During the cold war between the East and West, people used to talk about a kind of war strategy that effectively guaranteed the total annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. They called it M.A.D war. MAD is an acronym for Mutual Assured Destruction. It meant that by mutual understanding both sides in a war would resort to the use of full-scale nuclear weapons in the event of an outbreak of war. They called it mad war because that is just what it was.
What does this type of war strategy teach us about the nature of human being in dispute resolution? What can we learn from this type of war in personal problem resolution?
The irony of it all is that many of us have experienced one form of MAD war or another in our lives. Think of a row between two people in which no side lives to tell the story. Think of a dispute between husband and wife, which leads to an acrimonious and expensive divorce proceedings and both sides including the children lose out in the end. When two elephants fight, the grass suffers. However, in a MAD fight, even the two elephants suffer.
There is another way in which many people engage in MAD wars on a daily basis. Think of the war between the inner you and the outer you. This is the war between the visible you and the invisible you. This is the war between the human you and the spirit you. This is the war neither of ‘you’ can win. Yet as we live our lives moment by moment, many of us engage in various forms of self-destructive wars without knowing.
Think of the number of times your body has refused to respond to what your mind was telling you to do which had led you to make decisions that caused you pain and sorrow. Think of the number of times your gut feeling told you to act in certain way but your body said no way, which led you to make a choice that you later regretted. Think of how many times you refused to act according to your instinct and later found out it was to your peril. Think of the amount of times you once spent debating a thought in your mind without the gut to make a decision one way or another. Think of the stress, the distress and the dis-eases that you invited into your body simply because you did not act according to what your mind was telling you to do. The list is endless.
These are spiritual wars. A spiritual war is a war between your human being and your spirit being. It is a war between your visible physical being and your invisible non-physical being. Many of us fight this war because we fail to allow the spirit being to take control of the human being. In this kind of war, the ultimate loser is the human being. Once the war is over, the spirit being goes back to where it belongs, the Source. It originates from the Source and it therefore returns to the Source. The spirit being has life far beyond the human being. It transcends the human physical being. It will live forever. Therefore waging a war against the spirit being is tantamount to waging a war again oneself. It is a step toward self-destruction. That is what I call MAD war.
Waging a war against another person is waging a war against two beings: the spirit being and the human being. Waging a war against another community is waging a war against two communities: the spirit community and the human community. Waging a war against another nation is waging war against two nations: the spirit of the nation and the nation of the humans. Waging a war against your spouse is waging war against four beings: your spirit being and your human being. At the same time, you are waging a war against your spouse’s spirit being and the human being.
Do you get my drift? This may sound daft to your ears but think of it this way. Why is it that human beings find it easier and more convenient to relate to only the things we can see, touch, hear, smell or taste? Is it because we are ignorant of the role of space in the universe? We think of space as a place of emptiness, void, vacant. Is that the reason we think we are alone in the universe? Is that the reason we tend to act alone?
Imagine the difference it would make in the world today when more and more people are becoming aware of the reality of our universe: we are not alone. There is much more to the person next to you than his or her physical appearance. The moment we have this basic understanding and gain this simple knowledge of human existence, we will start to align our human desires with our spirit desires.
The concept of Value life balance is all about alignment between the desires of our two beings. It is all about aligning our human beings with our spirit beings. It is all about letting go of the MAD wars we wage every day against oneself and against one another. It is all about sowing the seed of peace inside of you and allowing the seed to germinate and grow within your inside. It is all about letting that matured inner peace become part of the way you live your life moment by moment. It is all about sharing the peace that reside inside of you with members of your immediate and extended family, with your friends, with your neigbhours, with members of your community and with people around the world. That is what I call M.A.P. Mutual Assured Peace is the peace that lets each human being to become a present help for a person in need. That inner peace lets every human being to see the beauty and graciousness in every other human being and what he or she has created. It allows everyone to sow just a seed of peace inside his or her heart. That peace makes the world to be a truly global village. Let us think about this type of peace.
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