It does not matter to whom you talk, peace is everyone’s desire. Strangely though it does not seem it is desired enough otherwise there would be peace everywhere wouldn't it? Maybe peace is not achievable no matter how much it is desired? Like the song goes, “You can’t always get what you want……” Or maybe because peace, like a tree, has developed two major branches, both supporting a wide canopy if nurtured well, but one or the other or even both falling victim to disease and therefore bear no fruit or even die off? The two branches stand for peace as an individual agenda and political issue. Personal peace is more likely to eventuate being under a person’s own control, but the latter, depending on others to agree, may be a problem. What is peace anyway and why is it so desirable?
Peace is defined as freedom of disturbance, mental or emotional calm, or as a state of period where there is no war.
Before going any further, another distinction need to be made: Peace can be an ‘internal (personal) or external (public) affair’. In that sense, the mental and emotional calm would refer to the ‘internal peace’ of a person while the absence of war clearly applies to a person’s life, to political and territorial, ‘external peace,’ such as a state of no feuds or war. Freedom of disturbance is applicable to both.
However, the really big questions remain; is peace achievable and, can it last, no matter which kind of peace we are talking about?
Sozieterna’s view on peace, being a peaceful nation themselves and nurturing their inner peace with great care, is, that peace is not only achievable, it also can last, though not without effort. Their understanding of the origin of peace and its progress through evolution is however likely to differ from most other opinions. For Sozieterna peace is an essential principle of creation, inherent to matter and life in all its forms. It has a regulatory function in order to achieve and maintain balance in the creative process. It does not induce or initiate creation though contributing to it, and is as such equally important and significant. One could see it as the maintenance worker not the machinery producer. Sozieterna knows, the human intellect, though highly developed, has generally not made the link to the higher conceptual framework of the universe and maybe the majority of men never will. As it is, humans are poor maintenance workers, in fact, they see that kind of duty beneath their role. This lack of comprehension leaves not much room for optimism and peace may be indeed only achieved on an individual level, not worldwide, despite desire and effort. It does not matter that every religion preaches peace but, ‘God forgives the sinner, so not to worry, and after all, isn't it his responsibility to look after his creation?’ Sadly, he left it to man, giving him free will, and that proves detrimental. The consequences can be seen everywhere and one does not need to be a clairvoyant to predict the future.
A peaceful existence does not mean ‘no’ to technology, modern comfort and achievements. It only means to utilize resources sensibly and sustainably, for the benefit of all, not just a few or in competition of each other. Nature itself provides us with good examples of peace amongst or within the animal kingdom. One only needs to look at the herds of cows and flocks of sheep and all the related grazers in the wild, just to name the very obvious ones. These animals are the ultimate expression of what peace is, at least societal peace, and likely individually as well. Has anyone looked into the eyes of a cow, or sheep? There are no signs of aggression, turmoil, shiftiness or maliciousness. But you will find fear and pain and utter terror when they are crudely led to the slaughter. They still rather try to escape instead attacking the handlers. These animals go about their business without greed, their life’s being one of giving rather than taking and they still prosper without having to fight each other for the turf they graze on. It is no surprise that they have their place in some faiths, like in Hinduism, where the cow is holy, (and why not, you may ask, considering their entirety); in Christianity, the sheep being similarly respected, symbolized as the ‘Sacrificial Lamb’. It sure shows that herding animals can live in peace, and multiply successfully even to extraordinary numbers if left alone. It is the human race, an unfortunately aggressive herding animal that slaughters them, and each other, in disregard and in the assumption that animals are stupid when they don’t fight or take possession. Instead of being grateful for their placidness and sacrificial nature they are seen as commodity not precious life. It implies, man sees peacefulness as weakness, having no value, in the mistaken assumption that only the strong and aggressive will survive. Nothing can be further from the truth!
So, in the animal world peace exists, and peaceful creatures have as good a survival chance than the rest. But as far as humans are concerned, they struggle with peace, even with the theory, and more so when it comes to real life; they fail to implement anything what they know about how to achieve peace. That any theory has its roots in matter, not being elusive at all, does not enter the theorist’s mind. He has lost his connectivity to nature and does not understand creation in its entirety at all.
