When we look around, we see humanity in a state of constant conflict, struggle, and war. Collectively, we have come to believe that violence is necessary to solve our problems. Groups fight each other for land, resources, pride, or a false sense of righteousness that justifies violence. The desire to use violence to resolve conflicts has led to countless millions dying, trying to prove their point through brute force, which is accepted, understood, and unchallenged as a way of life. I am here to say that this is not the only way. For those with open ears and minds, listen and understand.
The only way to eradicate the consciousness of war on this planet is through true forgiveness towards your enemies. I use the term true forgiveness deliberately, as there is much confusion about what forgiveness really is and how it should be practiced. True forgiveness is not born out of blind belief, social nicety, or the desire for refinement, but rather from a deep understanding of how your enemy came to commit acts of violence in the first place. It requires you to step into their shoes and understand the motivating factors behind their decisions. Excepting a select few, when you truly understand their reasons, you will feel compassion for your enemy.
First, let’s ask: Does the consciousness of violence, whether through blunt force or otherwise, actually serve humanity? Many tribes have been warring for hundreds or even thousands of years. The Arabs and Jews in the Middle East trace their conflict back to the days of Abraham. The Indians and Pakistanis have been fighting over land and religion since the time of Gandhi. When one person takes revenge, another person on the affected side seeks to retaliate. History has shown that groups like the Arabs and Jews, and the Indians and Pakistanis, have been killing each other for so long, yet there is no end to the hatred and violence. Hatred begets more hatred, and violence begets more violence. There is no way to solve the problem of war by employing violence.
The only way out of this cycle of violence is for us, as a species, from the individual to the collective, to come to a place of compassion and true forgiveness towards our attackers, whether they attack us emotionally, psychologically, or physically. Let’s take an example and work through it from start to finish. Many people around the world feel tremendous hatred towards terrorists and the damage they inflict. This hatred incites more hatred, which in turn makes terrorists hate even more. Let’s see if we can view these terrorists through the lens of true forgiveness and arrive at compassion for them. As we have done throughout this website, we will use the form of an internal dialogue between your human ego and your true self.
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Your Ego: I hate those terrorists! They should all die and leave us the fuck alone! What the hell did I ever do to them.
Your True Self: Why do you hate them?
Your Ego: Because they have no right to kill people just because we don’t believe in their cause.
Your True Self: Why do you think they are doing this?
Ego: Because there are just some evil people in this world. There is no reason.
Your True Self: Well, let’s actually look at this. Why does anyone become violent with someone else and even kill them?
Your Ego: I don’t know. Maybe they are just killing us because we don’t follow their religion.
Your True Self: Suppose you were born on a desert island. You don’t have a religion, you don’t have a an occupation, or a nationality. You don’t even have a name. Given these circumstances, is it possible for you to commit violence towards someone else.
Your Ego: Probably not.
Your True Self: Because you need someone else to judge as less worthy or “not good enough” first, correct? Either their nationality is not good enough, or their looks aren’t good enough, or their religion. But in the absence of all these external identities, don’t we need something to go up against in the first place? Only once you have identified with an external identity and judged yourself as better on a scale of some sort, can you then judge something else as worse. Do you follow me so far?
Your Ego: Yes.
Your True Self: And where do we get these identities from?
Your Ego: We are born into them.
Your True Self: No, actually we aren’t born into them. Were you an American before you were born? Will you be an American after you die? The country of America didn’t even exist 500 years ago. So what about those who lived in the place you call America 500 years ago? Are they Americans? Do you see what I’m saying. Where do you get the identity that you are an American?
Your Ego: From society. From when I was born. My passport, etc.
Your True Self: Ok and is there any truth to you being an American? Will you be an American after you die? If you are reincarnated another lifetime, for argument sake, and you are born in another country, will you still be an American? What happens if there is a civil war in America, and in next 50 years, and the whole country splits up into nation-states. Are you still an American then?
Your Ego: I see what you’re saying.
Your True Self: Following this line of reasoning then and applying it to the terrorists, are these terrorists Arab? Are these terrorists, inherently as human beings, Muslim?
Your Ego: Well I suppose they aren’t, but that still doesn’t justify killing others.
