The society in which we live is put together by man. Each one of us has contributed to it. And if you are willing, and apparently you must be willing because you are here and I am here, we will take this long complex journey. Life is very complex. We like to look at complexity and get more and more complex. We never look at anything simply with our brains, with our hearts, with our whole being. So let us take the journey together. The speaker is putting into words what is happening, objectively, clearly, and totally dispassionately.
We have lived on this earth for many millennia. And during those long periods of time mankind has suffered loneliness, despair, uncertainty, confusion, multiple choices and therefore multiple complexities; and there have been wars not only physical bloody wars but also psychological wars. And mankind has asked if there can be peace on earth. But apparently this has not been possible. There are about forty wars going on at the present time, ideological, theoretical, economic, social. During historical times, perhaps about five thousand to six thousand years, there have been wars practically every year. And also we are preparing for wars now. Two ideologies the Communist and the so-called democratic at war over what kind of implements we should use, control of armaments and all the rest of it. War seems to be the common lot of mankind. One observes all over the world the piling up of armaments, from the tiny little nation or tribe to the highly sophisticated affluent society like yours. How can we have peace on earth? Is it at all possible?
It has been said that there is no peace on earth, only in heaven. This is repeated in different ways, both in the East, and the West. Christians have killed more than anybody else on earth. We are observing these facts, these actualities, not taking sides. And then there are the different religions: in Buddhism there is no god; in Hinduism somebody calculated there are about three hundred thousand gods. That's rather fun, you can choose whichever god you like. In Christianity and Islam there is only one god, based on two books the Bible and the Koran. So religions have divided man, just as nationalism, which is a form of glorified tribalism, has divided man nationalism, patriotism, religious ardour. And fundamentalists both in India, here and in Europe, are reviving their religious traditions. I wonder if you have ever looked at the word 'reviving'? You can only revive something that is dead or dying. You can't revive a living thing.
Man has always been in conflict, as everyone in this world goes through all kinds of misery, all kinds of sorrow, pain, desperate loneliness; and we long to escape from all that, So we are going to observe together this extraordinary phenomenon: how man, after these thousands of years, still remains a barbarian cruel, vulgar, full of anxiety and hatred. And violence is increasing in the world. So one asks, can there be peace on this earth? Because without peace, inwardly, psychologically first, the brain cannot flower, human beings cannot live completely holistically.
