Since the start of time, we have been at war. The truth is that war is not just fought between humans as most of us think. One of the definitions of war, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end.”
So, what exactly are these forces? By my definition, a force could be human or non-human. To make this simple, I see forces generally as the following:
- Man or groups of Man, such as humans, gangs, communities and government
- Nature, or periods of time defined as nature, such as a tsunami, hurricane, or the Ice Age
- Animals
- Plants
The irony of the outcome of war is that one force tries to create some sort of control over one of the other forces.
Look at this closely.
We as humans create dams to control the flow of water – just one example of Man against Nature. There are theories about the Ice Age or a Meteor hitting the Earth and wiping out the Dinosaurs – one example of Nature against Animals. The news tells us about some person stabbing another person to death – one example of Man against Man.
In some cases, these forces are within our control and in some they are not. For example, it’s foolish for Man to think that he can control the eruption of a volcano or an earthquake. Nature has demonstrated winning this battle time over time. In other cases, history has indicated Man has created slaves of Man to satisfy his own ego.
Let’s just talk about Man since this is what most of us can relate to. What exactly are us humans trying to achieve by controlling Man? What do we gain by going to war, in the traditional sense, with another country? Is there anything positive that is to be gained through war with Man?
Answer: Nothing, as the past demonstrates all states of existence are temporary and retract to what they have always intended to be – a very small piece of what you have thought you have gained.
Go back into history and observe the actions of Empires. Look at maps of empires ruling after war in certain periods of time and compare those regions with what exists in those Empires today. You will realize that these regions have changed today and what one country owed or tried to gain in the past has been retracted to a small piece of land – a smaller piece of the gigantic empire. Persian, Greek, British empires in history have retracted.
Look at couples fighting through tough times – divorce is sometimes inevitable and necessary, retracting ourselves back to our Self – a smaller piece of the overall shared dynamic of couples. Look at all the things we try to push ourselves to complete in a given day. We take on more than what we can handle creating stress within our self – we then add simplicity to complexity again retracting to small pieces of the whole.
To sum up, the long term outcome of any war is eventually retraction to a small piece representing the whole. The immediate gains of war which may be land, natural resources, wealth, human domination is all temporary.
The truth is that in our lifetime we may not be purview to this but if you look back in time you will realize that this is true. Just look at any period of time and you will realize that all things we think are in our control are not really. You will retract to the small piece that is the whole. Even nature does this. Human development by knocking down trees in one part of the world leads to tsunami’s wiping out villages in another. Change is inevitable – and change may not happen relative to where you live.
War achieves nothing in the long term. We may think it does, but the truth is that it doesn’t achieve anything. What war as humans are we really fighting? Answer: the war within our self – and this battle is a fake one as there is nothing to be gained.
There is nothing to be gained by material things as everything is intended to disappear – you will die and never take anything with you when that happens. There is nothing to be gained by dominating others – they will eventually overcome you through non-cooperation and separation. There is nothing to be gained by fighting others – all things to be gained are destined to disappear over time.
All ideas for dominating others reside within our mind driven by the false need to create our own individual gain. The truth is we think we can achieve change in benefit of ourselves by dominating others – we don’t realize is that it’s our minds that create this false sense of wanting more and hence a need to create control – we can’t keep our minds satisfied.
This is why countries wage war thinking they can have more by taking over other countries – they think they will be happy with more land, more wealth, and more resources – but no, they want more. This is why in some marriages we continuously dominate others – we want people to conform to our way of thinking, doing and acting. This is why we can’t stop bull-dozing the earth to displace nature to build more commercial buildings on – we want to build more and more.
What we think is a gain for our self is not a gain within our self. For this to be realized, you need to wage war against all matters of violence within you – specifically, the one violent element that needs to be killed is one’s ego. Once this is achieved, betterment and acceptance of all can be achieved. We can be fully satisfied creating no drive to control. Compromise can be achieved and the need for waging war against Man can be dramatically reduced.