The
Peace Law: An Open Letter
To
the Global Human Family, Calling For The Universal Establishment of The
Collective Principles of Cooperation and Tolerance
Avatar
Adi Da Samraj excerpt from
Eleutherios (The Only Truth That Sets The Heart Free) There
is an ancient tradition whereby authentic spiritual teachers offer their profound
help to humanity in moments of dire crisis. Speaking with prophetic passion, and
from the depths of their spiritual realization, such great beings call us to a
course of action that can set things right.
At this grave moment in human history, Avatar Adi Da Samraj, a Spiritual Master
of rare stature, urgently calls all people of all nations to collectively make
changes in the world for the benefit of everyone. Speaking
from an overwhelming desire to see humanity create a new destiny, in which war
is no longer an option, Avatar Adi Da Samraj offers this Open Letter to the entire
human family.
My beloved every one,
I
offer the communication in this letter out of compassion and love for all human
beings and for the entire world.
This
is the moment of truth for humankind. Critical choices must now be made in order
to protect the continued existence of human society and the earth itself.
This
letter is a call to righten the collective moral disposition of humanity, and
to establish a global cooperative order on that basis. In
this message to all, I call upon the leaders and educators of humankind to actively
embrace, and to universally declare and promote, and to actively require the universal
real fulfillment of the simplest law and measure of humankind, which I have stated
in the form: "Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace". The acceptance of this
law as a universal discipline is the basis for (progressively) resolving the current
plight of humankind.
I.
Why War Must No Longer Be Allowed
Until
the twentieth century, the destructive potential of war, though great, was (nevertheless)
limited. There was a limit to the number of governments that had access to the
most powerful weapons, there was a limit to the destructive potential of those
weapons, and
there was a limit on the geographic range over which such weapons could be exercised
. Therefore, the violence and
devastation of war, though horrific, were nevertheless (to some degree) contained.
Since
the mid-twentieth century, the previous restrictions on the destructive potential
of war have ceased to be the case. The ability to manufacture or obtain technologically
sophisticated weaponry (whether nuclear, chemical, or biological) is no longer
limited to the few, to the governments of the wealthiest and most powerful nations.
Indeed, such weapons can potentially be obtained even by small groups of people
determined to further their own particular agendas, at whatever cost. And the
destructive potential of existing weaponry is now sufficient to cause unimaginable
devastation. Thus, humanity is faced with two new and dangerous realities: The
number of parties with relatively easy access to extreme weapons of war is proliferating
rapidly, and the destructive power of those weapons is virtually unlimited.
In
the past, it was only the "superpowers" that had the most destructive
weapons. Thus, there was a time when it was plausible for a superpower to presume
that, by using conventional weaponry, it could keep outbreaks of armed violence
under control, at least to a "satisfactory" degree. However, that time
has passed.
When
sophisticated weapons of mass destruction are in the hands of many, war (and even
armed conflict altogether) ceases to be something that can be "won".
The governments of the world are, in general, acting as if they do not understand
or accept this current reality. Since the twentieth century, war itself has
become a threat to all
of humankind — not merely
to the parties directly involved in any particular conflict. Therefore, just as
slavery came to be recognized as inhumane and (thus) unacceptable, so also war
must be made obsolete and no longer allowed. War is a past way of doing things
that no longer makes sense and can no longer be accepted as an appropriate instrument
of policy in the modern world. It
may seem naive and idealistic to say that war must no longer be allowed, but this
call for the eradication of war is, in fact, a necessary response to two basic
realities: (1) the vastly increased availability of the weapons of mass destruction
and (2) the ego-based (or self-centered) nature of the un-Enlightened human being.
Given these realities, war must no longer be allowed as an option — because the
potential destruction is far too great.
Therefore,
in order to ensure its own survival, the human family must collectively make the
choice to refuse and repudiate all acts
of war. When that refusal
and repudiation occurs, the governments
of the world (and even militarily oriented "interest groups" of all
kinds) can be collectively called upon to reject the very possibility of waging
war. And, in order to hasten
that collective rejection of war, people everywhere, and (particularly) leaders
in all fields of human endeavor, must join in speaking this warning: War simply
must be ended now — before it destroys humanity and the earth itself.
