24 September 2001, 12:04am IST
S H VENKATRAMANI.
We are in the paranoiac grip of the havoc that violence has wreaked. the television visuals of the collapse of the lofty towers of the world trade center in new york, and their being engulfed by the billowing flames of fire, bear testimony to the gruesome orgy of hatred. whoever be the terrorist guilty of hatching this venomous plan, it is the burgeoning embryo of hatred in the human mind that has ballooned into this eerie plot of violence that has shocked the entire world. no amount of fortification, police security and physical vigilance can protect humanity from these mindless acts of violence that manifest hatred and anger. vigilance can perhaps pre-empt and suppress acts of violence, but they cannot control human minds which are unable to follow the path of peace. physical security cannot ensure that the demon of violence, springing up from hatred and anger, does not rear its ugly head in a remote cranny of the mind. with heightened vigilance and intensified security, the demon may not obtrude and make its presence felt in the real world. but like a dormant ulcer or an internal injury, it may silently gnaw at the core of the human mind. if i were to digress a little, for three-quarters of a century men have used chlorofluorocarbons (cfcs) for air-conditioning and refrigeration. to the best of our knowledge and scientific wisdom we believed that these cfcs were benign. but now, to our horror, we have discovered that the chlorine in the cfcs has quietly drilled a gaping hole in the protective ozone layer enveloping the earth's atmosphere. that is why the montreal protocol envisages the phasing out of all cfcs. if we physically control and suppress violence, the hatred in our souls that we are not allowing to manifest itself will, like these cfcs, slowly and imperceptibly eat into the vitals of the ozone layer of the human mind. if you prevent hatred from manifesting itself, you will only make it fester within your mind, creep silently deep and wide into the system, and finally explode in an uncontrollable holocaust of intolerant violence. to tackle the issue of violence in human society, we need to fundamentally address the source of violence, intolerance and hatred in our own minds. it is the anger, hatred and violence in the microcosm of our mind that gets magnified and manifests itself as international terrorism on the macrocosm of the world. the philosopher jiddu krishnamurti observed that, ``war can only be understood and put an end to if you and all those who are concerned deeply with the survival of man, feel that you are utterly responsible for killing others''. we, therefore, are responsible for the fate that befalls us. as the poet francis thompson has written evocatively: ``all things by hidden power /to each other linked are, / that thou canst not stir a flower / without the troubling of a star''. so what is the source of this hatred in our minds? hatred can crop up spontaneously as impulsive feeling in the mind. all such spontaneous impulses are the result of your having been conditioned by your own past sensory experiences. a feeling of hatred can arise from evaluation and judgment based on your own subconscious and subtly obtrusive ego. the self, the ego intangibly manifests itself as your deeply embedded likes and dislikes. the liking gains in fervour through experience imbibed through your own jaundiced perspective; and gradually looms into fanaticism. your dislikes similarly snowball into intense hatred. it is, then, the maya of the self that divides the world into one's own self and the other, comes with attendant emotional baggage, and sows the seeds of violence and war in the human mind. krishnamurti pertinently asks, ``why is there this division between man and man, between race and race, culture against culture, one series of ideologies against another? why? why is there this separation? man has divided the earth as yours and mine, why? is it that we try to find security, self-protection, in a particular group, or in a particular belief, faith?'' yes, the illusory sense of the self provides a comforting cocoon of a system of beliefs and faith. this cocoon of beliefs fortifying the self incubates the pupa of hatred. suddenly and unpredictably, a volcano of violence erupts from the cocoon. when you perceive this clearly, not as words or a concept, but like the blistering heat of fire on your skin, you will transcend hatred from the innermost depths of your being. it is then that peace will descend upon you and the entire humankind.
No comments:
Post a Comment