Session On : 10 May, 2025
Question:
In the context of operation Sindoor, how does war affect our karma? As soldier when we kill the enemy does it create negative karma for us? Rephrased: what is the spiritual perspective of war?
When we have thoughts against our enemy though we are not in the battle field, will it affect our chetna?
What about the one who dies in battle?
What is the psychology of war?
Discussion: (we will proceed from sansarik to aadhyatmik; from psychology to spiritual)
Science was born from war. Religion was supposed to train us, guide us and govern us and give us opportunity. Some people miss-used this simple process and oppressed others by not understanding the ‘varna’ and prioritising ‘jaati’. The oppressed rebelled against the religion. The intellectuals (brahman by karma) among them gave birth to science and the warriors (Kshatriya by karma) gave birth to democracy.
In context to Pakistan:
Where there is no democracy and brahma-tej, it creates problems. Some religions do not promote universal harmony (सार्वजनिक) and absolute truth (सार्वकालीन सत्य) and create obstacles by creating temporary truths. This is the limitation of their knowledge. The reigns of the country are with one person. The generals there are all extremely rich and they and their children enjoy a privileged life. When we speak on psychology, sociology goes hand in hand and both together affect individual minds. Psychologically all the citizens are at war with the enemy country by discussions/debates/boycotts etc.
War is also being fought digitally, on social media which is biased and can be misleading. You don’t need the real result to enjoy or suffer; you can get affected by your impressions and perceptions and your information.
Everyone has an individual perspective of war; soldier gets a chance to show his valour and courage, scavengers delight on the leftovers, debaters get to voice their opinions, merchants will hoard and hike the prices and earn extra etc.. the one who is calm only can help. We must follow our dharm and perform our role.
Democratic people will think about the larger good of the people. Others will think of individual good. People with individual good and blinded vision can be dangerous.
Shivaji Maharaj and Maharana Pratap were not democratic rulers (they were autocratic) but worked for the larger good.
When religion said that the truth of dharm is the ultimate truth and the succession was the right one, this is not the best approach.
Disloyalty, ‘fitoor’(obsession, passion, or madness) and individual interests have always made forts succumb to the enemy.
Why do wars happen?
When vested interests of individuals out-weighs the common interest of the public that is when wars happen. It is the result of individual selfishness. The army chief of Pakistan Munir is due for retirement and he needs to leave his mark in the history of his country. Hence, the current escalation. Gen Musharraf did Kargil war when he was due for retirement. That toppled the government of Navaz Sharif and brought military rule in Pakistan, giving life and power to Musharraf. Munir is madarsa educated. His truth has blinders and he is propagating that.
Economic war is also going on between the two economic powers America and China (tariff war). China ensured that Pakistan should get the economic sanctions from IMF so that India does not emerge as a strong winner. America did not oppose it either.
Wars are fought for your ‘astitva’ and ‘vajood’, for your ‘asmita’ (values and philosophy) your anchor. Not for ‘ahankar’. ‘Yudh neeti’ is to psychologically snub or provoke someone so much that they lose their self-esteem. To protect the image they have to respond with war.
Spiritual perspective of war:
War is an opportunity (‘sandhi’) for the collective karmic cleansing. The soldiers on the battlefield are not personal enemies but fight for the religion or the country or mother-land, for martyrdom or a place promised in heaven. The authorities can have individual vested interests unlike the soldier who is following orders. They are high on either drugs or religious fervour. (Karl Marks had said religion is opium of the people.) This acts as motivation for the soldiers. Shri Krishna also had chided Arjun; why is Arjun standing like a eunuch? Fulfil your kartavya/dharm. This is not a personal fight but a dharma-yudh.
Sometimes some things are not desirable but are necessary, like war, it is a bitter pill. The yudh will result in larger wisdom and stability. War is a temporary upheaval. Some wars last many years. Since 1984 India has been facing the war of strategy of thousand cuts till the nation bleeds to death. Pakistan realized long back that it cannot win a direct war with India. So it came with the thousand cuts strategies like Khalistan movement, Naga movement, Bodo movement, ‘Udta Punjab’, Naxal movement, Kashmir movement etc.
Collective karma: the physical bodies that are fighting, they are not there by accident; they were destined to be there on the battle field. When collectively a large number of people die due to a natural calamity or man-made disaster, they are in that place by the design of destiny. Lot of collective consciousness have decided to seek the path of evolution to stabilize the material world and undertake a spiritual journey. They are there for some spiritual lesson, for transformation.
Wherever we are, we must do our karma. Eg. Karna giving away his ‘kavach’ despite being warned not to part with it, though he was a Pandav he fought against them. Duryodhan also played his soul-role in playing the game. The chetnas of Mahabharat were highly evolved souls who were collective consciousness playing their roles for the collective evolution. Someone who truly fulfils their duties with awareness will be blessed in the next lives with recall of their past lives and will be able to make the necessary correction in the next lives.
It is said that in that gas chamber one man started laughing loudly just before the gas was released. It is said that his integration was complete at that point and he knew the real game. On the death moment you have the choice to connect to the higher truth. But we are so entangled in our emotions, jobs, prestige, status etc. that we miss the moment of possible transformation. Victor Frankl’s Logo therapy is a spiritual therapy. He survived death and became spiritual, the one who laughed, evolved and transformed.
All of us have the devil and the saint inside us. The fight is on inside us. Our worries act against us. They keep us awake at night like the drones carrying the pay loads like ‘ahankar’. Others can blast out these worries before going to bed and enjoy a calm sleep. ‘ahankar can be fed by ‘prem’ ,’vatsal’, ‘krodh’, ‘lobh’ (greed) or take you towards spirituality.
Without destruction the system will not change. Drastic steps need to be taken to correct a prolonged problem otherwise the paradigm of problem will not change.
The chetnas that are distraught right now and are engaging in debates or blame-games or in proving their patriotism will move away from spirituality. Aadhyatma says you need to be calm right now. From spiritual perspective we should all pray right now for the Universal peace and spread of dharm. The enemy chetnas are not actually enemies; if we realize this we will know that it is the bodies that are fighting in the game with conviction and at the moment of transformation will want to carry this understanding to the next level. That chetna will be purified. The ones who are martyrs (Shaheed, veer-gat) are not counted as deaths. These are the consciousness transcended from this domain to the other with the higher possibility of getting cleansed.
In olden days ‘yudh’ was a ‘kartavya’. Today no human contact wars are being fought with missiles and guns. Those who can restrict the contact are safer. Due to no direct human contact it is possible that the chetna dying is taken by surprise and might suffer to death and thereby not get transformed. Only awareness will help them at the moment of death to transform. Human contact gives us a possibility of transformation; when our killer is in front of us.
Imagine someone stabs us suddenly and at that moment we have love in our heart for that person, like Jesus did, (“forgive them Lord for they know not what they do”) the stab wounds won’t hurt us; our mental condition should be such that we see that chetna as helping our chetna. Helping us see our body being destroyed. This is the supreme level of consciousness in the body. When we can see our body in a detached way in the last moment it would give us the possibility of transformation as in the war. Agni purifies us. All revolutionaries were spiritual like Veer Savarkar, Subhash C Bose, Bhagat Singh etc. Unless you are spiritual you cannot love your motherland so much that you die for it. Osama Bin Laden had love for his religion and died for it.
Two religions are in the expansion mode: Christianity and Islam, they practice conversions. Other religions are not doing that. The ones who sacrifice for the nation or religion seem to suffer but from spiritual perspective we understand that they chose this life to serve their cause.
We should pray for world peace and perform our roles, this is being spiritual.
