War is Nonsense

Hard to believe that something that millions of people have given their life to is complete nonsense. But sadly for them their life was wasted. It only take a small bit of thinking to save oneself from this folly. Sadly millions never stopped to think.

Firstly for a war to occur you need someone to fight. So before you even take arms you know that someone disagrees with you, and you with them. As you fight know that you are simply mirroring their actions. If you don’t like what they are doing, they won’t like what you are doing. If their aggression is making you fight more, yours will make them fight more. It is no different from an animal fighting its reflection. Those who seek peace actually stop fighting. If our enemy stops fighting and shows us kindness then so do we. If we stop fighting and show kindness so do they. But it takes real bravery to stop fighting, and actually fear and cowardice to fight.

The most trivial start of war begins with “they started it.” History is regurgitated to prove some grievance that needs revenge. Of course if the soldiers stop for a second they will realise that this grievance has probably been around for centuries and is only being brought to life now because one of their leaders wants a war. Smart soldiers who value peace won’t look at the history but the person who is raising it. War raises history, history never raises war.

More complex starts to war are that we are being threatened and need to fight. But if we look these are almost always exactly the same as above. You should never look at the reasons for war but the politician who is raising those reasons. Churchill is the most famous war mongerer of recent times. A million reasons have been presented why WW2 was needed – most of them invented after the war! But in the beginning it was that Churchill engineered the idea of the “Threat from the Hun.” Of course we remember this threat never materialised and the “Phoney War” lost much credibility for his war machinations. In the end the Hun cost the UK a total of 10,000 casualties. To put that in context that is far less than a single allied bombing raid against Germany toward the end of the war. In reality there never was a threat from the Hun but Churchill still fooled millions into dying and killing 10s of millions more. Iraq war is similar. There was no clear reason to start the war, but books have been written to invent reasons afterwards. Hitchens paramount in this post-match analysis to rewrite history and pretend that it was a reasonable war. Again millions died but again not from reasons, but from war mongers who fight first and look for reasons second. I can think of no reason ever for any of the modern wars.

History books say that the real reason (not so popular with the people who aren’t so motivated to waste life for bits of paperwork) was the German violation of the Versailles Treaty. Britain made the arbitrary decision to protect Poland. And declared war seemingly reasonably when German broke its borders. But it’s considerably more murky than that. Russia broke its borders and took the other half of Poland at the same time. If Poland was the point why not declare war on Russia also? And if Polish freedom was the point why give all of Poland to the Russians at the end of the war? The reason here was that Russia was too powerful to argue with, and the Versailles agreement with the Allies was the point. 80 millions people died not for freedom but to enforce a piece of paper limiting German power. Perhaps behind closed doors the Allied strategy was to break the Russian treaty with Germany and make Russia a valuable ally. Certainly Russia as an enemy was unthinkable. The goal since before 1914 was always to remove German power from the European map. So “reasons” for war usually become very murky and rather arbitrary in the end and get replaced with propaganda and myths by politicians to actually motivate people to war.

Perhaps the only real reason for war is when you are actually invaded. When an army like the Normans lands its ships at your shores and you need repel them. People like to mythologise now that this will be the result if we don’t have a war abroad – a pre-emptive strike. Again this is Churchill’s Threat from the Hun: if we don’t invade Germany now they will invade us. But of course people forget that we are then just becoming that invading force our self. Not much good asking other people not to invade us if we are going to do the invading our self. We see that with the Terror threat in UK now. Had to ask people not to invade us when we have military operations in half a dozen countries at the moment. When you get seen as an aggressor your call to Peace becomes meaningless and you will attract aggression. As Jesus put it ‘He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.’
The problem with the “invading force” argument is that for a war to start you need only one unjustified invading force (or coalition) and one justified defending force (or coalition). A war can be started unilaterally since it takes only one side to invade. Thus anyone who invades, even for the “reason” that they are pre-emptively striking, is actually starting the war. The other side is thinking exactly the same of course and they may actually invade not for invasive reasons but simply to defend themselves from yourself. The US and Allies always say that their invasions are pre-emptive defence and their enemies are offensive attack. But in reality I think all attacks against the US in the last 100 years have been pre-emptive defence. Who has ever actually planned to conqueror USA except the British? There have been few recent attack but the most famous, Pearl Harbour, was clearly a Japanese realisation that war with US was unavoidable and their best strategy was to strike first. Japan would never have attacked US had peace been an option. Likewise when Hitler declared war on US it was after years of direct (illegal) US support for the UK. He realised that the US was as good as in the war and Germany could never win with US support for UK so there was literally no choice but to declare war in US even if it sealed their destruction. Indeed some argue that Germany would have signed for peace after 1941. Peace was never an option in Allied minds. But none of these famous “attacks” at the US started a war, they simply defended the Axis from Allied manoeuvres. The start of the war - when the world went from Peace to War - was Germany invading its neighbours.
My father used to argue that the war would have been avoidable had we armed ourselves to deter Germany in the 1930s. But I think WW2 actually was not the real start of war. That began in 1914 or even before. WW2 began with Germany rejecting the WW1 peace agreement – that everyone at the time agreed was inevitable – Lloyd George came away from Versailles saying that there would be war in the next 20 years. Peace was only temporary either deliberately or through French stupidity and vengeance. Before 1914 there were continual battles with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Prussian Empire before that, the Ottoman Empire over the thousand years before. In the bigger picture WW1&2 should be taken together as the culmination of centuries of battle for power in Europe and the Near East. Put this way when did the war start? The actual problem we can crudely call Imperialism. I won’t handle that here, only to say if soldiers wish to fight to develop the borders of an empire that is a different question and one I will leave them to decide on for now.

