To the editor:
It’s easy to pick a side to cheer in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. To applaud the brave defense of an invaded country and sympathetically identify with, or weep for, those being bombarded and the many thousands fleeing and seeking refuge. It seems only natural and a compassionate impulse to want to assist the people of Ukraine.
However, the consequence of the outpouring of support for Ukraine and its people is not only more and heavier armaments transferred to them, but is also leading to — and being used to amplify fear and to justify — massive arms buildups and realignments, and preparations to “prevent” future wars. More military spending, weapons and weapons systems will never keep humanity safe. Bombs are made to explode and shatter bodies, buildings, landscapes, not made to prevent war. Even the sanctions against Russia sanction the whole world.
A leader, government, nation and its people that are vilified, condemned, and viewed as the enemy are put in darkness, and what you put in darkness calls you to that darkness. To put another in darkness is to deny their humanity, right to be, inherent worth, and our divine unity. In war there are always what may be considered “atrocities” of one kind or another as war itself is an atrocity. War is the ultimate denial of the Divine.
There are many who do not want to acknowledge this country’s brutal engagements in wars, and Russia’s current invasion may make it self-righteously convenient to ignore that we recently left the entire population of Afghanistan to face famine.
We have inherited a belief in fear and separation, and human nature as innately flawed and sharing in a primal animal instinct to fight one another. This deeply ingrained idea is that we ought to expect war — it is what we have known — and that we “need” to protect ourselves from outside threats. And it is our agreement to this need and the expectation of outcome that keeps us re-creating the cycle of violence. With ever more powerful weapons, our violence threatens the survival of all living things. We know that we cannot continue to war, and we know it is futile and it is folly. And why: why would we want to choose destruction!?
Civilizations and societal structures have been defined by war. Our history and our art glorify and idealize it. Men have been defined by their prowess in battle as powerful warriors and rulers, and people and countries have been defined as victors or victims (tortured, imprisoned, enslaved). We may barely even notice our conformation to such accepted and obvious cultural norms: as the “weakness” of those who “lose,” the “heroes” who fight and nobility of their suffering, the “cowardice” of those who refuse or avoid “service,” the strength and stoicism of those who endure war, and all those ways in which we have made war expected and acceptable. We need to look at and reckon with the ideas of history, and discard our collective and personal heavy baggage. Ideas can be changed. In order to prevent our destruction, the idealization of war and the expectation of it are ideas that need to be released. The path would be cleared and free of the horrors and trauma of war for generations to follow.
Peace is not a pause or an interruption between wars. It is not a respite to recuperate and begin preparing for the next war. It is an inner calm and equanimity, a higher vibration, frequency or tone that is without fear. To be in peace, at peace, be peace is the harmony of living in the moment in which we be, and knowing that we are never separate from our brothers and sisters and all living beings as we are ever and always of one Source.
We are individuated but never separate, and we are in and of an ocean of Love. We have not understood that our being is an energetic consciousness. We are in form, and our perceptual awareness as and in light, breath, feeling, thought, intention, emotion, speech, and action all affect and resonate with every being, with every thing. We are powerfully contagious. Our being is responsive and creative. Always.
With an understanding that the world is an out-picturing of our collective and personal consciousness, we can give up the blaming, judging, reproaching and reprimanding in which we choose to indulge. It is imperative that we raise and lift up all people — without exception — and governments, situations, everything in Love and in Light. And if everyone of us would agree to peace, align to peace, and together claim peace for a few minutes, there would be peace. True Peace. Forever.
Gina James
Great Barrington
