The State of the Planet
Results from the State of the Soul
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
Many worry about the danger of a third
world war. In fact, it has started already and takes place as a battle of minds.
The WW-III now
raging is a long-standing, undeclared conflict, different from the previous
ones. It is the most intelligent of wars, being largely subtle; it is the most
stupid of them, for it is unnecessary. It does not take place on the physical
realm: its main battlefield is located in the souls.
There is no
need therefore for it to provoke the destruction of present civilization, if
love of life duly wins the day on human consciousness.
In any sort of
conflict, victory and defeat start in one’s thoughts. According to Sun Tzu, the
“Moral Law” or the will to win is of
the essence. He wrote that “the Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom,
sincerity, benevolence, courage, and strictness”.[1]
The best war is
the war one does not have to fight physically, as Sun Tzu explains:
“To fight and
conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence
consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. In the practical
art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and
intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.” [2]
The most
effective among Eastern martial arts were developed on the basis of the same
principle of “minds first”.
True, the world
conflict we are now living includes physical military positions and
preparations around the globe. Genocidal actions and intentions are visible on
the material plane. Yet in the game of chess, as in strategy, a threat is often
worse than its actual fulfilment, and the present world map of nuclear weapons
is an insane web of deadly threats and counter-threats. Nuclear proliferation, the
greatest danger to mankind, starts in the minds of statesmen, and feeds on the naiveté
of millions of citizens of good will.
The war is unfolding
fundamentally as a battle of imagination. Ideas precede outward facts, and
right now WW-III is a struggle for defining our collective ideas about the course
of mankind in the present century. It constitutes an updated, planetary,
multilevel version of WW-II.
On one side we
can see those who preserve ethics. They keep respect for Life and for the moral
principle of self-restraint. On the other side, we observe those who worship destruction.
They can’t have deep respect for themselves, and ignore the value of moderation.
There are subtle forms of boycott against life. Adoring money and machines, it
must be said, is an indirect way of fighting the energy of the soul and paves the
way to various kinds of disaster.
The battle between
the soul and the not-soul rages in the minds of individuals and in the ethos of local communities. In the
Middle East and around the globe, no province or country is outside of it. No
one is entirely away from such war. In
everyone’s mind, there is a love of life and another feeling that boycotts that
love.
The fake religiosity
that glorifies hatred feeds on anti-Semitism and on the love of material power.
The illusion that money and social position can produce happiness stimulates
the causes of violence, physical and psychological. Other socially established forms
of falsehood have the same effect.
Each citizen must
win his own microcosmic battle and start helping others in their healing
process. One who is severe enough with himself can avoid self-delusion and unmask
the collective adoration of appearances.
Life has its
own ways of disrupting the false description of the world according to which “sincerity
is impossible” and “hypocrisy constitutes the law”. The friends of truth do not
need to be many, and Maimonides wrote about the importance of independent
thinking.
“When I have a
difficult subject before me”, he said, “when I find the road narrow and can see
no other way of teaching a well-established truth except by pleasing one
intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools - I prefer to address myself
to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the
multitude”. [3]
Facing Facts In Correct Ways
It is wrong to
look at Karma, or life-situations, as something unchangeable. Karma is plastic
in its interaction with us. Its practical meaning and results depend on the
point of view from which it is experienced and looked upon.
WW-III is a
war for the dominating viewpoints in our culture. The defeat is inevitable for
those who look at life with the lens of selfishness, or believe it is naïve to
be sincere.
Soul-less individuals
are sadly unintelligent: they must not guide mankind. Honest persons have to battle
for the right to be truthful, which the average liars usually attack. Balanced individuals
promote in their own inner world that which is wise, and reject the elements
that are hostile to wisdom.
This world
conflict is a struggle for understanding, a war of principles. The victory of
the soul starts everywhere and unfolds in countless places a million times. It occurs
whenever one citizen gets rid of “automatic beliefs”, abandons unexamined
points of view and rejects the habit of hatred or despondency. It emerges each
time someone makes a severe examination of his own opinions and chooses self-responsible
thinking, leaving aside ideas transmitted in sub-conscious ways.
It is the
spiritual duty of citizens to listen to the sacred peace of their own souls:
the small voice of the silence heals human pain. The higher levels of
soundlessness speak of the eternal balance uniting all things.
Nothing can be
higher than truth and truthfulness.
No human-made weapon
can confront the Law of Laws.
Everything is in
unity in our planet, and generosity flows on the decisive realms of its life. The
degree of honesty in the hearts of human beings is the decisive factor
regarding their future. In chapter 18 of Genesis, we see that a few Just men would have been enough to
avoid a geological catastrophe. The same fundamental idea is taught in
Taoist classics.[4] The tenet is
easy to find in the teachings of Christianity, Hinduism and in the classical
theosophy of Helena Blavatsky.
Do we have that
small, correct number of Just men by now? That is one question to face. It is an
issue to work on.
Regarding the
life of the planet, there are three silently interconnected factors, whose
interaction is taught by different cultural traditions and shown by science and
Sociology:
1) The amount
of ethics and wisdom in the souls of people;
2) The
geological or ecological lifecycles of the planet; and
3) The
well-being of mankind; the legitimacy and destiny of its civilizations.
Raja Yoga and
modern theosophy are not alone in saying that the state of the world results
from the state of the soul. The Jewish Pirke Avoth affirms:
“By three things
does the world endure: by truth, justice, and peace.” [5]
For quite some
time now, the noiseless presence of good-willing souls among us has been
invisibly restraining the third world war and keeping it away from getting undue physical proportions.
Such influence
is capable of helping close the door of unnecessary destruction, if the madness
of nuclear weapons proliferation is stopped in time.
Preserving
mankind is no extraordinary attempt. The effort unfolds age after age and must
be intensified on some occasions. Each time success takes place, it occurs
first within, then in the outer world. It emerges on the visible scenarios of
life through the re-establishment of Ethics and Justice. Firmness and
moderation are always welcome to the process.
NOTES:
[1] “The Art of War”, Sun Tzu, edited and with a Foreword
by James Clavell, Dell Publishing Group, copyright 1983, 84 pp., see p. 9.
[2] “The Art of War”, edited by James Clavell, Dell
Publishing Group, p. 15.
[3] “The Guide for the Perplexed”, Moses Maimonides,
Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 414 pp., see p. 09.
[4] See for instance chapters 15, 19, 136 and 178, among
others, at “Wen-tzu”, translated from the Chinese by Thomas Cleary, Shambhala
Editions.
[5] “Ethics from Sinai”, Irving M. Bunim, Philipp
Feldheim, Inc., the house of the Jewish book, New York, edition in three
volumes, copyright 1964. See volume I,
page 106, Perek I, Mishnah 18.
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The above text was first published in February 2017 in our blog at “The Times of Israel”.
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On avoiding the danger of nuclear
proliferation, see in our associated websites the article “Old Prophecies and Atomic War”.
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