II.
The Root of War
The
un-Enlightened human individual is in a state of constant concern for his or her
self-preservation (even though this concern may not always be conscious). This
self-based (or egoic) pattern (or orientation toward existence) is manifested
as the psychology of search and conflict relative to all that is presumed to be
"not-self". Therefore, human beings are inherently disposed to control
and dominate all that they presume to be "not-self". For this reason,
individual egocentric lives are a constant expression of fear, sorrow, anger,
and un-love. Except for the greatest saints and sages, every individual — whether
"leader" or "follower" — is controlled by this pattern. And
the collective life of egocentric human beings (expressed in organized
groups of all kinds, including governments) is dominated by the same motives toward
self-preservation and toward control of what is "outside" — leading
to the collective expression of fear, sorrow, anger, and un-love.
As
I have written (in "On
Liberation from ego and
egoic Society, or,
Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace"),
"Mankind, indoctrinated by materialistic philosophies, ego-serving technologies,
and gross politicial idealisms, is possessed by the mechanical and emotionally
negative efforts of self-indulgence (and anxious release-seeking efforts of all
kinds), and chronically depressed by the frustration of the Spiritual and Divine
impulses that are the inherent characteristics of the heart of every living being.
The ego-'I', whether
individual or collective, is eventually reduced to sorrow and despair, because
of (and as an experiential result of) the inability of life (in and of itself)
to generate Happiness and Joy and Immortality. And that self-contained depression
finally becomes anger, or loveless confrontation with the total world and every
form of presumed 'not-self' — including even (and especially) the Transcendental,
Inherently Spiritual, and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Identity (or One and Only
and Non-Separate Self-Condition), Which is 'locked away', by means of conventional
(or merely exoteric) ideas of 'God Apart', and is (thereby) made into an 'Other'
by the egoic mind. And, when anger becomes the mood of human societies, the quality
of fire (or the primitive and destructive intent of the frustrated ego) invades
the plane of humanity. That fire is expressed as all of the aggression and competitiveness
(and all of the resulting sufferings and painful illusions) of mankind, including
all of the ego-based politics of confrontation. And that ego-fire is, finally,
summarized in the acts of war."
III.
A Truly Cooperative Global Human Community
The
only way beyond the chaos and destruction of war is for humankind as a whole to
embrace the discipline of a truly cooperative global community. It is essential
that each and all of the peoples and nations of the world go beyond their separate
desires for dominance — by (each and all) relinquishing their wish to establish
their separate racial or ethnic group, or their particular tradition of religion,
or their separately idealized political system, or their any independently
and exclusively presumed self-interest as supreme. Instead, humanity
must accept its responsibility to manage itself as a globally interconnected
total community — and (in the disposition of cooperation and tolerance)
that total (or truly global) community must deal with the immense practical problems
confronting the living world today (including overpopulation, disease, ecological
and environmental problems, economic problems, and so forth). Through this cooperative
global community, humankind must collectively address the terrible suffering (whether
brought on by war, exploitation, poverty, or the harsh realities of nature) that
is endured by vast numbers of the world's human (and non-human) population. The
active leaders of the cooperative global community (not only in government, but
in every area of human endeavor) will have a uniquely great responsibility — for,
even if individuals developing within the collective order of humankind yet suffer
the self-caused disabilities of egoic living, the leaders who serve the cooperative
global community must
(without fail) preserve and protect the well-being of humankind
(and of even all of earthkind) as a whole, by really and consistently by
abandoning the self-centered, non-cooperative, and intolerant (or loveless) manner
of life and the policies and activities that flow from it. Humankind
should realize (and
gratefully accept) that it (and even all of earthkind, and earth itself) has had
enough of humanly-caused global destructiveness and violence. As a collective,
humankind has become a dreadful mob of competitive egos
— head-to-head,
toe-to-toe, always threatening "showdown" and "winner-takes-all".
It is a matter of the greatest present-time urgency that this prevailing
global mood of political separatism, end-game competitiveness, and endlessly multiplied
divisiveness be immediately and thoroughly and universally and permanently (or
by means of the formal establishment of a global cooperative order of world populations)
relinquished — such
that the entire world population of humankind becomes universally intelligent
with the heart-positive mind of cooperation and tolerance.
