IS PEACE AND HAPPINESS POSSIBLE IN THIS WORLD?
Ozodi Thomas Osuji

      Is it possible to have peace in this world and for people to be happy?  To answer this question, it is necessary to understand the obstacles to peace. We must understand what prevents peace and happiness and see if they can be removed, for it is only when they are removed that peace and joy are possible in this world. (Peace, happiness and joy are synonymous; where one is the other is also.)

         The thesis of this essay is that it is possible for the individual to understand the obstacles to peace and work to remove them in his life hence have personal peace and happiness.  The individual can then talk about how he found peace and happiness to other people, but he cannot do for them what only they can do to experience peace and joy.  In as much as the individual cannot do for others what only they can do, he cannot make them behave in a manner that generates peace in their lives.  Until each human being does what it takes to generate peace in this world, there will be conflict and wars in the world.  World peace, therefore, is not immanent. Human beings are condemned to living in conflict and war for the next foreseeable future. 

       In the midst of conflict and war, the individual can do what peace requires and experience peace in his personal life and then work for world peace, knowing that world peace would not be possible until all human beings work for it.

       Peace requires living ego-lessly. But this is easier said than done. We came to the world to live as separated egos. Though living as egos gives us fear, anxiety, depression, paranoia and other mental upsets, we find it difficult to give up our egos, for they are what we came to the world to have. As it were, we want to keep our separated ego selves and, unfortunately, also keep the anxiety and tension they give us. This is even more so for those (neurotics) who pursue ego ideals, they live in tremendous psychological pain.

EGO: THE OBSTACLE TO PEACE

       The chief obstacle to peace and happiness is the human separated self concept.  Each human being sees himself as separated from other people and works for the survival of his separated, ego, self. Where possible, he cooperates with other people and they do what makes for the survival of their mutual egos, but if necessary he works for only his personal survival, even if it means doing so at the expense of other persons.  As long as each of us is motivated to survive as a separated self and work for it and place its interests ahead of other people’s interests, there is bound to be conflict and wars in this world.  As long as human beings have individuated selves that place their individual self interests ahead of other people’s interests there will be no peace in this world.

         Peace is only possible where all people see themselves as united, as one self and work for their common interests.  All human beings must see themselves as the same and equal with each other and as having the same interests and work for their mutual interests for there to be peace among them.

        However, the perception of their unified self is not likely going to happen at a mass level at this time. At the perceptual level, what the individual sees are separated selves and different interests and the need to work for those selves survival, perhaps cooperating with other selves who are also seeking their personal survival and self interests but where necessary working only for the self.

         Until there is a change of self assessment, until all people see themselves as united, there is not going to be mutual working for common social interests hence there will be no interpersonal, inter-group and international peace.  As long as each individual, each group, each nation sees itself as separate from others, believes that it has different interests and pursues its separated (national) interests, there will be no peace among them. Peace is an illusion in a world of separated selves, separated groups and nations.

      The existence of separated self and different interests is existential in this world of space, time and matter.  It is the nature of all animals, human beings included, to see themselves as apart from other animals and to work for their different interests.  In the world of perception, what the individual sees as him is the self limited to his body. The individual sees boundary between him and other selves. He knows that other people are others and that when push comes to shove would look after their interests and not his.  If there is a natural disaster, such as earthquake, tsunami etc each individual flees to go survive and does not first stop to help other people survive. Survival of the self is primacy in this world. Altruism, of course, also exists in this world but what is readily apparent is selfishness.

       Empirical scientific evidence indicates that each human being appears to have inherited selfish genes that dispose him to struggle to survive and to place his self interests ahead of other peoples self interests. He may extend his interests to those closest to him: his family members, but, generally, that is because he sees them as an extension of his ego self and in enabling them to survive is enabling himself to survive. Richard Dawkins, along with other biologists who believe in Charles Darwin’s evolution theory, has written extensively on selfish genes as the motivator of human behavior.  

      Simply stated, the world is structured in such a manner that the individual places his needs ahead of other people’s needs. In such a world there must necessarily be conflict and wars.

        This is not exactly a novel idea. Most political theorists, from Aristotle to Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes have made this view the fulcrum of their philosophy on how man and his society ought to be governed. Thomas Hobbes, in his seminal work, Leviathan, believes that people are so selfish that left alone they would enslave, even kill each other in their efforts to live well; he recommends having a strong government to reign in people’s selfish behaviors and get them to work for public good or be punished.  As he sees it, left alone, people would always work only for their different interests. We need laws to hold people together, and to get people to minimally care for each other. But they could never care for each other in an absolute manner therefore we need to continually punish those who step on other persons toes. 