IS Imperialism inevitable? There are a number of options.
(1) Pax Romana. During the Roman Empire there was considerable peace because Rome crushed any rebellions. There were no power struggles in countries either internal nor external because Rome was the power.  Its not really peace tho but fear to argue. This is what the US is working on at the moment: Pax Americana. We saw in Iraq what happens when power vacuums occur. The moment ruling powers like Hussein are gone every local war-lord who fancies their chances gets their mates together and fights for a patch. You have civil war. Civil war ensues until there is agreement on a leader. This is how the English Civil war ultimately ended when after Cromwell died all sides decided that a King was better than entering back into civil war. Hobbes writes Leviathan to express this fear of the horror of civil war and that the brutality of a Monarch is far preferable. English civil war was the bloodiest conflict in history. 5% of the entire population were killed in just one battle. Whatever England has today it was bitterly fought for. Something I think all countries should remember. If they want to avoid Pax Romana and want a strong internal system they need to undergo the process of inner transformation that requires incredible resolve.

(2) Like the British accepting a King eventually in favour of fighting the world has accepted the UN. But the UN must be strong else you end up with member states like US acting like an Empire. A “US coalition” is a violation of every UN principle, and ever principle of civilisation. A US Coalition is simply an empire. It must be a UN coalition and the US sadly must tolerate the decision of the UN – where it sits in on every council anyway and effectively governs.

(3) Education. The thoughful have concluded that there is never a reason for war. Even if there is, it is a choice whether we fight or not. You can always chose not the fight. War can only happen when people chose to have war. No war has ever been inevitable. The problem is that society is historically geared up to fight, there are deep problems with the way people think so that the person who seeks not to fight may actually be attacked by his friends and family. If you will not attack the enemy then you are our enemy is the common logic used by everyone from Lenin to Bush. As mentioned before the choice not to fight and seek peace is actually the hardest. To become Peaceful may indeed mean that we are seen as an enemy of all sides. To be Peaceful is actually the walk the hardest and most courageous path of all. But realising this we then realise than when we actually meet the enemy landing on our shores the chances are we are simply meeting a coward who was too weak to say NO to battle.

And then there is Evil. At root we think we must defend ourselves from evil. People are always tempted to be greedy, to be hateful, to be selfish. We will always meet those people who want to take from us, who want to hurt us, and who will trample over our wishes as they seek their own. But when we handle them we must first be sure we ourselves are not being tempted by greed, hate and selfishness. Too often what starts of noble as an attempt to right a wrong becomes a wrong itself. The Devil is exceptionally cunning. No matter how noble WW2 may have started out as, in the end it itself was the greatest evil the world has ever known and that evil was committed as much by Allies as it was Axis – it was all committed by ordinary soldiers.

So when we meet a greedy person what do we do? We can be generous at first. It is hard to teach a greedy person what a generous person is like unless we can do that ourselves. And when we see the greedy person not learning and getting more greedy we can point to ourselves and say do you see I am being generous. And so the education begins.

And likewise when we meet a hateful person do we hate back? If so we can be sure they will get more hateful. They need to see a loving person who can absorb that hate and help them learn love. If ever war was a folly it is here.