It
is estimated that 160 million people were killed as a direct result
of war during the twentieth century*
— vastly
more than in any other century in the history of the world. This
is a certain and heart-breaking sign that the human world is not
being patterned and managed (or governed) correctly. In order
to survive through the twenty-first century (and succeeding centuries),
the peoples and nations of the collective human world must
cease to support the political conventions of competitive conflict
(or all of the merely nationalistic, or separatist, and agressive
approaches to political problem-solving, based on racial, ethnic,
traditional religious, economic, and otherwise idealized differences).
Such great changes in human life and governance can be
made
— on the basis of cooperation and tolerance. Indeed, for the sake
of all present and future humanity (and even all of earthkind),
these changes must be made — in a non-violent manner, and
via the gentle but persistent rejection of war (and even of inherent,
or systematic, separativeness) as an appropriate instrument of
world politics.
The
only way to solve the current world-situation is for everyone to "lose
face" — instead of everyone demanding to "save face". All
of humankind should, as a formalized collective, "lose face" together,
by acknowledging that, unless human beings live in formally established and formally
maintained cooperation and tolerance, they, inevitably, sink into grossly
and universally destructive behavior. Only be everyone "losing face"
together will the collective of human beings be able to regenerate the
moral strength and authority that is necessary if human beings everywhere are
to require cooperation and tolerance of each other — and only when there is first
such a regeneration of universally equalized moral strength and authority will
there be a universal agreement to create and maintain a truly cooperative and
tolerant global human community. This
is how humanity can (and should, and must) exemplify its collective and instrinsic
heart-Realization of the Greatness of the Real.
IV.
Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace
My
calling to the natural order of all human beings is this: Accept, with humility,
that your rightful position (and that of every one) in the world family of earthkind
(including humankind) is not the "ego-place" of separateness, separativeness,
domination, and control, but the "heart-place" of ego-transcending cooperation
and tolerance. Only on the foundation of ego-transcending cooperation and
tolerance is it possible for peace (or right life) to be established along living
beings of any form or kind. Indeed, this call to right life and peace is
a great and absolute moral law, which I have epitomized in the equation "Cooperation
+ Tolerance = Peace". It is absolutely essential that the universal collective
of humankind formally embrace and really enact this universal moral disposition.
"Cooperation
+ Tolerance = Peace" is the great alternative to the egoic path of inevitable
universal destruction — and, therefore, that moral law must become a universally
accepted (and expected) moral and practical self-discipline. The collective
human family should formally, fully, and finally refuse to allow war.
Through this gesture (or fully enacted agreement), the gathering of the earth-wandering
peoples of the world
can feel their real strength and connectedness to one another — and their collective
power to transform
the "usual" (or "real") politics of egoity, and so
actually create and maintain
human peace in the natural world. Everyone should become positively disposed to
the establishment of a real and trueglobal cooperative human community — because
that global cooperative human community is not merely a "utopian ideal",
but a practical and actually realizable necessity for the physical survival and
the natural well-being of humankind and even all of earthkind. IV.
No One Can Win — But Everyone Can Lose
For
thousands of years, humanity has generated its history on the egoic (or separative)
basis of opposition, confrontation, and competition. That history represents the
developmental period of human infancy, childhood and adolescence — and that early-life
history must now (and forever hereafter) come to an end, in the truly adult generations
of humankind.
To
this end, people should not be "concerned" about how
much has to be done in order to bring about this universal human
change that aligns human existence to the intrinsic moral law
of right life and peace. Rather, each one who agrees with this
call of mine to humankind must — from now, and forever hereafter
— simply, actually, and consistently do what is necessary
to communicate and serve this call and to directly, practically,
and positively address all the grave issues that humanity
now faces. In this manner, people everywhere must come to the
point of fully accepting that this universal embrace of the global
order of human (and truly cooperative, and really mutually tolerant)
adulthood must and will be done, and that there is no other
acceptable option. The collective human world must relinquish
the confrontational disposition (or the political and social idea
of mutually exclusive "opposites") and enter into cooperation
(and the idea of inherent unity, unqualified relatedness, or oneness).