Your True Self: If you believed as they believed and were just as blinded by the atmosphere of hatred, is it not possible that you too would do the same thing? If you recall, it is possible for not just a group of terrorists, but entire nations to be blinded by hatred. For proof, look at how forty-million Germans directed their hatred towards the Jewish people during World War II. These Germans were otherwise normal people, but they had become consumed with their identity as Germans and put on a superiority complex towards another race of people. Just as the Germans became confused and unbalanced, is it not possible that you too could become confused and unbalanced as well, were you to live in a similar environment?
Your Ego: Well it might be possible.
Your True Self: Well if it is possible for you too to have human weaknesses, then why cannot they? I am not condoning the violence that they are committing. But rather I am trying to alter the reaction of hatred towards them, which springs from the judgment that they are inherently a piece of scum. They are human beings, first and foremost, even if they have lost sight of that fact at the moment. If you are able to see their humanity, the response can no longer be hatred, but compassion and forgiveness.
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The identities we accept from outside ourselves, which we call the human ego from a spiritual standpoint, are inherently not real. They are essentially just concepts or ideas. This applies to a person’s religion as well. There is, of course, a limit to how far you can take this, and it is incredible how far the human ego will go to justify something. Today’s Jesus was yesterday’s Zeus and Osiris. Tomorrow, it will be something else. A person who believes that faith in a certain god is the only way is being disingenuous at best, and in flat-out denial at worst.
Consider the belief that only those who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved, or the belief that Earth has existed for only 6,000 years. Such beliefs can only be maintained through blind faith and total denial, until a brave soul like Copernicus or Galileo proved incontrovertibly that the Earth is round. I don’t want to delve into a theological debate, but the main point is this: Did the millions of people who lived before Jesus Christ all go to hell? What if the human race survives for the next hundred thousand years, with countless billions living and dying in various belief systems? Does that mean all those billions will go to hell as well?
The surprising thing is that other religions hold similar beliefs to Christians about Jesus, but with a different savior. For example, terrorists want us to believe that if we don’t accept Allah as God and Muhammad as the final messenger, we will go to hell. This belief includes all the billions of Christians as well.
You might argue that at least Christians aren’t killing others and forcing their beliefs on them. However, history tells a different story. A thousand years ago, Christians were the modern-day terrorists, and Muslims were the enlightened ones. During the Crusades, the Catholic Church granted complete absolution of all sins to those who fought to kill Muslims and take over land in the Middle East. Countless people who called themselves Christians blindly believed this just as fervently as Muslim terrorists believe their own doctrines today.
The point is that they might be forcing their beliefs on us because someone else is trying to force beliefs on them. This is the basis of the conflict we face today. One side believes they are right and judges the other side as wrong, and vice versa. There is no way to eradicate or resolve this conflict until one side stops seeing the other as their enemy and chooses not to judge them as inferior or ‘less worthy.’ By doing this, we disengage completely from the path of violence.
For this to happen, we must see the other side not through the lens of identity, religion, or nationality, but first and foremost as human beings. Perhaps they are confused or emotionally unbalanced; in that case, they are sick mentally, psychologically, and spiritually and need help. If we truly try to understand what is happening, we would see that a terrorist has a sickness and needs help. They inflict upon others what they perceive as being inflicted upon themselves. They are judged as not good enough or inadequate in some way and act out of despondency and depression, feeling inadequate compared to some societal standard.
As a collective species, we are partly responsible for judging and labeling these individuals as terrorists by buying into this standard. Because this same standard judges the would-be terrorist, they feel worthless and start blaming everyone else for their feelings. Only then can they resort to violence.
Can you not see that the only way to prevent terrorism is to reject the societal standards imposed upon us? Society wants us to punish and dehumanize terrorists as inherently evil individuals, which is exactly what terrorists do to us. In reality, a terrorist is a human being with a deep self-esteem issues who needs psychological help. They act out from the depths of depression and despair into violence. They have dehumanized themselves and are dehumanizing others.
The solution is to humanize the terrorist. I fully admit there are exceptions – the narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths we must exclude from this. However, most individuals are worthy of true forgiveness and compassion. Most people are first and foremost, human beings, and we need to see them as such. By supporting the standard that calls for vengeance and dehumanization, we only contribute to the problem. All wars require one side to demonize the other. If we can identify with our common humanity and view those trapped in fear-based consciousness with compassion and forgiveness, we could never engage in war as aggressors again.