      Sigmund Freud, writing from a psychological perspective, argued that inside man is three aspects: id, ego and superego. Id is man’s natural self, superego is his socialized self, and ego is the referee balancing his nature and social demands. As Freud sees it, the id is amoral, is driven by aggression and sex and would kill to get what it wants. It is only internalized social forces, the superego that corrals the id. That is, without society’s punitive laws human beings would behave like predatory animals and the result would be chaos.

        Hobbes had observed that in the state of nature it was war of one against all and all against one, and consequently all lived in perpetual insecurity and life was nasty, brutish and short. It was the desire to increase our individual security that led us to establish governments and make laws to guide our behaviors and punish anti social persons.

       Man is not an angel; if he were, there would be no need for laws, and for the governments that make and enforce those laws. Man is evil and that is why we need governments and their punitive law enforcement agencies.

UNITY OF LIFE

      However, through studies it is possible for the individual to come to the conclusion that there is a thread that runs through all human (and animal) lives. He may come to the realization that all life is one. At base, all life is unified.

        There is only one life, one life that, while it manifests in infinite units, all of the units are joined as parts of its one life.

       One life is simultaneously itself and all biological forms of life on earth.  In its true essence, all manifestations of that one life are the same and equal; they are joined, connected and unified.

        All life is one life; at base each part of life is in the whole of life as the whole of life is in it; each individual is in all of life and all of life is in it.  Each individual is in other individuals as they are in him.  All life is in each other; all are in one whole life.  (Where is the evidence for this view? Do you sleep and project out a world that seems as real as the world you see during the day?  Of course you do. You do so because the entire universe is in you as you are in it; when you sleep and dream you project the universe out and seem to live in it. This is solipsism and or idealism; the opposite view is that the universe is outside one, materialism.)

       Some metaphysics posits that, as it were, while remaining as one life, life seems to sleep and dream and in its sleep dream that it is separated lives and each unit of life works for its separated survival and what makes for it to survive, if necessary, at the expense of other selves. 

       In the dream of separation, each unit of life can only see where it begins and ends, in its body, and places its needs ahead of others. But in truth, all units of life are part of one life. 

       In its truest essence life is not in form, is not material, and is not what we see with our physical eyes. For lack of a better word, life as life truly is, is spirit. Spirit is one yet infinite in numbers and unified. All spirits are in each other. This is a literal not figurative statement. When you experience what has been called mystical union, you would know that this is true and not metaphoric. All life is one life.

     If the individual knows from direct experience that he and all other people (and animals and trees) are one, he then knows that they have common social interests.  By necessity he works for our public interests.

        But as long as he is in body he sees boundary between him and other selves, it is not possible for him to have absolute sense of oneness with other persons.

       Oneness is only possible in formless, unified spirit state.  In the world of space, time and matter, there are always forms and absolute oneness is impossible.

       In the world of space and time, what the individual can do is assume, on faith, his oneness with all selves and work for their social interests, but he is not going to actualize the reality of oneness in the world of forms.

     What is the obstacle to peace and happiness in this world?  The number one obstacle to peace and happiness is our sense of being separated from each other; our sense of having separated ego selves, egos with different interests. 

        In the empirical world, the individual has a separated ego self concept and a separated self image.  The individual is motivated to make his separated ego self survive, preferably with the cooperation of other selves but, where necessary, at other selves’ expense.

        As long as human beings have separated selves, egos, they cannot have peace.  At best they use their separated egos to work together for public good and have some minimal peace, a peace that could end at any time when a person sees his self as separated from others and his interests as different from other people’s interests.  Peace is only temporary in a world of separated selves. In our world collective peace is fragile and tenuous.

        Peace, however, is possible for the individual self. If the individual recognizes that it is the existence of his separated self and defense of that self that generates conflict and war between him and other people, he can work to eliminate his separated self.  As long as he lives in body, unfortunately, he cannot really eliminate his separated ego self. But in meditation he can eliminate his separated self.

MEDITATION

          In meditation the individual can reject the separated self, reject all conceptual selves, reject his self image and other people’s self images; reject the notion that he is apart from other selves and things and then remain quiet. He does not need to do any thing else. All he needs to do is undo what he already did.  He made the separated self by wishing for it. Now, he must unmake the separated self by not wishing for it. He simply lets go of the desire for a separated self and different self interests. Every thought that speaks of separated self he rejects.  He tells himself that he does not really know who he is, does not know who other people are and what any thing is or means. He accepts this honestly, and remains silent. His mind is now swept clean of all conceptual thinking. (In meditation one must also reject all the conclusions of science and technology, for those deals with the world of separation, the world of dreams, and the world of illusions).  Ones mind, thinking, is now open.  One has no presuppositions and preconceptions as to what any thing is or means. One just stays quiet.  If one can stay quiet in a mind without ideas that one and society made, for one hour, one would suddenly experience what one hitherto called ones self (ego) disappear. 

