“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.”

Our soldiers have long lived this state of forced passivity that Alfred Lord Tennyson so aptly described in 'The Charge Of The Light Brigade' years ago. It is one thing to assume that they resign to fate and submission to authority when they willingly join the forces. But as a collective, it is essential to understand why this has been happening through centuries and yet continues despite reflecting a clear lack of respect towards life.

I find the concept of war an intellectual warp. The ones among us that are deemed politicians and administrators decide that two groups of humanity have differences that cannot be resolved by reason. Force is judged to be an only alternative and hence applied. A war is declared and soldiers are thrust on the line of fire. Would it be possible to take this decision if the politicians and administrators were the soldiers themselves? Would lives then be deemed more precious than now, when it is considered a matter of 'defence strategy' to export humans to kill or to be killed in a place that they have nothing to do with?

An acute sense of separation from one another helps us be indifferent to the decision of imposing a life-long death sentence on our forces. Even if one were to not acknowledge the unitary spiritual source that we originate from, it is not too difficult to tap on the common thread of simply being human, and therefore connected. Why then, do we choose to not acknowledge this commonality? Perhaps, we have chosen to ignore it by way of a defence mechanism against emotional pain.

Nevertheless, our attitude towards terrorists, soldiers or for that matter any aspect of life, can only reflect what we think about those aspects within ourselves. Our attitude towards the external can only mirror our feelings towards the internal. When we try to personally progress by overcoming our fears and anxieties, the terrorist within holds us back by telling us about the possibility of failure. We hate this about ourselves, this facet of our persona that holds us back with negative thinking. The external terrorist performs a similar function, eliciting a similar reaction – that of hate and condemnation.

When we are under a moral attack or have to defend ourselves against those that bar our progress, the internal soldier bravely surges ahead to protect. But when the attack gets difficult to resist and the internal soldier wishes to give up, we lay our arms and cocoon ourselves against the emotional setback of the defeat through indifference (usually expressed as the spiritual alibi of 'how does it matter in the long run?' or 'may be it was destined…'). We react with the same indifference when we send the external soldier onto the battlefield.

It is high time we understood the workings of the world by understanding ourselves. For long, we have not embraced a lot of aspects of our own selves simply to facilitate our social image management. We'd rather be labelled with all the positive adjectives. But burying our head in the sand cannot banish the terrorist or the bully or the passive aggressor within us. For the world to change, we need to begin by acknowledging us in our entirety. Being judgmental does not help, for it only leads us to fear and neglect aspects of ourselves. Instead, it is important to recognize that each of us is a collective that encompasses all - the positives, the negatives, the neutrals. Polarities are essential for existence, for they lend balance. Duality is at the core of our being and is the only route to unity. For unless we comprehend duality, how will we conceive unity?

Centuries of external action have resulted in the same answer: that the problem lies within. It is time for us to look into the mirror and see ourselves in our perfectly flawed glory, and then proceed to know what it means to be flawless. The eyes have long provided us sight, now the heart ought to generate vision. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry hit the nail on the head when he wrote in 'The Little Prince': "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."