Can we stop the wars from happening?

Wars seem to be an integral part of life. Wars are happening on the earth for ages; between castes, societies, countries, animals and individuals. With the recent happenings (India and Pakistan), we are again on the brink of war. Over the period, the way we fight wars has evolved; it has become more sophisticated and subtler and even more cruel and gross at some places; but wars do happen.

Should we think about stopping wars or should we embrace them as an inevitable reality in our lives? More importantly, if we think we should stop wars, what’s the way to achieve that?

To begin with, I remember a beautiful sentence by Osho, where he says, ‘when the peace inside is disturbed, the wars happen outside’.

Wars are the manifestation of the turbulence inside. All possibilities of war are eliminated if minds are peaceful. When we typically talk about stopping war, we are essentially talking about stronger armies, powerful ammo and warfare technology. As one can see, when we hear the word ‘war’, our first reaction is protecting ourselves and defeating our enemy and never about preventing it from happening. The only way to stop wars from happening is creating peace within oneself. A person full of anger, frustration, hopes and passion is not at peace and unless he is not at peace, war is inevitable.

Everyday conflicts are also sort of wars. small frustrations and small conflicts add up and evolve into big wars. The first step to stop big wars is living life in such a way that it prevents the accumulation of frustration, anger inside oneself. Drops of violence come together to form the ocean. Meditation is the way to stop the formation of the drops of violence within oneself!