...; it represents society’s net gain from the ravages and sufferings of war. Even statecraft is merely the accumulated technique for adjusting the competitive contest of force between the struggling tribes and nations. (800.2) 71:0.2 The modern state is the institution which survived in the long struggle for group power. Superior power eventually prevailed, and it produced a creature of fact — the...

... themselves to be exterminated by the baser orders of humanity. And here is the great test of idealism: Can an advanced society maintain that military preparedness which renders it secure from all attack by its war-loving neighbors without yielding to the temptation to employ this military strength in offensive operations against other peoples for purposes of selfish gain or national aggrandizement...

...? National survival demands preparedness, and religious idealism alone can prevent the prostitution of preparedness into aggression. Only love, brotherhood, can prevent the strong from oppressing the weak. 5. The Evolution of Competition (805.1) 71:5.1 Competition is essential to social progress, but competition, unregulated, breeds violence. In current society, competition is slowly displacing war in that...

... it determines the individual’s place in industry, as well as decreeing the survival of the industries themselves. (Murder and war differ in their status before the mores, murder having been outlawed since the early days of society, while war has never yet been outlawed by mankind as a whole.) (805.2) 71:5.2 The ideal state undertakes to regulate social conduct only enough to take violence out of...

... machine age. (807.8) 71:8.12 10. The conquest of dialects — the triumph of a universal language. (807.9) 71:8.13 11. The ending of war — international adjudication of national and racial differences by continental courts of nations presided over by a supreme planetary tribunal automatically recruited from the periodically retiring heads of the continental courts. The continental courts are authoritative...

...: what has happened to the father, what has happened to the mother, what is happening in the family, what is happening in the nation. The youth are bound to have the clearest eyes - young eyes without any dust. They can see the phoniness of the politicians; they can see that their religious leaders don't know even the ABC of religion. And after the second world war they are in utter frustration...

..., because after the second only the third world war can happen. Once Albert Einstein was asked, "Can you say something about the third world war?" He said, "No. I cannot say anything about the third world war, but I can say something about the fourth." The questioner was surprised. He said, "This is strange: you cannot say anything about the third, and you are so confidently...

... search for truth. The third world war, if it happens, is going to be the death of the youth who have not even known a few springs of life, who have not known anything about this beautiful earth. It is natural that they will be utterly frustrated with the whole world. Out of that frustration, if the youth commit suicide they are slapping your faces, they are saying, "Before you commit the suicide...

... blossomed with Gautam Buddha died with Gautam Buddha. The song that arose with Lao Tzu disappeared with the death of Lao Tzu. The dance of Meera died with Meera. This is the natural course of things. All religions are organized around corpses. Don't worry about them; they don't have any power, they don't have any life. The politicians have died with the second world war. The second world war was a...

... both things are available. The sincere, authentic religion is being born among you. And the politician has come to his tether's end. He has done the worst, now he cannot do anything more. What more can he do than to bring about a nuclear war, destroying the whole world? Before the politician and his nuclear weapons destroy the whole humanity, the few authentic religious people have to bring fire to...

... every heart, a fire in which the whole political game is finished. And with the political game finished, the politician will disappear. This is the only hope. The third world war is a great hope because it will reveal the politician in his true colors. Up to now there have been wars, big wars - the first world war, the second world war, and thousands of other wars - but they were not total. Somebody...

... was going to win, somebody was going to be defeated. The third world war is going to be a total world war: nobody is going to win, nobody is going to be defeated. All are going to be finished. Now this is the ultimate in war, the ultimate in idiocy. What is the point of fighting if both are going to be finished? The whole point was that you can win, there is a possibility of your winning. At the...

... worst you can lose, but the other will win; somebody is going to be victorious. In the third world war nobody is going to be victorious because nobody is going to survive it. Neither democracy nor communism, neither American nor Russia - nobody is going to survive it, so what is the point? But the politician has come to such a state, he cannot go back. He has to go on, knowing perfectly well that this...

... -- even the mention of the word! These are the fools who have been dominating humanity for centuries. They would like to destroy even the possibility of love. There is a certain logic in it, because humanity up to now has existed in a very insane way. It has continuously been preparing for war. There are only two periods in history: either people are fighting -- that is war time, hot war -- or people...

