Arrive At Peace By Consensus

30 October 2001, 12:49am IST
Guruji Rishi Prabhakarji.

Truth and non-violence as a way of life was the path that was lived and advocated by Mahatma Gandhi. the present-day war is against terrorism and we need to diffuse it, by putting into practice gandhian ideology. The solution to violence is not violence but non-violence. we practise democracy of the majority. This suppresses the minority group. It leads to frustration among them, as they are not heard and their grievances are not of concern to the majority that rules. The only way left for them is to seek attention, by terrorist activities. the present scenario where india feels that elimination of kashmiri terrorist will solve indian problems is false. We must allow the kashmiri people to reach a consensus on how they want to live; else it will be the majority controlling the minority. Osama bin laden has made us look objectively at our stand and our ideas about religion. he demands, ‘‘accept islam and follow allah or be ready to be killed’’, as those who do not accept his religion are all his enemies. thus he says, ‘‘my religion is better than yours’’. but if we look carefully, we are not different from bin laden, as we are saying much the same thing. We are divided amongst various religious sects, proclaiming that our religion is better than the other religion. Only we do not have the courage to say it and execute what we believe in. It is only when we stop saying that our religion is better than other religions, can the solution of the conflict appear. then what religion should we follow? What will take us beyond this conflict? truth, as we see it must be our religion. what is truth? It is not what is said in the holy books of various religions, but that which will help you to live in peace withyourself and with everyone else. Decision by majority does not make any decision right. a decision that is agreeable to all, can only be the rightful decision. We must meet and reach a consensus before making a decision. If the decision cannot be made in the first meeting, then a second meeting should be called for. If we fail, we must call a third one. in this way, we will ultimately reach a stage where all members reach a consensus to arrive at adecision. this is a noble way to accommodate everybody. It requires patience, but results in peaceand harmony. since everybody in the world cannot be called for all decisions, we need to organise ourselves into neighbourhood community networks through a group of families or individuals and see to it that all decisions for the community are collectively arrived at. this group can have a representative in the next hierarchy which is again responsible for an equal number of persons. Decisions that cannot be taken at a lower hierarchy will be referred to the higher one. in this manner, the whole globe can be covered. the penultimate institution will be the united world and not the united nations. all national and community boundaries will disappear. This provides an environment for the lowest individual to be heard. this is true democracy. It will not lead to a domination by the majority, and hence will do away with the problem of terrorism, as each community is then awake and alert. one must learn to be peaceful within oneself through silence and prayer to create a peaceful world. the next responsibility is to learn to love and share. this calls for deepening one’s silence and higher understanding or truth. higher understanding, for instance, means that ‘my intelligence, is god given and belongs to every one’. with this understanding, we will be able to share easily what we have, with other children of god. this is the real development of an individual. mere acquisition of wealth and power does not make a better individual. this is what gandhiji meant by ‘living in trusteeship’. selfishness creates problems. growing inselflessness leads to solutions. different people may adopt their own different ways of rising higher. some may do service to other persons, animals, birds and nature, some through prayer, some by introspection and some byinner silence. let india and all nations stop supporting any violent war anywhere. gandhiji’s principle of non-violence is an answer to the problem of violence, and it is for us to implement it. either we learn to live in peace or we are doomed. therefore, we should start making decisions by consensus in all bodies like parliaments, city governments, corporates, co-operative societies, public trusts etc.