Chapter 3.5 War

War

No …. War is not the Third Heritage ….

“When the rich make war it’s the poor that die.”

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)     French Existentialist Philospher

If one accepts the assumption of past lives in different places, then the power behind my cultural way of life becomes somewhat temporal.  My need to start a war to force my cultural beliefs on someone else suddenly weakens.

“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)     German Theoretical Physicist

What if Adolph Hitler had been Jewish in a previous life, and was somehow aware of this cultural heritage.  Would he have persecuted this group and attempted to wipe them out?   Wipe out a group of which he once belonged?   Wipe out the offspring of former friends, perhaps even his own?

What if Osama Bin Ladin was a successful American industrialist in the 1900s?  Would he have turned on his own in this life?  Did he just learn his anti-Americanism through growing up in his culture or did he bring it with him into this life?  Maybe he was wiped out in the Great Depression and still can’t get over it.

Of course I have trouble understanding what purpose the heinous criminals of history (as well as computer virus hackers) have on this earth anyway.  What are they learning to better themselves for the good of the universe?  If God or the Creator or the Universal Force, or Infinity (you pick it) is good and rewards those who do the right things, why would the injustices of these bad people be allowed?

One theory suggested is this: These forces are there to gather up resistance, to embody a certain negative energy that can only be offset by a collective positive energy.  This bonding together, like we do in crisis situations, brings out the warrior in us, forcing many of us to get beyond our fear, to do what needs to be done for our fellow man and woman.  It channels a purpose and creates a strength.

“It may seem facile to say that the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery, the Holocaust, Stalin’s purges, or the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge were meant to be learning experiences for the rest of us – especially when atrocities continue today under the guise of “ethnic cleansing” or “the will of God.”  But I would argue that our awareness of the potential for escalating evil has led us globally to condemn and curb attempts at mass murder.  Nonetheless, looking at the forces of fundamentalism, civil war and corporate greed around the world, we may have even harder lessons to learn.”

Sacred Contracts    Caroline Myss

Interestingly enough, through the course of history, good has ultimately won out over bad.  The human condition has evolved forward to a better understanding of the world, not just the differences, but what is the same.  Of course, as soon as one negative force is eradicated, another one pops up somewhere else … another challenge, another chance to move the world forward.

To be truthful, I really haven’t read much of theories that try to discover why these negative forces exist (as if we can tap into the Grand Plan somehow.)  But this is a reminder that we still don’t even know what we don’t know … part of the mystery of our human existence.

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”

Socrates (470 BC – 399 BC)    Ancient Greek Philospher

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