... are preparing for the war that is going to happen sooner or later. You can call it peace time, but it is not peace time at all; it is only a gap between two wars. It is needed because unless you prepare, how are you going to fight? It is cold war. The whole of human history up to now can be divided into two periods: hot war and cold war. And because man has been continuously fighting, destroying...

..., murdering, there is no possibility of growing roses of love. We have to make factories for war; we have to create soldiers, not lovers. My sannyasins are lovers, not soldiers. They herald a new beginning. To me, love is synonymous with God. These words of Graves are tremendously significant: THOSE WHO DARE GIVE NOTHING ARE LEFT WITH LESS THAN NOTHING.... They look a little crazy because they are illogical...

...; hence they can see what is going to happen. During the second world war, a German officer went into Moishe Finkelstein's grocery shop to buy some matches. "Matches!" he ordered. Finkelstein passed him some matches. "I want the tips on the left side instead of the right!" the officer demanded. Finkelstein acted as though he was finding another box of matches, but instead he gave the...

.... He managed to do the last thing. In the First World War rationing came for the first time into existence, and he was standing in a queue to take his ration card. Slowly slowly he came closer to the window. Then the last person in front of him moved and they called his name: "Thomas Alva Edison!" And he looked around as if they are calling somebody else; he looked in the queue. One man...

... very disinterested in fighting. Otherwise, how you can explain the phenomenon of Vietnam? America with all its sophisticated arms could not win a poor country with no scientific sophistication at all. It has been found that thirty to forty percent American soldiers never used their weapons. They will go to the war field every day but they will not kill. It is beautiful, it is something to be...

...? Whenever there is a war people seem to be more joyous than ever. In India it has happened: When India and Pakistan went to war there was great life all over the country; otherwise this country is almost dead. People are dragging themselves somehow, tolerating life somehow; there is nothing for them to enjoy. But once the war was there and they were destroying each other, suddenly they became alive. There...

... was life on people's faces - something was happening. Their talk became lively, their conversation became juicy. From the morning to the night they were continuously watching: "What is happening? Who is winning? How far we have entered into Pakistan? How far we have reached into Bangladesh? How our armies are winning?" Whenever there is a war you will see people becoming alive, coming to...

... life. Otherwise they go dull; their life loses all joy. Why in destruction we are so much interested? And it is not only nations. If Christians and Mohammedans are in a crusade, in a JIHAD, in a religious war, see both are very alive. Then Christians feel a great brotherhood with all other Christians. Then the Protestants and the Catholics are no more enemies; then they are all Christians, followers...

... of Christ. And Christianity is in danger, so who bothers about small theological matters? Mohammedans have to be destroyed! And when Mohammedans are at war with the Christians and killing Christians they lose all their inner conflicts; they become united. Then the Shiahs and Sunnis are no more enemies; they are friends, brothers, followers of the same religion, worshippers of the same prophet, of...

... the lid tight. Then instead of making tea you may destroy the whole family! The tea kettle may explode; it may destroy. That's what is happening. For thousands of years man has been sitting on repressed energies. Now it is time: either a Third World War or a new birth of man, either a Third World War or a new style of life has to be introduced. And my work here consists in introducing a new life...

... after any war in the world, people say that now there is peace. But Gandhi said, "In my understanding it is not like that. Either there is war or there is preparation for war; peace never comes. Peace is a deception." Just now there is no war happening in the world; the second world war has ended and we are waiting for the third world war. If we say that these are days of peace, we are wrong...

.... These are not days of peace. These are days of preparation for the third world war. All over the world the preparations for the third world war are going on. Either there is war or there is preparation for war. As long as the world has existed it has not seen any peaceful days. Within a man also there is either anger or there is preparation for anger - man does not know any state of non-anger. There...

..., but they have divided it into many things. It has become fragmentary, it is there in thousands of pieces. It has lost that togetherness which makes it a power. And these fragments are not only divided, they are divided against each other. One part of your will is fighting with another part of your will; it is a kind of civil war that goes on inside. And that's what the so-called saints have been...

... telling people to do: fight with yourself, fight with anger, fight with greed, fight with sex. Sex has a part of your will, and then you fight with it - another part of your will. This way you become entangled in a civil war, and to be in a civil war is to be in misery. You dissipate energy. You can't live, you lose all vitality. You can't be fresh and young and you can't be intelligent either. You...

