Muni Kishan Lal
Subhkaran Surana
All human beings want peace. No one is happy in anarchy that generates disturbance and restlessness. How can, then e be obtained? It can only be obtained through Non-Violence. Non-Violence doesn't mean merely abstinence from killing Creature. In its broader sense it means refraining from infliction If pain on others as also from usurping the rights. This kind of Non-Violence wherein the good of others come well before one's own - have always been needed. Scriptures say so and dharma enjoins upon all of us to do so.
Alas contrary to the universal desire for peace, the world is silting at a top a heap of dynamite. Countries are ceaselessly engaged in production of weapons of mass- destruction. Even great and mighty nations today find themselves being threatened with terrorist attack. Religious frenzy has led to crusades and jihads in one form or the other and the world today finds itself facing its own annihilation. International powers, pursuing policies of self-aggrandizement, have brought the world to the brink of total destruction. Human race was never so afraid of violence and destruction in its 2000-year-old history as it is today. Why?
Take a look at the world. The world is busy in arming itself to teeth. In military cantonments, all over the world millions of soldiers undergo operational training year after year in the name of army exercises. Every year millions of soldiers are brought to a state of battle-readiness. Special forces are raised to deliver death on a larger scale in the quickest possible way using the modern technological weapons. Newer war-based systems are being invented and put into practice every year. Preparations for mass scale violence and extinction of the hu¬man race continue non-stop. The developed nations are pouring in all their energy in staying ahead of others in destructive power, the power of violence.
If training and readiness is that necessary for staying ahead in violence, it is equally necessary to train and be ready for peace?
If it is how do we go about it? Will the reading of scriptures alone will help us to bring Non-violence in our lives? Or faithfully following rituals and thronging the places of worship will help us to develop Non-Violence? Certainly not. For that we will have to train ourselves in Applied Non-Violence so that a readiness for Non-violence comes into being. Non-Violence is nectar and nectar cannot be found unless we go deep within- within ourselves and without. We will have to find out as to what are the causes of violence and how these can be eliminated. First of all, let us think the causes of violence. It springs from two sets of causes: internal and external.
