“Some say the world will end in ice,
Some say in fire
From what I know of desire,
I hold to those who favour fire.
But if our beautiful blue-green planet were
To perish twice,
I think I know enough of ambition.
To trigger war is also great and would also
Suffice.”
Man is essentially an ambition being. His acquisitiveness, pride ambition and selfishness drive on in his pursuit of
personal gains. History has remained testimony to the fact that many wars were waged to satisfy the ambition of the kings and emperors. History, epics, legend and literature have recorded how lofty ambitions of men have distributed the peace of the people around them. From the Stone Age, the age of cybernetics. The wheel of a bullock cart is today replaced by the giant wheels of an airplane. Today, man has an understanding of his environment, his universe. Today, his horizons extend further than ever before; today man has delved deep into life’s ocean. Yet a question whirls in my mind; “is he truly happy?” Does progress due to ambition really makes one sublimely happy and peaceful? Happy and peaceful in the true sense of the world.
The fourteen-day Mahabharata war was fought because of the ambitious hope of their throne. According to Ramayana, Queen Kaikeyi had ambitious plan to install her son, Bharata, on the throne. This led Ram to forsake his throne for his throne for his younger brother and undertake fourteen years of exile.
In Macbeth, Duncan is killed by Macbeth in an attempt to take over the former empire and later suffers from trauma of the guilt. Brutus murdered Caesar in Julius Caesar and admitted to his countrymen that he had carried it out because of his ambition.
“If the dark nights of sorrow make thy light glow,
Lit it be so.
If death can bring near thy kingdom of bliss, let it be so.”
-R.Tagore.
Man essentially ambitious and a competitive being. There has been no substantial change in man’s nature during his course of his evolution. He is still barbarian at heart, ready to kill another for his own survival or simply to prove his supremacy over the other, possibly a weaker person. Man may boast of all the technological advancement that have been made in past centuries as a result of his ingenuity, yet the fact remains that they have not made man wiser and more judicious. His lust for power is as strong as ever. Driven by an unbridled ambition, he continues in his endeavour, unmindful of the havoc he may cause in the lives of the others. It is no longer a struggle for survival; rather it is just an indulgence of his whims and fancies. His acquisitiveness, pride ambition and selfishness drive him on in his pursuit of personal gains.
History has remained testimony to the fact that wars were waged by kings and emperors just to satisfy their ambitions. Alexander, the great was young and ambitious and came all the way from Greece to India. He aspired to rule over the whole world. Ashokawas also an ambitious ruler and waged wars to annex new lands. He realized that to fulfill his ambitions, he had unknowingly sacrificed the lives of many innocent people. In modern times, Hitler would be remembered as the most ambitious man on earth. He believed in the superiority of the Aryan race and wanted to exterminate the Jews from the face of the earth. The gas chambers, the torture cells and graveyards exhumed after the end of Second World War are grim of the German holocaust.
Ambition and progress, which takes you up to an exalted position. Is there true happiness there? No! There is the fear of falling from your exalted position.
This paradox of contemporary civilization made the great poet T.S. Eliot pen the following lines in his celebrated work “Wasteland”:
What are the roots that clutch?
What branches grow?
Out of his story rubbish?
Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess,
For you know only
A heap of broken images,
Where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter,
The cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
Only
There is shadow under this red rock
Since war begin in the minds if men, it is in mind of men that defences of peace must be constructed. “Belief and behaviour go together”, exhorted Dr.Radhakrishnan, “…. If we believe in blood, race and soil, our world will be filled with Buchenwalds. If we believe in universal spiritual values, peace and understanding will grow.” The contradictions inherent in ambitions make us ponder over the fate of man from the primitive age to the rat race so evident in today’s swiftly changing world.
Here are other paradoxes that might exist. At the crossroads of history today, when a ‘clash of civilizations’ is spoken about, when social-secular orders are crumbling under the weight of ideologies, one needs to take a walk beyond the clouds of concepts and despair. The search for the holy grail of peace is a journey, which must begin with a reality check within, or our fears and hopes, the realization that these are common concerns, which also can trigger off an empathy and understanding beyond ideologies.
“Human life is everywhere is a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.”
All religious preach universal love and peace. But, these remain utopian ideals, which are beyond realm of anybody’s understanding. Gautam Buddha felt that man should cast off all desires and follow the path of righteousness to achieve perfect happiness. Great philosophers and prophets have preached the message of love and renunciation and a control over one’s passions to attain salvation. The 20th century saw Mahatma Gandhi pursuing the freedom struggle on the ideas of love, tolerance and non-violence. Some ambitious political leaders of our times continue to play havoc with the lives of the people.
For peaceful coexistence, we should take lessons from history and turn to the wisdom of the wise men for guidance. Only then can man hope to live in peace and harmony.
Peace is when the heart is no longer in duality, when the struggle within has been resolved. When peace comes to the heart, serenity follows. Love comes flooding in, uncontrolled. Joy cannot be held back. It bursts through because it is right that is peace. Peace needs to be felt, love needs to be felt, truth needs to be felt. As long as we are alive, the yearning to feel good, to feel joy, will always be there and as long as it is there, there will be a need for it to be discovered. Life is a journey. We are passengers in a train called ‘life’, and we are alive in the moment called ‘now’. The journey of life is so beautiful that it needs no destination. On this journey, we have been given a compass. The compass is the thirst to be fulfilled. The true journey of life begins the day we begin to seek to quench our thirst. This quest is the noblest one.
For many centuries, a voice has been calling out: “what you are looking is within you. Your truth is within you, your peace is within you, and your joy is within you.” In our hearts, peace is like a seed waiting in the desert to grow, to blossom. When we allow this seed to blossom inside, then peace is possible outside. We have to give peace a chance. Will we give peace a chance?
I would like to conclude with following lines pen down by R.W.Emerson:
“Ambition educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.”