The Roots Of War
Eli Jaxon-Bear

What are the roots of all this madness, not only in Iraq, but all over the world? What is the reason for constantly harming our beautiful planet and ourselves?

The root cause of all suffering is ignorance. Ignorance gives rise to fear, greed, and aggression in the human psyche. All the horrors we see in the world today stem from ignorance... Ignorance is ignoring the truth of the situation. When things are ignored they tend to run sub-consciously, or just below the surface.

As long as mankind has not evolved to the next stage, we will act out our animal drives, often under the subterfuge of noble ideas. All animals are driven by the biological imperative to perpetuate the DNA. Family relationships, love relationships, work relationships, feelings of nationalism and patriotism are all running in ignorance, supporting the survival of the DNA.

In the distant past, survival demanded aggression, violence, and living in groups for protection from danger. Predatory behavior and banding together in larger and larger units for territorial survival was an important survival strategy for the human family. Our deep-seated biological wiring has not yet received the signal that what was once functional is now dangerously dysfunctional.

In making sense of our world we gave divine attributes to the weather and forces beyond our control. We tried to control these elements through worship and supplication. Eventually it became clear that if you believed there was a god looking out for you and that if you died he took care of you in the afterlife, you would be a better fighter for the tribe than those heathens who had no god. When this filtered through the gene pool, pretty soon everyone had a god, thus eliminating the survival advantage of having one.

It is amazing that in our time most of the world still believes in the primitive view of God as an entity somewhere that is on their side and cares about the outcome of battles. This fundamentalist view of religious cults, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, obviously is the cause of great suffering.

In the present context, fundamentalist terrorists have taken over the government of the Untied States. They fervently believe that God is on their side, and called for a new crusade after the tragedy of September 11th. They believe that they are the good which is fighting evil. Similarly, the fundamentalist terrorists and mad dictators that they oppose are certain that God is on their side. Every leader of every war and every environmental degradation is certain that they are right. This is the disease of the human family

What is our part in this, and what are our possibilities?

The only way that I can see for the madness to end is for each of us to refuse to participate. In the deepest sense, this means to face the horror inside of each of us. Since in truth there is only one mind, we are all guilty of the sin of human ignorance. Each of us needs to experience the ignorance, to find the place of fundamentalist certainty, fear, aggression, and animal territoriality and to discover what is deeper.

What is deeper is the next stage in the evolution of the human. It is the transcendental realization that you are not limited to human animalness. I do not mean merely to understand this, or to believe this, or to figure this out, but to directly realize it for yourself. This requires the willingness to turn your back on your personal identity as a male or female human animal. It seems like death, and you must be willing to face death, to lose everything that you thought you were. In your willingness to go beyond personal identity, the human takes an evolutionary leap.

When you know who you are, you are not trapped in the identity as a limited entity that can be coerced by the ideas of religion, state, family, or friends. You stand alone, and paradoxically discover that you are one with everything. In this you do no harm. You are the living possibility for all humans. Your awakening is the redemption of all that came before.