But maybe it is best to start from the beginning: What is the essence of peace? It is a homeostasis, an equilibrium, a balance. It is harmony in motion. It is the natural dance of forces that hold a shape and prevent the urge to go into any other direction, to break out, or to interrupt the internal and external interactive movements that maintain the equilibrium. The desire for peace is the basic tendency and surge of any force or matter to bring order to chaos, neutralize electrical charges, bind the particles to form as stable an atom as possible, and bring indeed an end to the turmoil that the “Big Bang” has started. (In that context it has to be stated, that Sozieterna accepts the ‘Big Bang’ as theory, not dogma, or ultimate truth. It serves as an operational basis. There will be further explorations other times regarding that subject)
Strictly speaking, the desire for peace is literally a universal inclination, and humans, as all nature, all creatures, plants and things, follow its prompts to get the rest, the relief and the bliss that peace is associated with. It should not be confused with the often used ‘final peace’, in the sense of death, because that would mean, the forces of a shape dissipate, in particular in this instance, crude matter, putting an end to it. Peace is not the end, peace is coordination, ordered movement within a shape or form or substance. It is harmony of movement within, be it the atom or the universe. Humans can appreciate it in this context on a mental and emotional level, though the physical level is not excluded, playing as an important role as the others, preceding the others to begin with. The forces involved vary according to the matter involved. They can be of any kind, nuclear, molecular or cellular because peace is a principle to which all adhere be it nuclear energy, electro-magnetic forces or bio-chemical reactions. It is always the same trend; to stabilize, neutralize or equalize. The principle opposes dissipation as much as it promotes cohesion and vice verso, and without this process there could be no life as we know it.
So, having established that the desire for peace is an elementary principle of life and therefore inherent to anything of matter, crude, refined or sublime, it also shows the volatile nature of it, its fleeting existence and sheer magnitude of effort to keep stability not to mention an everlasting one. Not only is there motion within that can destabilize, there are even more so external challenges. There is an interaction between these too. It requires constant adjustment to ensure the balance is maintained. But these adjustments may come with a prize if the maintenance was lacking, and the costs may be enormous or even beyond repair.
The state of peace as in equilibrium, balance, harmony, evokes a reaction that, in the evolving and then higher developed life forms, is associated with feelings, pleasant ones that is, life affirming and assuring. This serves as an incentive for organic life to seek out peace, because it is desirable to feel good, be in harmony. As far as humans are concerned it is that feeling of happiness that comes with peace and that humans seek out consciously, wanting more of it, and never lose it again. There is nobody in this world who does not want to be happy.
If peace, or equilibrium, in body, mind and soul are present and, correlated and in tune with each other, a state of bliss is experienced. This is such a profound experience that it determines a person’s drive to seek it out by whatever means. Every human being, though likely not consciously aware of the why, knows the feeling of true happiness; it is a feeling of completeness, and is utterly deliberating. One of the best and most common examples of such a state is the sexual orgasm. Lasting only a short time, it fuels the desire to experience it again. What better tool for the survival of the species can there be? Unfortunately, this has a downside. While desire for peace is as elementary as breathing, the chase for happiness is more the attempt of a gambler to win again, reinforced by the moments of happiness, that occur as a natural synchronization of forces within.
Generally, the state of bliss, and not just sexually, can be accessed and extended. Though it only comes with insight and practice, very rarely is it a natural human condition. It certainly is not achieved by focusing on external interests and preoccupations. They distract, offering satisfaction rather than happiness.
It is in the nature of peace to be volatile and impermanent. But nothing is really permanent because creation i s motion. As long as there is motion, no equilibrium is safe from the many forces challenging it.
To go beyond the intellectual interpretation of peace let us have a look at peace on a molecular level. Anything could be used as an example, beginning with the atom and even beyond, but to keep it simple, water is the perfect medium to demonstrate the basic concept and illustrate the associations.
