Inner Heroes

There is hardly a moment which is free from humankind’s extreme expression of conflict: war. Why this inveterate tendency to fight? Some conceive of a mythological or historical ‘fall’ as the point when the human mind chose the path of desire and discontent over the harmony of paradise. According to another view, a condition of misunderstanding, called ignorance, is the root of all other misjudgements and the misdeeds they lead to.

A teacher was asked: ‘Why this prevailing of suffering in the world?’ He replied: ‘Do you contribute to it?’ Few minds are not influenced by likes and dislikes—secretly choosing or excluding.

How can we fill our thoughts with true and unselective magnanimity free from prejudice? An inner struggle is needed, but it goes much further than the moral plane. For the mind which works to free itself is re-entering the paradise of higher experience that proves intuitively that there is only one fundamental reality, and it is one with our innermost self.

This inner struggle is also a war, but one of a special kind. When asked about another outer war that was raging in his time, the sage Shri Dada said:

Dear friends, you talk about the Boer war, but you should not ignore the war in your own being. When a person has triumphed in the war between the principles of right and wrong, between wisdom and love of power, there will be no war in the outer sphere of society. Intellect should be the field-marshal in command of the forces of compassion, collaboration and love, in the struggle against the dark forces of ignorance.

Friends, put on the armour of simplicity and truth; unsheathe the sword of divine wisdom and fight your chief enemy, love of illusory pleasures. In the outer world, the conquerors of today are the conquered of tomorrow, but the heroes of the inner world are freed from the bondage of birth and death forever.