Otherwise, the human species is risking its own total self-destruction
— as well as the destruction of even all of earthkind, and of
earth itself.
To
bring the cooperative global human community into existence is not a matter of
creating some kind of monolithic "world government". Rather, it is a
matter of global cooperation among governments (or among representatives
of various collectives) — a global cooperative politics that is no longer based
on mutual opposition, unmanaged competition, or strategic efforts to dominate.
The politics of confrontation and competition must be disciplined by the real
(and really exercised) mutual dependency of human beings and human collectives
on one another. If that great shift of principle in the exercises of human collective
life is made to occur (by a universal, formal, collective re-agreement), then
humankind (and even all of earthkind) will have the possibility of a rightly realizable
future. On any other basis, even the possible survival (not to mention the possible
"future" or "success") of humankind (and even all of earthkind,
and of earth itself) is already compromised and without reason for optimism. The
Peace Law of cooperation and tolerance must be embraced as the necessary
politics of the future. Cooperation and tolerance are the necessary and exact
"price" for peace — the "treaty cost" for the survival of
humankind, earthkind, and earth itself. This is the necessary "new paradigm"
for the human design of future effort. The
traditional game of "winning the spoils" must come to an end. If the
competitive mode of history is continued, no one is going to win — and
everyone can (and, inevitably, will) lose. Humankind must come together
(cooperatively, tolerantly, and as a whole) to solve the dreadful mass of problems
that are already really and concretely affecting (and, otherwise, set to affect)
human lives all over the world. And, fundamentally, there is only one effective
"medicine", one underlying law (or principle), one practical moral basis
upon which all of this can be positively and successfully addressed: Cooperation
+ Tolerance = Peace. No
one can win the separative wars of the tribes of human mind — but, in a
truly cooperative global human community, all will win, everywhere on earth. V.
Preserve the Gift of Human Existence on Earth
Let
everyone act on his or her heart-desire to preserve this world of earth and its
kinds of life. Let
everyone act on his or her heart-yearning to serve the rightening of the world-civilization
of human beings. Do
not allow this precious gift of human existence to be reduced, degraded, and annihilated.
Do
not allow this precious world of earth and earthkind to be destroyed.
Preserve
these gifts — by doing and demanding what is right life and peace.
I
offer you these words as a thorn of warning and a breath of new life.
I
say all of this in certain love — for you, and for every one.
*Table
1 provides a breakdown of all the casualties of wars in the
twentieth century.
TABLE
1
|
war
|
death
toll |
Second
World War |
50,000,000
|
China:
Mao Zedong's regime |
48,250,000
|
USSR:
Stalin's regime (incl. WW2-era atrocities) |
20,000,000
|
First
World War |
15,000,000
|
Russian
Civil War |
8,800,000
|
China:
Warlord & Nationalist Era |
4,000,000
|
Congo
Free State |
3,000,000
|
Korean
War |
2,800,000
|
2nd Indochina
War (incl. Laos & Cambodia) |
2,700,000
|
Chinese
Civil War |
2,500,000
|
Second
Sudanese Civil War |
1,900,000
|
Congolese
Civil War |
1,700,000
|
Afghanistan:
Civil War |
1,400,000
|
Ethiopian
Civil Wars |
1,400,000
|
Mexican
Revolution |
1,250,000
|
Iran-Iraq
War |
1,000,000
|
Nigeria:
Biafran revolt |
1,000,000
|
Mozambique:
Civil War |
800,000
|
Rwandan
Massacres |
800,000
|
French-Algerian
War |
650,000
|
First
Indochina War |
600,000
|
Angolan
Civil War |
500,000
|
First
Sudanese Civil War |
500,000
|
Spanish
Civil War |
365,000
|
Somalia:
Civil War |
350,000
|
TOTAL |
171,000,000
|
All
excerpts from the works of Avatar Adi Da Samraj and and pictures
of Avatar Adi Da Samraj © 2003 The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam
Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya. All rights
reserved. Perpetual copyright claimed.
|