outlook and way of thinking, created by our belief in the Doctrine of Struggle for Existence and the Survival of the Fittest. We are led to think that struggle is necessary for existence and that a person, or a group or a country would be able to survive which is the fittest-in popular vocabulary as the ‘mightest politically, economically and militarily. We think that we must become powerful in order to survive and we try to cultivate more and more powers. Hence, unhealthy competition and violence become inevitable. Another reason for the growth of violence is our faith in the efficacy in the fragmentation of life. We think that there is one set of values for the individual and the family and quite another set for the society. But this is wrong. Our life is a unity and it cannot be divided into water-tight compartments called social, political or religious etc. All act and react upon one another. Even spiritual law does not work on a field of its own. It must express itself only through the ordinary activities of life. We have not only fragmented life outside and created compartments of life and mutually pa set of values and contradicury paters of bear, we have aldraled howardly too and developed sellophrens personality. Througlunt, we have fragment Hence, we spice for peace but plan for war: we behave as citie ing her but as grabing man in economic life, a loving father or husban in the family bit as a man of machination and despotic behaviour in politics and public life.

 

Hence, we lack the holistic values, which have the greatest sustaining power. The foremost of these holistic values is LOVE Love and harmony form the basis of our good family life. Hence, there is no reasons why it should not be the basis of society or the entire global family. The positive meaning of non-violence is Love. Literally, non-violence means absence of violence but this is one-sided and incomplete definition. Positively, non-violence mean active love this is Mahavira, Huddha, Jesus or Gandhi. Again, non-violence is not a static but a dynamic concept- In its dynamic condition, it does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means the putting of one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant and still without any ill-will against him. Ahimsa; therefore, is not “passive spirituality”, it is real activity as we find in the life of Buddha and Mahavira who fearlessly carried the war of non-violent resistance into the enemy’s camp and brought down an arrogant priesthood. Even Jesus, the extreme practitioner of resist not evil’, drove out the money-changers from the temple of Jerusalem. Mahavira challenged the orthodoxy of Vedic religion and allowed women to adopt Sannyasa and prepare for salvation. He also fought the hypocrisy of those priests in giving a religious sanction to the caste hierarchy of high and low. But even if Buddha, Mahavira or Jesus fought against them, they showed unmistakable love and compassion behind every act of theirs.

 

Non-violence or love, is not only an individual virtue, but it is a societal concept. Non-violence is not only the absence of bloodshed or murder, but it is also the absence of exploitation. Non-Violence and exclusive possession can never go together. We retain our possessions on the sufferance or exploitation of the weak, immoral gains and insatiable pursuit after enjoyments of the flesh. Exploitation is the essence of violence. Hence, no man could be actively non-violent and still not rise against social injustice no matter where it occured. Non-violence is a universal principle. It is not a cloistered virtue but applicable as much to the forum and the legislatures as to the market place. Hence, in the 21st Century, we have to make non-violence, not a matter of mere individual practise but also a matter of practice by groups and communities and nations. If it cannot be practised in all departments, it has no practical value. Hence, we have to show that Ahimsa is not only for the saint and seers but for the ordinary men and women living in society. It is only in a climate of non-violence that ‘opposing ideologies’ can peacefully co-exist. It teaches not only the respectful tolerance of other creeds and religions but also genuine appro ciation of their teachings and intelligent recognition of their importance. Hence, non-violence has bigger social dimension, because it is rooted in love and friend. ship But love and friendship can flourish only in a climate of equality and fraternity. “We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another”-once wrote Jonathan Swifi. Hence unless we culti vate a habit of seeing beyond the horizons of our own particulaar faith and believe that “religious fellowship” is possible, we shall be preparing grounds for religious violence. The problem of having world fellowship’ is impossible without world. peace and disarmament. Contemporary political thinking must be transformed and a new kind of politics adequate to the threat of atomic doom should be created. Now, at the brink, mere life depends on worthy living. Even hard- headed and eminent political scientist Margenthau asserts that to think conventio- nally about nuclear weapons is fallacious. Then there is the problem of poly morphous, or senseless violence all over the world called terrorist violence. But this is irrepressible violence’ and we cannot wipe them out by reciting non-violence As a mantra. Subhas Chandra Bose once wrote to Roman Rolland that non- violence cannot be at the pivot of all social action. “What must be at the centre of our concerns is the establishment of a more just and humane social order.” If non- violence has to take roots, it must usher a neo-polity, a new economics and new culture. The root of violence is in the ‘I’ consciousness or ‘ego. the validity of which is accepted by the human race as an authority. Because of this ‘egocon- sciousness’, all our external structures and their the symbols capitalistic,the sociali– stic, the communistic, are collapsing. Mahavira realised it fully well and so he asked us to purify our Self with all impurities of attachment, avarice, envy etc. We cannot create a just social or economic order on the basis of ‘ego’ or selfishness. Selfishness is subversive of friendship and love. Hence Non-possession (Aparigraha) and parting away (visarjana) with property, assets or ownership, must form the foundiation of our new economic order. It will disarm enmity, class-conflict and unhealthy competition. Either we must have a world Economy’ or face a World- War. The essentials of a religious revolution is its power to create goodwill. It must be relevant to the present needs of the society. Experimental verifiability is a must or else it would degenerate into orthodoxy and dogmatism. Let the Upasana (devotional) aspect be confined to devotee’s wish or faith, but we must assert that the days of “personal religion” are over and we cannot enter the 21st Century without the conception of a “Universal Religion”, Civilizations decline if there is a coarsening of moral fibre, if there is callousness of heart. Similarly, the concept of national sovereignty has become outdated. But in a nuclear world, either we must live together or perish together. National boundaries are becoming irrelevant and a great stumbling block to world peace. We must strengthen the United Nations and pave the way for a World Government.” Our civilization has been passing through one of its periodic crises. In order to avert it, we need an Ahmisa-culture. We need religious idealism and co-operation, accomodation to fellowmen and toleration Spiritual evolution is our destiny and therefore the great need of the 21st Century. This is what Sri Aurobindo called “a dynamic recreation of individual manhood in the spiritual type.” The new society which science and technology are bringing about is a information society, a power-seeking society, which will have its own conflicts and struggles. We must remember that technology is a creation of human freedom. If technology subordi- nates man, it becomes anti-civilization. Hence, we have to develop a technology in keeping with the sprit of man. Similarly, growing statism and bureaucrati sation must be replaced by humane administration. Today, we have a false conception of greatness, the degradation of the sentiment of justice, the idolization of money and the lack of religious inspiration. Our civilization has become sick also, because it does not know exactly what place to give to physical labour and to, those engaged in it. All these have to be incorporated in the scheme of education. Peace-education is a must for a Peace-Culture or Ahimsa. If the foundation of war is built in the minds of men, strategies of peace will also be built in our mind and heart through education.