Peace, What it is and what it should be........

I was watching a movie today, very hard hitting and very unconventional. While seeing the movie, I liked a thought that was really pertinent and hard-hitting. The thought was about peace. What is peace? Why are we so much craving for it? When we get peace, is it really the peace that we want? How, do we actually know that we are living in a peaceful world? The questions may seem to be some jumbled words without a proper kind of rationale, however I would like to express a bit about what I could finally understand about peace.

We live in a world where we don't have any kind of problems or any kind of difficulties, we are living in peace; but how do we know that this is really the peace that we want. We are living in peace, maybe because we are shying from the truth. You see a person being robbed infront of your eyes, you are an eyewitness, yet you don't testify against the crime, because you want to live in peace. You want to get your house registered, or you want to get your water connection, you just go and bribe the clerk, because you want to get the things done in peace, so that you can actually live in your new house peacefully. The government machinery, which actually runs on the money that you pay as task, asks you for bribe and you gladly conceed because after that what you get is peace.

Have we ever realised that how much this peace is actually worth? How much can we actually gain from buying a peace like this. Living in a graveyard or a crematoriam may also be peaceful, but is ti the peace that everybody seeks for? If not then why do we want a situation of peace where morals and values are compromised. if I undertand this system correctly, we are actually not achieving peace, we are actually buying it, we are buying it with bribe, with our silence, with our escapisms but we are buying it. Is this deal a fair and profitable deal that we are doing? Let me today talk to you in business language, because I believe that the present system has made us compromise with morals and uprightness to such an extent that we only read these words in the dictionary. So let me be more practical and try to understand the purpose of gaining peace.

You go to a vegetable market and then pay money and get a potato that looks very good from the outside, but when you penetrate your knife in that potato, you see that the potato is rotten, worn out. What do you feel? You feel cheated, and then you curse yourself as to why you couldn't just press the potato and see. You feel that you trip to the market has become futile. The business was a losing proposition. Similarly, you care not to testify, or you bribe or you manipulate, just to make the matter more peaceful. What do you gain in the end? Just like the rotten potato, you end up living in fear, insecurity and skepticism. Because you always are scared that the peace that is today bought by you by paying something, can also be bought by somebody else by paying a little extra. You feel you have not done a solid deal and to consolidate that deal, read by more peace, you slowly but steadily immerse yourself in the mud of corruption.

Our crave for buying peace, gives rise to insecurity and corruption. This maybe at any levels. At highest levels these give rise to sovereign insecurities. At levels lower than that it gives rise to political insecurities. At your or mine level it may give rise to personal or social insecurity. So why are we looking for a peace like this.

Peace is never bought. Peace is a state, that is achieved without any kind of compromise or surrender. Only the brave hearted can win a war, but to win peace it is more important to be strong hearted than brave hearted. I personally believe that peace is a state of mind when you are not happy about an achievemnet or sad about a failure. In every situation, your mind doesn't react to anything, rather it delivers a programed response. This is a state of peace.

So, everybody, from today let us search for true peace and not try to buy it, because invaluable things cannot be valued with any material.

Yours,
Kalyan.