        However, the disappearance of the constellation of false ideas called the ego is not easily welcomed. The death of the individual’s ego is very scary for him. As it were, he is about to disappear into oblivion and have no self. No one likes to die. The individual experiences terror when his separated self is about to die. In fact, he might struggle to reconstruct his separated self concept. (When the ego is decompensates, some persons try to recompensate, perhaps, at a level where they are now not merely illusional, as in normal persons, but delusional and may even hallucinate, as in psychosis.)

        The self concept, the human personality is nothing but a compendium of mostly false ideas of who we think that we are. Where we see our ego selves there are no such selves.

        Only emptiness exists where we see our ego and body selves. The world of bodies exists only as in a dream. 

         If the world of separated self is extinguished in ones thinking, mind and one accepts the terror induced by the fear of death and oblivion, suddenly the separated self, the self concept, the human personality disappears.  This is literal not figurative.

       Subsequently, one then experiences ones self as one with all of life. One knows ones self as in one life and that one life is in one and that that life is in all living things. At that level, life is formless; it is not in human bodies, animal bodies, trees etc. The same formless life manifests in forms as human beings, animals and trees, but as itself is pure life without form. 

       In that unified state life is immortal, eternal, changeless, permanent and all knowing. This eternal state is characterized by peace and happiness, the right word for it is bliss.

        Words cannot explicate the state of spirit. Hinduism calls this state Samadhi; Buddhism calls it Nirvana, Zen calls it Satori. Christian mysticism calls it mystical union with God. It really has no name but you can call it whatever you want to. It is a state where there is no you and I, no self and other selves, no seer and seen, no subject and object; there are no other things to see; it is a non-perceptual, knowing world.

THE WISH TO HAVE A SEPARATED SELF

         While in unified state and its incredible peace, a thought enters ones thinking, ones mind; the thought of returning to our world (perhaps, to go care for ones children etc) and that thought immediately returns one to ones body, to the awareness that one is living in ones body and in the world of space and time.

       The thought, the wish to separate from the whole precedes the return to separated physical state. If one did not have that wish one would not separate from the whole.

     Where did that wish for separation come from?  I do not know. Perhaps, it is simply the wish to experience the opposite of what is?

        What is in spirit is union and the opposite of union is separation. But union cannot possibly have an opposite otherwise it is not union.

       Union can only have an opposite in a dream, illusory state. Union is what is, is spirit, and is reality. Separation, the opposite of union, exists in a world of illusions, in a dream state, our world. 

       No one can explain the origin of the wish for separation. It is an irrational wish and what is irrational cannot really be explained. Moreover, since separation has not really occurred, or occurs in a dream state, it cannot be explained, for a dream cannot fully be explained.

      For our present purposes, while in union the idea of separation enters ones mind and one manifests in the world of separation, our world.

      One returns from unified state to the separated state, to our world, and re-identifies with a separated self, ones ego, and does all the things we on earth do to protect our separated selves.

        One is now back in the treadmill seeking separated self’s survival. One is now a human being, again. One lives in conflict and pain. 

       But if one remembers our eternal union in spirit and works for social interests, one tends to obtain some surcease from conflict. To the extent one serves social interest one obtains some peace and happiness, but not in absolute terms, for in the world of forms peace and happiness cannot be absolute. The world of space and time attenuates the degree of peace and happiness possible in this world.

      It is possible to attain individual peace; this is done when the individual extinguishes his sense of separated self. To the extent that the individual eliminates his self concept and self image…which is not absolute as long as he lives in body…he attains some attenuated peace and happiness, not the absolute peace of unified state, aka heaven.

        He can then teach the world how to attain some peace through the elimination of the separated ego self concept.

       He can give the world his peace by living as an example of a person with reduced egotism. If you live ego-lessly (with only the minimal ego necessary to be in body, to be on earth) you tend to have relative peace and happiness and those around you experience your peace and joy. Conflict is generated by desire for separated self, so if you have no desire for separated self you tend to be peaceful and happy and those around you know it.  Just being around an egoless person makes people feel some peace and happiness.

       In fact, if a person is able to eliminate his entire ego, as Jesus Christ did, if you think of him you feel peace and happiness. (You know that you are in the presence of a man of God when you feel peaceful and happy; on the other hand, you know that you are near a person who is not a man of God when, in his presence, you feel conflicted.  Egotists give those around them conflict and tension.)

