Wherever you look, there’s always a conflict between any two countries or within a country. It is either related to political issues, bad historical relationships, or the difference in religion. The war has existed since the time of creation. That time, the battle was fought with powerful weapons and intense physical powers. Along with weapons, the war is now fought with different political ideologies, technological advancements, and more.
Even after having expert psychologists, doctors, and education, people from the most advanced countries are stuck within the concept of ‘war’.
What do you think the reason could be? Let’s figure it out in this blog.
Wars Have Always Happened—But Why?
War is not a technological invention. It is an endless conflict of political power, fame, and revenge that has existed since the age of Satya-yuga. The reason behind it is the false identification that people hold about their existence. People identify themselves by nationality, religion(Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Jainism, Buddhism), caste, color, and social status/titles. And, so they attached to these identities and became possessive, which leads to ignorance and divides the people into categories of – us vs them.
Ignorance is defined as the forgetfulness of one’s true identity and results in anger. In reality, every living being is a spiritual soul but entangled in the three modes of nature – ego, desire, and ignorance. Such a soul is called a ‘conditioned soul’, and every living being is a conditioned soul. Lord Krishna explained in the Bhagavad Gita:
क्रोधाद्भवति सम्मोहः सम्मोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः ।
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद्बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति ॥ ६३ ॥
~Bg. 2.63
Translation: From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost you falls down again into the material pool.
We can understand from the above explanation that the loss of intelligence is the actual reason behind war-like situations.
What about the Inside War
We often hear the term ‘Inside war’ somewhere in psychological and health-related articles. It is used for the war of thoughts, an illness inside the head. Medical science offers all the explanations and treatments for illnesses or bad mental health, while psychology explains the emotional behavior of thoughts. But you of them have the root cause of this inner problem. But Krishna consciousness has the exact cause and understanding.
‘The mind’ is covered by the illusion, the external energy of the Supreme Lord, called Maya. When the mind is illusioned, it creates conflicts like restlessness, jealousy, dissatisfaction, etc. These conflicts are the reason why people are involved in fights, sometimes as big as a war. But if a person surrenders before the Supreme soul, the maya wouldn’t trouble him/her. It is well explained in the Bhagavad Gita, as:
दैवी ह्येषा गुणमयी मम माया दुरत्यया ।
मामेव ये प्रपद्यन्ते मायामेतां तरन्ति ते ॥ १४ ॥
~Bg. 7.14
Lord Krishna says: This divine energy of Mine, consisting of the three modes of material nature, is difficult to overcome. But those who have surrendered unto Me can easily cross beyond it.
A Spiritual Weapon: The Power of Chanting
Kali yuga is the yuga of extreme physical and mental conflicts. The effects of Maya are strongest in this era, making it difficult for the people to recognize the truth. But the solution exists in the Vedic scriptures like Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam and Chaitanya Charitamrita.
Here’s a verse from Chaitanaya Charitamrita:
harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā
~CC Ādi 17.21
‘In this Age of Kali there is no other means, no other means, no other means for self-realization than chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name of Lord Hari.’
The 16-word Hare Krishna Mahamantra - ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare’-- is a means for both self-realization and liberation of the soul.
This mahamantra chanting was initiated by Chatanaya Mahaprabu, the divine incarnation of Lord Krishna. As compared to other yugas, this mahamantra is the best weapon for the people of this yuga as the most affordable way to attain liberation.
Srila Prabhupada’s Mission for Peace
After Lord Chaitanya’s departure, the glory of Krishna Consciousness faded away from the hearts of people.
In 1965, by the grace of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of ISKCON, restarted the mission of spreading Krishna Consciousness to the world. He first started the mission on the land of the United States, in New York City. He was a 69-year-old man with few spiritual books and a notebook in his suitcase, with no money or contacts.
At that time, the Western world, especially New York City, was going through a lot of conflicts, including the lack of spirituality and life values. In such a condition, he spread the holy names of Lord Krishna without any political or any other support.
Here, we can see how difficult it is for an old acharya to survive and spread the name in the land where people knew nothing about spirituality.
But, he saw an opportunity to spread the Krishna Consciousness in a place where spirituality was at deep hunger, the drugged-young generation was illusioned, and finding the right purpose of life. Srila Prabhupada provided them the ultimate purpose of life, of every soul.
His Bhagavatam teachings slowly reached the hearts of many youngsters, and they started to follow in his footsteps. After some time, he successfully built the Hare Krishna Temple there, to spread the teachings among more people, rich, scholars, poor, young, and old adults.
Even today, years after his departure, the Harinam Sankirtan is continuously spreading across the world. Many ISKCON temples have been established worldwide, and many more are still under construction. The sole purpose of this is to spread the Krishna Consciousness to every single soul in the world.
Final Words
War is the result of rising constant unrighteousness (adharma) in the world. When a soul forgets the ultimate purpose and falls into the illusion of Maya, it brings disasters.
To stop this, you must know the purpose of their existence –it is to serve Lord Krishna and get liberation.
The article should be more descriptive and take real wars as an example and solution based on BG 5.29…
