February 16, 2003

  • Transcending Pestilence


     


    ‘War’ and ‘Antiwar’ are a duality.  They are dueling banjos and feed upon each other.  Some would claim the ‘antiwar rallies’ are a demonstration for peace.  But that isn’t the case.  Yes, the intentions of many participating are to promote peace, but the effect of such rallies is essentially political.  And in such heightened times, with war as an extension of politics, and politics as a spokesman for war, ‘antiwar protests’ become as much instruments of political jockeying to thrash an ‘enemy’ amidst all the commotion  as ‘antimatter’ is used to destroy matter, as ‘anti-missiles’ are used to counter missiles, as a ‘scratch’ is used to soothe an itch.


     


    Yet, if the ‘itch’ is a mosquito bite, the ‘scratch’ is not a true solution but a complication.  The commonly-envisioned ‘effective solution’ to a mosquito bite is to get rid of the mosquito that’s doing the biting—or not go out, but hide in one’s house hoping that the mosquito doesn’t get in.  Saddam is such a mosquito—by his own militaristic self-definition.  He’s a West Niles virus/anthrax/smallpox mosquito all rolled into one.  Shall we, like ‘antiwar’ protesters, scratch the first bite in order to soothe the itch and hope the mosquito doesn’t bite again?  Or shall we spray the mosquito out of existence?  Or shall we send out more inspectors in the hope of eliminating the watering holes where the mosquitoes breed?  Yeah, eliminating the breeding ponds—that really worked to prevent the epidemic of West Nile mosquitoes in the U.S. last year.


     


    Beyond the duality of ‘war’ and ‘antiwar’ is Peace.  But Peace is not a political protest used to serve special interests in a conflict that is hotly brewing, if not already raging.  Peace is a singularity that emanates from within.  Peace is a personal cleansing that transforms the world, soul by soul, with a heightened awareness of all as ‘Self’.  There are some people who go about life unflinchingly and never get bit by a mosquito—even while others are getting ravaged by them.  Perhaps these individuals are so cleansed within that mosquitoes intuitively sense that their blood is ‘bad food’ and avoid them?  Or, perhaps, they have found a way of exhaling each breath into the world in a manner that doesn’t allow a mosquito to follow the carbon dioxide as a trail back to them?  I’d like to know.  I’d like to know that way of Peace and dispense with ‘scratching’ and anti-mosquito arsenals.  But if I fail in this quest for Peace’s elixir, I suppose I’ll swat and spray and repel—and scratch afterwards, if necessary.

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