        The individual can voluntarily let go of his ego hence live in peace and happiness, but he cannot make other people to give up their own egos. All that he can do is teach what he has done for himself and, more importantly, live it; it is not what he says but rather what he does that makes him an example of peace and happiness in a world at war with itself. 

       The egoless person, hence the peaceful and happy person, cannot make the world of other people egoless and peaceful and joyful for them. Each individual must struggle to let go of his separated ego self, the false self he constructed for himself, if he wants peace in his life.

      What this means is that world peace is not anywhere in the horizon. In as much as most human beings see themselves as separated ego selves and work for their egos survival and could care less for other persons, they cannot live in peace and their world cannot be peaceful. In other words, world peace is not yet possible. What is possible is peace for the individual.

     Given that there are billions of people on earth and that peace is attained, one individual at a time, it is the case that it would take millions of years before the entire world becomes peaceful and happy. 

        The world must inevitably become peaceful, for people must necessarily learn about their true self as unified self and work for our common interests.

         Even if the countries with nuclear weapons explode them and kill millions of people, some human beings would survive the ensuing nuclear winter and continue where the dead left off. The living must work for peace via elimination of their egos and self interests.

CONCLUSION

           We came to this world to seem separated from each other. That is what the world is for, for us to seem separated from each other.

       In eternity we are unified and we wished to be separated from each other and found ourselves in this world of separation. 

      We work to seem to have separated selves; we defend our seeming separated selves.  This is the first phase of existence in this world. 

       The second phase of existence in this world is to realize that we are eternally unified and work to make our world, while it lasts, resembles our unified spirit state.  We can recognize the separated reality of our world and still strive to approximate the unified nature of spirit.  On earth we make decisions by considering what is in our ego self interests; such decisions produce pain and suffering for other people. We can change and every time we want to make decisions do so with the whole interest of society in mind (think through the whole spirit, Holy Spirit). This change is very difficult to make for what is easiest is to think and behave from the ego self interest. One knows how difficult it is for one to consider others interests before one does what one does. One is therefore not trivializing a very difficult subject. To live from the perspective of the unified self, the real self is difficult in this world. At any point in time, in human history, only a handful of human beings actually live through their higher self, the Holy Spirit. The rest talk the talk, make difficult issues seem easily doable, while they are afraid to actually try living the truth: letting their ego disappear and live from their all inclusive spirit self…doing that that serves all peoples interests.

       The empirical world is never going to be as unified as the spiritual world, for only spirit can unify; matter separates, but we can make our material world as unified as is possible to have it.  We can transform our world into a world of some peace and happiness, a world where the will of God is finally done hence a world that resembles the kingdom of God. 

       God is union.  Union is love.  Union and love is peace and happiness. The world of God is unified, peaceful and happy. 

       Our world is the opposite of God’s world. When we recognize our union, and while still in the world of separation work for union, we finally transform our world into a semblance of the kingdom of God, a world that obeys the will of God.

      God’s will is that his children, us, love one another, as he loves them. A world where all people love each other, a world that obeys the will of God is a world at peace.

      No one can really disobey the will of God. In reality, we still live in union and still love one another, but dream and in our dreams seem separated from each other and seem unloving of each other. The world of dreams is not a real world. Love is the eternal nature of man.

     Indeed, our seeming attacks on each other, if interpreted from the perspective of the Holy Spirit, are calls for love, when love is missing and offer us opportunity to forgive the attackers and come to know that attack is really love in disguise.

       Given what man is in this world, separated self with different interests, world peace is not going to happen soon.  Peace is not around the corner, yet.

        All that is possible is individual peace.  Work for your own personal peace by letting go of your identification with separated self and by working for social interests.  If you do so, you experience relative peace, and since peace is the same as happiness, you experience happiness as well; you then give your peace and joy to the world; you give the gift of peace to your brothers.

     Your brothers see themselves as separated selves and struggle for what seems their different interests hence live in a world of conflict and wars. You can give them your peace by living ego-lessly.

         You cannot change other people; you cannot make other people live ego-lessly, only they can choose to do so. All you can do is change a part of the world, you. Your change contributes to the change of other parts of the world. You can contribute to world peace and happiness but only the entire world can give itself peace and happiness by reducing and eventually doing away with their egos.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD

October 26, 2006

• The ideas in this essay resemble the ideas in A Course in miracles. However, the writer reached them independently. He can be reached at (206) 853-4245 or ozodiosuji@yahoo.ca

Robot  Villager

# 1 ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 27.10.2006 19:35