This World Has Changed Much

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I don’t want to talk about religion

You have what you believe in

Whether you be a Catholic, Protestant,

Muslim, Buddhist, Theosophist

Agnostic

Anything

I don’t want to question anyone’s belief system

That is beyond me

I leave that to Metaphysicists and thinkers

You can read their essays, probe their wisdom

That is not my function

But it troubles me

If only we lived by what our religions taught

If only we strove to be Religion’s Teachings

The Bible,The Quran, The Upanishads,

The Gitas, The Key to Theosophy—name them—

All these, even Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief,

Materially urge upon us to replicate goodness

So, why do we kill?

Throughout history, Nations kill in the name of God,

“To protect their sovereignty”, they claim

And as soldiers are dispatched

Religious leaders pray for them

“God of Love,” they pray,

“Protect our soldiers. Let them not fall in

 the harm’s way.”

It is as if when the bellies of their ‘enemies’

Blow into shreds, those are toy bellies

That haven’t fallen in ‘harm’s way’

We have glorified war

Little toy games orient our minds to bloodpath

We watch the scariest horror movies

Where blood, like geyser, spurt from decapitated heads

And as such, we grow numb, we become dumb

Tell me which war was worth human life?

Tell me whether men create lives, show me a cause for war

Then when we annihilated ourselves

And called it ‘upholding security’

Or ‘protecting strategic interests’

All that was wanted was your voice,

YOUR VOICE,

To say, “WE ARE GOING AGAINST RELIGION”

“TO KILL IS THE GRAVEST ABERRATION, SIN!”

But you kept quiet.

It was some contradiction, wasn’t it?

When you stood at the pulpit or in mosque

Or whatever hallowed grounds you stood

Preaching about Love even for your enemies

And somehow became decidedly mum

On the cannons decimating human population

Which fear overwhelmed you?

I thought you could speak Truth

Because you kept quiet,

Millions of lives are getting lost

Because you still keep quiet,

No one speaks against the war,

Because you keep quiet,

Commands are given to kill

Murder is rewarded

The nonsense goes on and on

But imagine if YOU stood your ground

And said, “My belief teaches me of Love,

My conscience WILL NOT allow me

To allow the KILLING and BLOODBATH!”

Imagine if you met the Presidents and Kings

And told them, “God has sent me to you,

To tell you that your hands are dipped in human blood

And that He has commanded that you STOP IT!”

May be by doing that, war will end.

May be, by doing that, war would have ended.

But you chose to be silent.