And when we meet a selfish person with no regard for others this is the one where war has some value. A selfish person often doesn’t notice until they have reason to. We can remove what they want by sanctions. We can obstruct their progress by threats of power. But most importantly we can isolate them until they join in discussion. But this is the most tricky of the evils because who can operate without thought for their own gain? The US has emblazoned across its departements “Working for US Interests.” The US by its own admission is a selfish organisation committing one of the 3 evils. For this reason it cannot lead resolution to this international problem. Again we are left needing a coalition of nations committed and strongly working in a global interest with mutual support, generosity and kindness both respecting the coalition and respecting each other.

For this reason no person should ever put on the uniform of their country when they are fighting for their country alone. This is the old imperial system. When your country has UN authority then you put on the uniform and fight for UN interests. Fighting with UN backing has its advantage because it means that were you in need of defence you would have the world behind you. But who would ever need to fight in such a world? Who would be able to withstand the wishes of an international community like this? Pax United Nations was the original goal.

The problem has been the rise of a single global super power -  the US. They had/have a think tank called Project for the New American Century which explains the problem. The US has seen the chance for global supremacy, to mould the world in its interests. As a result the world has lost the model it had of mutual respect and cooperation and replaced it with US interests. The fault has been a series of weak nations forming a coalition not with the UN but with the US to form a break away Empire that has continued the old Imperial goal of global domination that the British began in the 17th Century. British had gained control of the seas by the 18th Century which meant it controlled global trade. This gave it enormous power which it held onto until WW2 destroyed it and the US took over. Now the US continues this goal of controlling global trade both at sea, but now the air and also space. This is in direct violation of the principles of Peace. It is greed and selfishness at least 2 of the evils.

The only way to return to Peace is to reject the US as an independent authority and force it to rejoin the UN. But this will require generosity from its coalition partners who will have to lose some authority themselves. It is of the nature of politicians that they do not relinquish power. Instead it falls to the people who ultimately will be carrying the weapons to achieve political aims. And so we return to the folly of war. There is no actual reason to fight beyond the myths of politicians. There is no reason to attack if you are not being attacked yourself. And when you face an invading army is the most part the people you meet do not wish to invade but are too weak to stand up to their own politicians. If we could educate them to lay down weapons then we ave achieve the same goal as fighting them. So pre-emtively before it gets to air drops of hostile troops the goal is to educate people globally of the folly of war and how avoiding war at any cost is brave and noble thing to do.

Meaning of Life

Misunderstanding the senses leads us on the wrong path in life. Many who have followed this path have not seen the falasy and have ended up wasting their entire lives.

The Senses

The senses create a powerful illusion if we don’t understand them. Naively we think what we experience is what is there. Only partially correct. When our senses are intact we get an experience. So the experience depends upon our senses and so it’s not just the world straight and simple.

Eyes create sight experiences, noses smell experiences. We are well familiar. But its wrong to say the world is actually made of the things we see or smell. The sound of a tree falling in a forest with no-one to hear it obviously doesn’t make a sound. You need ears to get a sound.

If one doubts whether the tree needs hearing to make a sound we need only ask a deaf person what sound it makes. However the deaf person may well feel the vibrations. They may also see it, which a blind person won’t experience. So the tree falling creates many experiences in many senses, in many people. There is no single *experience* of the tree falling. Each person not only has multiple experiences themselves like seeing and hearing, but each person has a different experience. This is the source of the Great Illusion because we know in truth there is just one tree falling.

In the East there is a 6th sense in addition to the normal 5. This is the sense that experiences thoughts. When we experience something we may have a sight and a sound but we will probably also experience the creation of a thought about it. This is a source of much confusion. In the case of the tree falling the thoughst will be diverse. But in the context of this discussion one of them may be what is the Truth? What is the correct true thought? Did a tree really just fall? Arguments may break out as people challenge their various experiences. But it is really helpful to see that these thoughts are created by the events as much as the sights and sounds. Less mentally strong people may, like blind people, have duller thoughts but at root thoughts are just part of our experience.

The Way To Freedom

In our thoughts we may pursue this now self generaing snow ball of what “really” happened if our senses are interacting with the tree falling and creating lots of different experiences. What does a tree falling “really” mean. What we conclude after much thought is that a tree falling has no quality of itself. It needs to interact with the world to take on a form, and the form created depends upon what is there. The sound of a tree falling in a forest with no one there, like Schroedingers Cat with the box closed, is what is called Sunyata in Buddism. It can be either, but itself it is neither. It doesn’t mean that it switches between states, or that it is confused about what it is, it IS Sunyata. The confusion only occurs in our thoughts which by definition deal with things that are this way and that. Sunyata can’t be thought. Sunyata is the cause of thoughts! To the wise however they can see that the manifestation of concrete things is itself Sunyata. They are not to be separated. As the Heart Sutra says: Form is Void and Void is Form.

