We Humans Are A Peaceful Species At Heart....

Humans indeed are a peaceful species at heart. At birth they are one of the most helpless and innocent creatures on earth. As the years go by they become intelligent, and are able to reason and distinguish good from evil. This distinguishes them from other creatures of the universe, which basically respond to instinct. The human intelligence gives rise to various emotions like love, jealousy, fear, anger and hatred. Out of all these emotions love is the most powerful and enduring. Love for family, near and dear ones, friends and relatives, nature, society and the nation. Love manifests itself in peaceful behaviour, making them family oriented and a social being. At heart basically all humans in the past and even today are peace loving.

Though peace loving, there is much violence in the world. This is because of negative emotions like jealousy, fear, greed and power or health, which often raise their head. History is replete with great conquests of kings, which wrought destruction and enormous sufferings to others. They went to war succumbing to their negative emotions of expanding their empire. Great King, Ashoka, realised the futility of war and violence. He embraced Buddhism, and spent the rest of his life spreading Buddha`s message of love and peace, thereby becoming immortal.Great apostles of peace propounded religions like Christianity, Hindusim, Islam and Sikhism to spread the message of peace and love. They preached coexistence and love for the fellowmen creations of God. Unfortunately unscrupulous elements used religion to create bad blood claiming supremacy of their religion over others, though all religions lead to the same God and salvation.

Such ironies lead Charles Cotton to state, “Man will wrangle, write for it, fight for it, do anything but live for it”. Despite these contradictions, in the words of Edmund Burke, “ Man by constitution is a religious animal”. The unpeaceful and violent behaviour is basically an aberration, the cause of which is the negative emotions that sometimes come to the fore.