War or Peace: Are we asking the Right person for it?

I was at this temple with my family and we had a big religious activity going on. Down walks a lady, a tourist and decides to camp next to us and follow our ceremony closely. After some time my family go to the main temple and I am left alone to guard all the stuff (this isn’t the good old days anymore), this lady walks up to me and inquires about the religious ceremony and I explain it to her to the best of my knowledge (which I need not tell you is not much). In the end she says she wishes peace for everyone and just asked the sleeping Vishnu for the same.

This last sentence of her had me thinking. War or Peace: Are we really asking the right person for it? Take a look at the history of our religion and we find quite a few examples were god has used war to justify peace. But is the world today so perfect that we can justify peace with war? America under the leadership of G. W. Bush tried to do the same but look at the world after 9/11. So back to the same question, are we asking the right person for peace?

There was this small story which got around a lot as forwarded mail (most of them are usually junk, but then Lotus also grows in mud) where true meaning of peace was given as “peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart.”

So where is peace after all? And I came to this conclusion that peace is in our hearts, amongst the one we love and share our life with. Peace like war is our choice. If we are in war with our own self, we’ll be in war with the world. God didn’t give us war, it can’t give us peace. All it can give us is the strength to be oneself and believe in it and help others do it. Like god cannot change the course of a river either for good or bad, it cannot dictate war or peace in our lives.

If god can’t then can Religion give us peace? Each religion talks of peace in life and ways to achieve. But still it can’t give us peace. all it can do is show us the path but we have to walk that path, religion will not do it for us. Like god religion didn’t give us war. All it gave us was the path to god.

Then what can give us peace? Ever heard of hope and faith? These are the two things that can give us peace. Man does not live on bread. He lives on hope. Hope of a better tomorrow, hope of a happier future and this hope is based on the faith in oneself, ones fellow being and once religion and culture.

"Peace comes within the souls of men, when they realize their oneness with the Universe, when they realize it is really everywhere ... It is within each one of us."