War is as popular today as it has ever been. Tune in to the daily news and there is a war correspondent reporting the latest outbreak of hostilities from some trouble-spot in the world. Whatever the lesson or purpose, in six thousand years of fighting between successive civilisations and nations, we human beings have yet to establish a universal ethic that eradicates the need for war.
In all recorded history, war and violence have been at the forefront of every significant stage of human evolution. Spanning from the earliest days of tribal conflict right up to the present-day threat of nuclear holocaust, the human race has justified and even made a virtue of violence and genocide. Are we human beings therefore inherently violent, making war a necessary evil in the struggle towards a more enlightened race? And is war justifiable at any price – or is it an abdication of responsibilities, restraint, and human dignity? This article examines these questions and looks at the future of human conflict on the planet.
As man probed deeply into the mysteries of his world, his increasing knowledge provided the opportunity to inflict more damage upon his enemies. Scientific advancement meant more effective weapons, as well as improvements for the health and wellbeing of society at large. As social conditions slowly improved for the masses, so did the means of greater destruction. The industrial age was the precursor to the means of wholesale slaughter that marked the Great War in 1914. Following the Second World War, the development of the atom bomb heralded in the nuclear age and the end of the old guard – and the start of a sinister new phase of military subterfuge and clandestine warfare.
There is no rest in this existence, but it is possible to be at peace. When at peace, there is no desire to wage war or to harm another in any way. Peace is an inner state of equilibrium available to all, yet is unable to be woven into modern society as an integrated way of life. This is because the human race cannot tolerate peace for any length of time as an uninterrupted state of being; the absence of conflict and inner tension is just too awful to bear. When politicians and generals talk of peace, what is usually meant is a brief interlude between fighting that provides the opportunity to replenish supplies and forge new alliances – so as to be better prepared for war next time.
The living truth of peace, when demonstrated in the world, usually makes the headlines as something quite extraordinary. Probably the most famous example is the non-violence practised politically by Mahatma Gandhi against the British for independence in India. More recently, the example of Nelson Mandela has inspired the idea of racial integration and harmony through peaceful diplomacy. However, peace on earth as a global way of life is patently absurd in a western culture with its ethic of greed and acquisition; the demands of the times will not allow it. Only the individual can discover the peace that passes understanding. This is realised through a moment to moment surrender of the past, which neutralises the build-up of resistance gathered through unconscious living and the distractions of the world.
The origins of war
War originates as a consequence of being born. Every one of us is potentially violent, since we are all energetically connected to the vast psychic network of all life that has ever been since time began. Although deeply subconscious, these energies of past life experience (especially those associated with cruelty, hatred and sexual deviances) frequently rise to surface awareness to influence the behaviour and actions of the living. In a divisive world where the desires of one person conflict with those of another, the inevitable result is a collision of opposing forces that manifests at every level of human interaction.
The course was set early on in human history as the virus of human misery and discontent extended beyond the localised skirmishes between nomadic tribes to battles fought between nations and civilisations. With the emphasis on war and conquest on a grander scale, the idea behind the drive of such men as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan or Napoleon was to establish a world order in which everybody could unite under a shared ethic (presumably with the conqueror being hailed as supreme ruler of all). Of course, it never happened – and it never will. No single man had the power or the will to withstand the forces of the world. There is no real power in the world. Power is cosmic, an energy that is distinguished by having no visible or quantifiable attributes. The great heroes and warriors were chasing an impossible dream; only the individual, in the relinquishing of the force, can harness sufficient power to change himself – and then to possibly change the world in some way.
The evolution of mankind has been the gradual diminishing of original love. What was once Man’s divine nature has become human nature – the corruption of power into force. Man goes to war as a reaction to being divided from his love and to fill the void at the core of his being. Every act of aggression and violence is an unconscious attempt to anaesthetise the pain of separation. From this inner restlessness and lack of fulfilment arise all the heinous acts of war, including the torture and humiliation of his fellow man. The discharge of bullets, rockets and grenades symbolise the ejaculation of blind force in existence.
Wherever there is human conflict, sex will be lurking in the shadows. The presence of the female will be found as a divine respite for the rigours and hardships of the fighting men in any military campaign. In the role of a prostitute, woman takes the force from man and, in so doing, represents the mother earth in her selfless devotion to the totality of life. The female principle of love and mystery will never desert her love. The tragedy is that, in recent years, woman has joined man on the front line to participate in his warmongering and battles; and she now fights and kills the living flesh of her own womb.
The esoteric value of war
War and tragedy, paradoxically, provide the opportunity for the finest qualities of human beings to emerge through the very means of confrontation and close proximity to death. In times of heightened emotional intensity such as in the heat of battle, the self-fixation that is usually predominant in everyday life is absent, with only the immediate concern for the task at hand. A soldier, for example, can experience a state of expanded awareness, or a surge of incredible energy, when faced with mortal danger. He may risk his life for a comrade or charge head on towards the enemy with no concern or thought for his own safety.