One doesn’t need this level of wisdom however to steer in the correct direction. Mistaking our experiences to be Real and Truthful, rather than created and relative we often attribute far too much importance in them. In particular we pursue a particular aspect of experiences which is whether we like them or not. A person who has not understood that their experinces as just their own, small, local, temporary and created puts a wall around themselves. They become trapped within their senses. In philosophy this position is called Solipsism. How do you prove that anyone else is real? The problem with this is that if start from the awareness that there are other people then how do you prove that your experience is real! If we become attached to our senses then we end up owning them. We are fully trapped and end up believing in a single observer and self experiencing these private phenomena and we end up reject the existence of others.

It is interesting that as a kid I ended up proving the need for Sunyata. But because of a fundemntal attachment to my senses I ended up believing in a personal space in which experiences arose with indefinable sunyata on the outside. Only half correct. I couldn’t see the attachment to my senses that was driving this bubble, private cinema view of life.

Once attachment to senses is gone we live in a world finitely larger than the bubble of private experiece. It means that the worst experiences, while they are indeed happening to us, lose their finality and permanence, and are seen as just a part of the great world. When we see someone else having horrible experiences they are as important to us as our own. Even tho when we have an experience it is real and solid, we understand it in the context of the Great Infinite World of which our tiny bubbles of created experience grow and pop endlessly. We become truly freed from the trap of ourself. Some will say that we lose the intensity of pleasure and indulging our own likes. But do you prefer a comfortable prison or the infinitity of freedom? Red pill or blue pill. Although its not a fair comparison because expanding beyond the senses delivers us into a world without the pressing concerns for like and dislike.

So What is Reality?

So what is out there? The key thing is we uncouple from the endless drive for like and dislike. It is still there but isn’t totally absorbing. Instead we begin to switch to a more universal point of view. Other people become as important to us as ourself. Intellectually we’ve always been able to see this: what in reality actually separated us? Despite thinking we know, no one will ever find an answer to that question cos there is nothing there!

The Meaning of Life

So the Meaning of Life reveals itself outside our sense. It isn’t the endless pursuit of pleasure, or escaping the suffering and troubles of our life. It is freeing ourself from these concerns by letting go of the importants of our senses and putting them in a proper perspective of just momentary creations in a vast boundless universe full of endless beings and even more endless experiences. Once we begin to let go, then we will start to experience the fullness of existence.

Practically it means being brave, being bigger than we think we are, being a Hero and achieving what we think is impossible. Faced with difficult situations, or being blinded by bad experiences, we have that faith in the Bigger Thing, the thing beyond our apparent senses and thoughts. Doesn’t matter what that thing is, the issue is unattaching from the specific here and now that has us trapped. Each time we do this we become bigger, or more accurately we let go of the smaller self that has us trapped. Practically it means paying more attention to others, and learning to consider them as much as ourself. If we can serve another then we have truly unattched from our own senses. Of course we can do this too much, their senses are also not to be take too seriously. Perhaps if they are demanding we can help them serve more and unattach from the demands and perspectives of their own sense and thoughts.

What is interesting about this analysis is that it agrees completely with the wisdom of every age and time. Whether it is Jesus or Muhammad, or Krishna, or Buddha the core teaching is to avoid the small of Evil and open our hearts to the big of Good. It means being humble not arrogant, it means subservient not in command, it means listening not commanding, it means being a carer not a warrior. Those who get trapped in the senses gradually get cut off from the world, and while they may feel that they are large, it is because they have forgotten what is really great. By contrast those who know what is really great no longer get impressed by their own tiny existence and become very simple and straighforward. It is sad how often this is misunderstood. The Glory of God so often associated with triumph and success, and personal gratification and winning. You know when you have God on your side, and when you are a truely Great Person not when you win and celebrate, but when you lose and are content with that, because what can we ever gain that is even close to the grandure of the infinite reality that hosts our every experience and thought? When you see people celebrating victory you know you are in the comany of the small people, the servant of the Devil, the victims of the Great Illusion, too foolish (as yet) to escape the trap of their senses.