... become poorer and poorer every day. As time passes a person becomes more and more ugly, loses all peace, silence, integrity, and the war goes on and on, day in, day out. It is this war that destroys all the joy of life, makes people insipid, lusterless. It is a miracle that people still manage to live at all. Somehow they go on pulling themselves together, dragging, but this is not life. Life is a...

... think you can kill someone. No one ever dies. And you are mistaken to think you can save those standing before you. Who has ever saved anyone? And you cannot escape war, nor can you be non violent, because as long as the I exists - and it is this I that is anxious to save itself and its family and relatives - non violence is next to impossible. No, be rid of this nonsense and face reality. Set aside...

... your sense of I and fight. Accept what is facing you. And what is facing you is not a temple where prayers are made, it is war. It is war you are facing. And you have to plunge into it. And so drop your I. Who are you?" In the course of his exhortation Krishna makes a very interesting and significant remark. He tells Arjuna, "All those you think you have to kill are already dead. They are...

... thinking, of thinking by splitting everything into two, into its opposites. Krishna tells Arjuna there is really no birth and death, that no one is ever born and no one ever dies, that no one kills and no one gets killed, so Arjuna can plunge into war without fear and with abandon, so he can play freely with war. Everything on this earth is divine; everything in existence is godly, so the question of...

... Krishna is a bad man, because he does not seem to be so. And he also cannot gather the courage to say that Krishna is good, because he is goading Arjuna into things that are obviously bad, very bad. Gandhi found himself in such a dilemma when he wanted to discuss Krishna. In fact, he was more in agreement with Arjuna than with Krishna, How can Gandhi accept it when Krishna goads Arjuna into war? He...

... course for Gandhi but to say that the war of Mahabharat was a parable, a myth, that it did not happen in reality. He cannot acknowledge the reality of the Mahabharat, because war is violence, war is evil to him. So he calls it an allegorical war between good and evil. Here Gandhi takes shelter behind the same dialectics Krishna emphatically rejects. Krishna says a dialectical division of life is...

... utterly wrong, that life is one and indivisible. And Gandhi depicts the Mahabharat as a mythical war between good and evil where the Pandavas represent good and the Kaurawas represent evil, and Krishna urges Arjuna to fight on behalf of good. Gandhi has to find this way out. He says the whole thing is just allegorical, poetic. There is a gap of five thousand years between Krishna and Gandhi, and so it...

... - that the war did not really take place or that Krishna did not lead it. They were contemporaries of Krishna, so they could not find any excuse. They sent Krishna straight to hell; they could not do otherwise. They wrote in their scriptures that Krishna has been put in hell for his responsibility for the terrible violence of the Mahabharat. If one responsible for such large scale killing is not...

... is true he was responsible for a war like the Mahabharat. It is also true he had danced with women, had disrobed them and climbed up a tree with their clothes. Such a good man behaving in such a bad way! So after dumping him into hell they felt disturbed: if such good people as Krishna are hurled into hell then goodness itself will become suspect. So the Jainas said that Krishna would be the first...

... compensated themselves psychologically. Gandhi has an advantage: he is far removed from Krishna in time, so he settles the question with great ease. He does not have to send Krishna to hell, nor to make him a tirthankara. He solves his problem by calling the Mahabharat a parable. He says the war did not really take place, that it is just an allegory to convey a truth about life, that it is an allegorical...

... war between good and evil. Gandhi's problem is the same one that faced the Jainas of his time. Non-violence is the problem. He cannot accept that violence can have a place in life. It is the same with good. Good cannot admit that bad has a place in life. But Krishna says that the world is a unity of opposites. Violence and non-violence always go together, hand-in-hand. There was never a time when...

... argumentative Arjuna is. Two warring armies are facing each other on the grounds of the Kurukshetra. the bells of war are tolling, and Arjuna is stubbornly refusing to take up arms and fight. Against Krishna's exhortations he is raising question after question - which run through eighteen chapters of the GEETA. Again and again he gently protests Krishna's seemingly bipolar vision. He says that Krishna is...

.... Krishna knows Arjuna is right logically: he is confused and demands consistency. Krishna really confuses him. On the one hand he talks of the significance of love and compassion and, on the other, urges him to boldly take up arms and fight his enemies. So Krishna is tired of talking, because it is a moment of war. Trumpets have sounded, and this man Arjuna, who is the kingpin of the whole drama, is...