The virtue of war is valour. Although an act of valour is performed by a particular man or woman, the instinctual impulse is impersonal and originates from the unconscious. In that moment of selfless action, the personal self that is usually so predominant is transcended and is, in truth, the demonstration in existence of an aspect of God or the divine character of Man. To perceive such an action in another invokes compassion, the finest of all emotions and serves to bring more love into the world.
In addition to the virtues of humanity, war also extracts the vices or most heinous aspects of human nature. Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein (just to name three dictators of the modern era) have each in their way contributed, rather unsettlingly, to the deeper realisation of the divine character of Man – but not in a way that would be appreciated by those who suffered under their tyrannical rule and oppressive regimes.
War is the human solution to cleanse the past of human suffering and ignorance. World wars or conflicts that influence global affairs are extreme reactions of the human condition that symbolise climacteric changes affecting the evolution of humanity. The countless millions killed, and those who are irrevocably changed by the atrocities of war, remove the blockages that would have otherwise choked the human psyche. With the release of matter as force, the psyche is free-flowing once more and, as history shows, what usually follows is a period of inspiration and creativity, if not immediately then in time – until the inevitable build-up of force reaches a climax yet again. War and mayhem keep on coming, more now than ever before. This is because what has been set in motion must now run its course, for better or for worse. The psyche responds by replenishing and giving back to the world precisely what has been energetically put into it by each successive generation. The racial hatred and religious fervour cannot help but recur; but with an ever greater venom, cruelty and hostile reaction to the warring forces of existence.
“Remember our glorious dead!” Would it be better if we didn’t remember them? Love and nobility are realised in the moment and cannot be remembered or manufactured in military parades with the laying of wreaths at a cross. Respect and honour for the dead is letting them go as life in its totality lets go of its myriad forms when it is time. To regurgitate past battles and heroics by acknowledging the stupidity of human ignorance only perpetuates the misery and suffering.
The final countdown
The balance of power has shifted from soldiers on the battlefield to the rational minds of world leaders and statesmen. The nuclear threat has changed the dynamic of human conflict and it is now more akin to a high-stakes poker game, with mind control as the determining factor of whether or not the button is pushed – or so it seems. With the invention of the Bomb, the interval of time remaining before the inevitable destruction of the world has been the gradual preparation for the final countdown.
Since the Second World War there have been two major reported instances where nuclear war was narrowly averted. The first was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and the second was in 1983 when the escalation of tensions between the U.S.A. and Russia over the Strategic Defence Initiative threatened to trigger a military exchange. It is now only a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ there will be an exchange of nuclear weapons between the superpowers.
It is inconceivable to a world that lives on hope that its demise is necessary to eliminate the residual build-up of past encasing the human psyche. The subconscious condition of humanity as a whole is now possessed with extreme forces of past psychic intensity, which form the one psychic self. This diabolical entity has been referred to, throughout the ages, as ‘Satan’ or ‘The Devil’. But it is a man-made creation, spawned through the abdication of responsibility to love and virtue as a way of being on the blessed earth. The destruction of the world and the majority of the earth’s population will cleanse the psyche and restore the harmony on earth to that of original unity.
In this epoch of western civilisation, humanity has all but accomplished its primary objective: the descent into matter through the intellectual analysis of the material world. From the inner perspective, human experience since the dawning of time has contributed to the activation of ideas within the terrestrial intellect that will inspire future generations of the earth. However, a world in which half the population is poverty-stricken while the other half prospers clearly demonstrates humanity’s unworthiness to continue in its present degenerative condition. Through the example of the moral duplicity of world leaders and their political regimes, injustice and corruption is now rife at every level of society. The task all along was to be the master of matter. It still is. Unfortunately our human intelligence has failed to evolve as splendidly as the physical vehicle itself.
The concentration of mind as a global intensity has now passed the point of no return. The first strike of nuclear weapons will trigger a cataclysmic energy that will instigate a release of the unconscious force of pain and misery inherent within the human psyche. Until the final wipe-out (which can happen any day now), the arms manufacturers will continue to prosper and many people of the earth will continue to reel under the barrage of bombs and explosions. War is, and always has been, good for business. The world will never change and be at peace; but the individual can. This is done through being willing to surrender the force in matter – the source of war from which all hostilities arise.
Death is coming to us all in one way or another, so the end of the world is really the end of existence as it is known. The spiritual perception is the immediacy of life now; it is a place of clarity and stillness that has no beginning and therefore no end. Whether the world blows up or not makes no difference to this timeless inner state. The qualities and virtue of the times are determined by the past experience of all life on earth. Only the end of time provides the unique opportunity to do the seemingly impossible: to re-unite with the original state of love. Around the world more people than ever before are endeavouring to realise a greater truth and reality within themselves. This is a subconscious impulse, similar to that of certain creatures able to anticipate storms or impending earthquakes. Even to glimpse the truth is uplifting and clarifying, whatever the source. I trust I will be able to import more on this subject in future articles.
Lance Kelly 2013