Water is an indispensable element of life. Its properties are amazing and short of wondrous. Planet Earth consists of 71% water, humans of 55-78%. It regulates heat, it regulates a cell’s metabolism, and it is a solvent and a neutralizer of acids or bases, among other properties. Besides the important practical values it also gives pleasure, to the thirsty by equalizing the state of dehydration, and to the dirty, acting as a solvent to keep the body clean, and safe from damage. It can bring utter joy to anyone on a hot summer’s day when sipping on a cool drink or jumping into the cool water for a swim, without being thirsty or dirty!
One could marvel about water for hours. It is all due to its ‘internal’ properties, bringing us back to the topic. Looking at it at the most basic level, it is a molecule, consisting of 2 hydrogen (H), and 1 Oxygen (O), chemically formulated as H2O. It is also amphoteric, meaning, it can give away a proton (H) and accept a proton with the result that H2O can be an OH and a free H. The H can then join another H2O turning it into H3O, called heavy water, and a free OH. Water within, due to molecular motion produces an electrical field, strong enough to break an Oxygen-Hydrogen bond, a process that is called ‘auto-dissociative process’ or self-ionization process, because the H and the OH carry an electrical charge as ions. This process is ongoing, water is constantly solving and reforming itself in the way described above, meaning, there are all of these combinations present at any time. Water that has equal H3O and OH concentration is considered neutral. But to keep an equilibrium of the components, so there are not too many H’s or OH’s or H3O’s is essential. If it didn’t, water would become either acidic or alkaline with too many H’s in the first case or too many OH’s in the latter. Everyone has heard about the pH. At the pH 7(close to 7) water is neutral, neither acidic nor alkaline. If the pH is less than 7 it is acidic, above 7 alkaline. At 7 it is in an equilibrium. The pH (standing for the power of the Hydrogen) is a means to measure acidity or alkalinity of substances. It was calculated mathematically and is the negative logarithm of the activity of the H ion concentration using water as the solution. The pH measurement is extremely useful, even for the less sophisticated. Any hobby gardener will tell you about the benefit to know the pH of the soil if you want to grow plants successfully.
Neutral water is also called pure water. Water from the environment is not pure. It may have minerals, sediments, or pollutants in it. Due to the water’s ability to react as a base (OH) or acid (H), it will neutralize substances from the environment. So here we go: Water keeps an internal equilibrium and buffers against external elements. In any case, to maintain its integrity it needs to maintain as close a state of equilibrium as possible and though water might not ever be called being at peace within itself it should be enough to demonstrate the importance of keeping its internal charges balanced.
Interesting associations can be drawn, using the pH scale, for example, for mood. Being in the equilibrium is the desired state of feeling well, or normal good; being negative or if you like negatively charged, or acidic on the pH scale, one could easily consider that feeling as being down and depressed. On the other hand, being alkaline, positively charged, feeling more than normal good, may be compared to being hypo-manic and manic, going indeed up in the pH scale. The H ion carries in fact a negative electric charge, and the OH ion a positive one. It follows, that being depressed or manic in its most severe form, is life threatening, as are acid and base. Because the mind is out of balance, impacting on the body and the human spirit, if you like soul, depression and mania are considered a mental illness and incompatible with life when severe.
To disrupt the balance of a system is like declaring war to it. The tree of peace, life, cannot grow in unsuitable soil, polluted water and toxic air, literally and comparatively speaking.
Sozieterna however believes that the external state of peace in this world is a reflection of humans not caring for their individual inner peace. However, nothing can be seen in isolation due to the overall interconnectedness and co-dependencies. Change in one will bring change in the other. It comes back to Sozieterna’s view that if one wants change it is best started on a personal level, and with sufficient numbers the rest will follow, like mass gaining its momentum. It is the peaceful way to achieve peace.
It is however difficult to be optimistic as far as peace for people, or world peace is concerned. Too many overblown egos, too little maintenance interest, too little comprehension of creation in its complexity,= or is there enough love to bring about a change? One thing is certain, if humans cannot adjust, nature will do it for them. Peace is after all the principle of maintaining the balance with or without humans.