Celebration of National Holidays

Every country has their national holidays.  Many are tied to the celebration of the outcome of a war that won independence from another nation or victory over a nation.  There is also typically a day of mourning for those who died defending the country.

War spawns much hatred and diseases of the mind, body and spirit.  In some political parties, war is glorified, a rallying point for nationalistic fervor.  It is seen as positive precisely because it pushes people into supporting one specific agenda or party.  It fires up people to hate everyone that is not just like themselves.

Where does this behavior fall on a spiritual growth scale - pretty low.  All war is bad; it is nothing other than the clash of egos.  One person or group believes themselves to be superior over another.  It also is typically about greed, hunger to dominate, hunger to own.

What if we had a global society that did not glorify war but instead glorified peace; what would the world look like?  If video games of war were replaced with games of helping others, instead of killing them, the mindset of the players would be molded differently.  If young children were taught to play with construction blocks instead of toy weapons and solders, the world could have more projects where people worked together to solve problems instead of killing.

If you think about it, the common early developmental activities of at least this nation is to train young boys to be soldiers, to fight, to dominate.  Why are we surprised, when as adults, that is what males want to do – fight and dominate.

Now you will say, “If we didn’t then we would have no one willing to go to war, to give their lives to defend our nation and our people against aggressors.”  This is true but if in every nation of the world, children were taught to play at peaceful coexistence instead of war then we would not need to fear attack s on our borders.

So where am I going with this very old argument that has been preached by activists for centuries without making an impact?  The principle of “no self” is the key.  We are all one.  We are connected.  We are all part of the same whole.  If you kill another, you damage yourself – a part of you dies too.

Recently, I was speaking with a veteran and he told me his first “kill” was a young boy.  The child had explosives attached to him and he was sent in to be a human bomb.  The vet talked of his struggle to pull the trigger, he eventually did but the horror of the event still haunts him more than 20 years later.  Part of him died that day with the child.

We do have a choice in how we see the world and how we see the world impacts how we behave.  If every human on the planed realized and accepted the fact that we are all equal, that we are all one, that peaceful coexistence is better than domination, everyone would be happier and healthier.

In order for this to happen, the mindset change has to start with you and me.  We have to exemplify the behavior of acceptance.  We have to model the truth of unity and sameness.  We have to train our children very early on and consistently throughout their lives to recognize the oneness of all.

One stone dropped into a lake has a ripple effect in the entire body of water.  So one change in your attitude and mine, will change our behaviors that will cause a ripple effect in the sea of humanity.

Now is the time to change, before another life is ended needlessly.  You, me, him, her, they, we are all one.  Live like it.