There is a dialogue in the movie – Dhurnadhar Part 1 – in which a terrorist holding a hijacked plane to ransom says – Hindustan ek darpok quom hai.
Meaning – India is a country of cowards.
Now this may be what the Pakistanis think of us. It was meant to be offensive and in fact it is. But I think there is a grain of truth in what was said.
I am reading the Osho book Krishna – The Man and his Philosophy. In about 7 or 8 pages Osho presents a complete picture of both war and peace and why war (and violence) should not be avoided at all costs.
Basically he says that war and peace are two opposite poles and the two go together. You cannot have one without the other. He also says that war challenges us and makes us better and stronger and braver and more capable persons. He also says that the qualities developed by war are necessary for the prosperity of the nation and scientific progress. He points to the example of the Germans and the Japanese after the second world war. Also the west has fought a number of wars and it is not an accident that they are prosperous and on the forefront of scientific progress. The qualities developed by war are more than desirable. They are necessary for the prosperity and even survival of mankind. The human race cannot survive without scientific progress.
India on the other hand has had 5000 years of peace following the Mahabharata. And what is the result? We are living in poverty and have been made subjects by any number of foreign invaders. And we fought their wars for them by enlisting in their armies. So we fought wars for the sake of the people who made us their subjects and therefore for our own subjugation.
For more on the subject please read Osho. The answer to the second question of Chapter 1 is what I am referring to. You will get an intelligent exposition and analysis of what ails the country.
So much for Osho. I would like to end this article with tom tomming my own achievements. He he.
As you may know I have been harassed and victimised for much of my life. And this has actually had the result of making me a better and more spiritually evolved person. I have made more progress than I would have made in ordinary circumstances.
Because of the victimization etc I faced a lot of internal challenges. I had to face these challenges and I did. I fought a war for my sanity and emerged not only sane but a better person as a result.
Prophet Muhammad also speaks of the internal jihad – the fight within – that makes the believers noble, spiritually evolved and good human beings.
So I know for a fact that facing and fighting a war is not an unmitigated disaster by any means.
As Osho says – we live in a world of dualities and we cannot have one end of the pole without the other. We cannot have good without bad and peace without war. And each has elements of the other within it. Bad contains elements of good and there are many benefits – in fact blessings – to be found in fighting wars.
I hope this message is of some use to us in this crisis when the Iran war is going on.
I hope also that this gives some food for thought for authorities maintaining law and order. By that I mean the police. I was a pugnacious youngster many decades ago and this was treated as some sort of serious offence. They must have feared that some riot or the like would result from my antics. This same pugnacity was put by me to good use in facing my internal challenges. So it turned out to be a highly desirable quality not only for me but for the world at large.
In sum the qualities required for fighting a war are the same qualities required for any difficult endeavour or achievement. This applies to nations as well as individuals.
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