... inconsistencies and contradictions in life are nothing but integral parts of the same truth - which is one. And he quietly joins the war. But it does not mean that Arjuna is fully convinced. Although he has had a glimpse of reality, his mind, his intellect, yet continues to doubt. Doubt is the way of the mind. Whatever questions you may have, you can direct them to me, but please don't raise questions about...

... Harappa and Mohanjo Daro were at war, and they were destroying each other and building again -- whoever had survived -- another city on top of the old city which had been destroyed. Now Christians have to answer: Were Harappa and Mohanjo Daro created before God created the world? RIGVEDA was written ninety thousand years ago, and God created the world only six thousand years ago. The Christian eyes are...

... of your vision, so you can see for yourself. Obedience has done much more harm to humanity than disobedience would have done. If all the armies disobey, there will be no war. Five thousand wars ... humanity has been fighting continuously somewhere or other. There is not a peaceful moment on the whole earth. Somewhere or other killing goes on, continues as if this is our whole purpose for being here...

...! If my wife had not told me ..." I said, "I want to teach all the armies of the world disobedience. If they disobey, then let the presidents and prime ministers have wrestling matches, boxing matches. They can enjoy, and we will enjoy on television -- but there is no need for millions of people to be killed continuously." Big wars you know: you know the first great world war, you know...

... the second great world war, and you are waiting for the third. Since the second world war, up to now there have been one hundred and twenty-five small wars. But even small wars kill millions of people. You don't call them world wars just because they are located in a small area and nobody cares about them. Nobody counts how many people are killed daily because of obedience. Obedience teaches you...

... asked the next morning, "It was your order, how do you feel about killing so many people unnecessarily?" The whole world could see that Japan was going to surrender, there was no need at all. The war had almost stopped; the commanders from both the sides were having discussions and making arrangements how to surrender. Truman said, "I had to test the atom bombs. We have wasted so much...

... to laugh. Before the war, the pope blessed Benito Mussolini, his counterpart in Germany blessed Adolf Hitler, and his counterpart in Japan blessed Emperor Hirohito for victory. And when they saw that these people were drowning after five years, the pope blessed Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower, MacArthur -- the other party. He blessed both, and he asked God to help both! Great! There seems to be no...

...? Every Christian army carries, even to the battlefield, a small Bible. Just one time it worked -- in the whole of history -- and that was just a coincidence, but it has been quoted again and again by Christian missionaries around the world. One soldier was keeping his small Bible in his pocket in the first world war, and a bullet hit the Bible and missed his heart. They said, "This is God's...

...-chiefs of the world -- maybe one hundred, two hundred; that does not matter in a world where Adolf Hitler kills thirty million people in a war. And he does not even go to the war .... It is the commander-in-chiefs who don't go to the war; it is the lower officers who go to the war. It is a hierarchy. The poorest soldier at the bottom end of the hierarchy goes to the war. He receives orders, and he does...

... dull kind of life that your interest naturally starts moving towards death. That's why there are constant wars. And the periods that you call days of peace are not much concerned with peace, they are only preparations for a new war. So either you are in war or you prepare for war. There are only two kinds of periods in history: actual fighting and preparation for the fighting. There has never been a...

... period of peace. The peace is absolutely false, pretentious. Underneath the peace, underground, you are preparing for another war. Why is there so much attraction for war? - because only when people are dying do they become a little alert. When there is danger you become a little alert. You don't know how to be alert in any other way. That's why when there is war you will see people's faces more alive...

.... Something is happening. Otherwise nothing happens. It is the same old tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. Every day you get up and the same life starts in the same rut. Every night you go to bed and you have again ended a repetition of a day. And you can be certain that tomorrow you will do the same again. When war happens, things are no longer a routine; suddenly there is...

... news in the air; something new is happening. So people are destructive - they create war. And they create many kinds of war. They have been constantly fighting with nature. And nature is our life, nature is our very source. But even a man like Bertrand Russell writes a book with a title, CONQUEST OF NATURE. Conquest? the very idea is aggressive. It is as if we are against nature or nature is against...

... against itself and against nature. It has created schizophrenia against people, it has created politics, war, and it has created the ecological crisis. But things have gone now to the extreme. Either man has to turn back and drop the Western aggressive attitude or man has to get ready to say goodbye to this planet. This planet cannot tolerate man any more; it has already tolerated him for long enough...