“In fact, we have been brainwashed. War is neither glamorous nor attractive. It is monstrous. Its very nature is one of tragedy and suffering.”-The Dalai Lama
“My baby boy is in the army of disbelief”
On a stingingly hot day in the suburbs of Tel aviv in August 2013, a bus pulls up near where I stand in the scant shade. One by one, dust-caked soldiers began to disembark. They are returning home from the ground invasion of Gaza. The atmosphere of trauma (more tangible than that poignant clash of divine stillness and physical horror at a road accident) hangs around them. These kids are going home to their parents.
As they hoist their bags over their shoulders, they walk slowly, with heads bent and eyes averted. Home is no longer a familiar place. The gap created by all they have been through and witnessed, seems suddenly too wide. Some of them are so young, they hardly have stubble.
The stench of trauma – possibly impacting generations forward and back, exudes out of the cold-sweat of horrified mortality and senselessness. And this is the “stronger” power, the bad guys in the eyes of the world. UN buildings were hit. Palestinian children were accidentally slaughtered on the beach. But a child is a child, to human eyes. No anaesthetic of heroism here. The (after a decade, suddenly threatening) tunnels that bring a workforce between Gaza and the restaurants of Tel aviv would be dug again.
“No bombs to drop and kill them all
No money paid to charge our souls”
As I write this post, warplanes from more than four nations are crowding the skies over Israel’s Northern border in Syria. All of these great powers are seeking to destroy the (until 2013 anonymous) apocalyptic gang known today as Daesh or Isis. Geostrategically, these charletans headquartered themselves conveniently close to the borders of Iran – which controls one of the few yet unconquered sources of oil on the planet. The swarm of warplanes from different sovereign nations over a small area has already erupted in clashes between Russia and Turkey. (Which Putin cynically mentioned was over oil)
The French have to get some punches, (for their dignity), and the English RAF is now having a hammering as a matter of national pride. The US, China and Russia are also flying high to pick out terrorist insects on the ground (as if they can be easily distinguished from any other human).
Across the borders from Jordan, through Syria, Turkey and deep into the heart of Europe a human exodus is happening. Winter is arriving and the community of wealthier countries is bracing itself and putting up walls to this human tsunami of refugees – the underbelly of any war.
“We are a natural disaster
Shake, mama, shake your head”
The agenda of every war is peace. The agenda of every surrender is peace. Both war and surrender seek peace, yet the peace is always here. Caught, as this song from TheAngelcy (official video below) describes, in mind control and a belief that we can “bomb them all”, we slaughter our children, in a monstrous ego-driven spiral between war and surrender – kill or be killed – the primitive psychology of the “powers in command here”.
But wait. We can take this song as political – about the horrors of collective man and the natural disaster called humanity. But we know too well that raging about a war outside ourselves is a way to avoid the war within. The lyrics of this song could equally apply to a custody was in an ugly divorce. At the same time, they poignantly describe the war within ourselves in our struggle to keep up appearances and to “make it” by being “somebody” – better, greater, more successful etc.
“No mind control, no wall
Just summer winter spring and fall”
The deep conditioning that war is in a polarity with peace is what makes sure that we lose connection with our inner peace. It keeps us in a spiral between the twin flames of war and surrender. Every history book of war tells the same story. Every war leads to surrender. Every surrender can lead to war. Without moving to the nondual position of the peace – which is always here, regardless of who is who and of winning and losing – this spiralling continues.
The whole duality of war and surrender is played out through the illusion of separation and an agenda of greed (or survival) which is a result in a failure to realize that the peace is unconditionally always here. It’s alive. It’s calling us home. It calls us to drop the equipment of killing and to awaken to senselessness of suffering.
As the Dalai lama said, you can kill your enemy, but he will soon die anyway, so in a way, you are murdering a corpse. As he also said, don’t worry about the enemies on the outside – they pass quickly – it is the enemies on the inside that need our attention.
My Baby Boy
My baby boy is in the army of disbelief
My baby boy is in the army of midsummer grief
Tossing and turning in his bed
Guessing his own end
Tossing and turning in his bed
My baby boy’s already dead
We are a natural disaster
Shake, mama, shake your head
We are a natural disaster
Lost all hope to ever understand
The powers in command here
Pray pray, pray for my baby boy
Pray pray, pray for my baby boy, for my baby boy
No bombs to drop and kill them all
No money paid to charge our souls
No mind control, no wall
Just summer winter spring and fall
