War has become unbearably brutal. It is deeply disturbing that human nature didn’t revolt against our descent into brutality but decided to adapt instead. What makes modern suffering so sinister is that most people have passively accepted living in an atmosphere of fear.
Why do we sit still and watch? The spiritual malaise we have fallen into is well known. It’s called alienation, or separation from that which makes a person human.
That way of peace brings an end to alienation by restoring the responses that have been lost to numbness.
Why do we fixate on empty-headed pop icons and hunger to know every trivial detail of their lives? Why are there no meaningful protests in the streets against the latest weapon of horror? Why do we listen casually while bigots of every stripe rule the radio airwaves?
Falling into such a degraded condition of alienation and mistrust didn’t happen all at once. What made the first factories satanic in Blake’s eyes is still true: If you preserve the old habits of violence and oppression but give them ever more powerful technology to carry out their ends, the result is diabolical.
I am not trying to demonize material progress. Science has brought some of the comforts it promised, but progress has been corrupting in a very dangerous way. To fall short of your spiritual potential is the most basic sign of alienation. You and I are walking around in a state that isn’t fully human. To be fully human means being grounded in the infinite creative potential of life.
Adapted from Peace Is the Way, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2005).
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