14.09.2015

The Cost of Changes

Recently, the shocking image of the dead body of a three years old child on the beach of the Turkish Bodrum resort was spread all over the world.
The Syrian boy was killed along with her mother and brother while trying to get to the frail little boat from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.  The head of the family has survived and that was the reason why this tragic story got the media attention.  That literally stunned Europe, where huge number of demands to provide a safe path to refugees to the peaceful and prosperous countries took place.
On the eve of the Bodrum catastrophe the news was spread about 50 refugees suffocated in the hold of the Libyan boat intercepted by the Swedish Coast Guard in the Mediterranean.  Another 50 bodies were found in the tightly sealed van in Austria.
Experts believe that as a result of shipwrecks and other incidents in Europe at least 15 thousand migrants died since the beginning of the year.  These people have died a terrible, martyrs’ death, fleeing from the wars, rampant crime, genocide and famine in their own countries.  A horrible number.
However, is there any solution to solve this problem?  The head of the diplomatic mission of the European Union Federica Mogherini proposed to intercept and sink ships with the migrants directly at the coasts of the ‘third world’. "We want to make life difficult for the carriers," she explained.

Alas, it is much more likely that the proposal would complicate only the refugees’ life.  The experience has shown that the bans and even the physical interventions are unable to eradicate the social evil, until you remove its cause.  There will be new carriers and new routes, which are likely to be even more dangerous.
The fact is that we all witness the global process of the transformation of humanity into a single entity, which began not yesterday and will end far from tomorrow. This process is incredibly accelerated today.
However, something similar has already happened in the history when the United States were created with the incredible mixture of races, nationalities and people.  Yes, the practice of forming a single entity is not over yet, however, who dares to deny the existence of the American nation?
Why it is necessary that the humankind should be a united entity? I already wrote that, as a Buddhist, I believe that all that is happening in the world is a sign of the changing of the epochs and the advent of the era of Maitreya Buddha - the Buddha of Love.
The Buddhists believe that this era will be the blossoming of the human civilization without wars, hunger or disease.  Many religions call this the Kingdom of God on Earth, the great and envisaged future when the people will discover the new paths and perspectives not burdened by remnants of the past. There are the different names for it.
What we are trying not to think about is that the Golden Age would never come by itself.  The Buddhism teaches that it would be possible not earlier than when we all and the mankind would learn to live in the harmony with the nature and be aware of our personal responsibility for everything that happens not only with us but around us.  Moreover, in all the immense cosmos.
If you take an objective look at the humanity, you would come to the same sad conclusion as Kurt Vonnegut, the writer and philosopher.  In his article, published in the early 80's, he asked readers: whether the only purpose of humanity is destroying itself and all life on the planet altogether?  The nature, as Vonnegut wrote, would re-populate the Earth in a couple of hundred million years, before you could blink.
These days, it seems that Vonnegut was right.  The farther, the more conflicts are enflamed in the world when the neighbours, who were peacefully co-existing in the same country or even on the same street, find themselves on the opposite sides of the front line trying to destroy each other.  How much time is left until the moment when some of the conflicting sides would use the missiles with the nuclear warheads?
Whether we like it or not, but the whole history of the mankind demonstrates the need to unite.  The progress takes place not in the technology only; it improves the social structure of the society, which is becoming more open, democratic and fair.
When the anthropologists examined the size of brain of the ancient Cro-Magnon for the first time they were amazed because it was not inferior to the present representatives of the homo sapiens.  That is, if it were possible to clone the Cro-Magnon man today and take to, say, Yale or Novosibirsk ‘Akademgorodok’, then we might have a promising scientist, a politician or a manager in 30 years.
However, the Cro-Magnons violently destroy their kinship neighbouring tribes in the struggle for hunting areas. Afterwards, the time had come to unite the tribes into the cities, states et cetera. We live in the countries, sometimes uniting the different nations, for the last 500 years, however, are we much different from the Cro-Magnons?  Not at all, even today we are ready to hit the head of the neighbour with a baton for the ownership of the mammoth pasture ...
And this is where the problem arises.  The physicists know that nothing comes from nothing and disappears into nowhere.  Metaphysics argued that nothing comes without a cause, and everything has a purpose of its existence.  If the purpose of the genesis of life was the destruction of another life only, the evolution could well stop at the dinosaurs’ era or even earlier.  Therefore, the advent of Maitreya Buddha may well be one of the stages of the achieving of the goal, hidden from us until the proper time would come.
Who has created this goal for us be it God, Providence or the laws of the nature is not so important.  Much more important is that the present mankind is not very cooperative in the achieving of this goal.  However, the goal is still there.
Set a goal to drive a nail into the wall and try to do it with your bare hands.  If it doesn’t work, then you would have to take a hammer, right?  However, would the nail itself like what’s happening?  It is same with the humankind.  When it starts to deviate from the ultimate goal the All Powerful would return it to the right path using the much unpleasant disasters.
From this point of view, the tens of thousands who died in the social cataclysms is a terrible but inevitable payment of humanity for its future.  Thus, if we would not understand it today the death toll will continue to grow.  Do not think that the disaster will not affect you or your loved ones sooner or later.
It can happen anywhere, anytime.  In the last month there have been several large-scale man-made disasters in China, Spain, USA and Russia ... Some consider ‘the hand of the enemy’ to be the cause of these incidents, but, in my opinion, there is no conspiracy.  Our enemies are we ourselves.  Everything that has happened is a warning that if we would not seriously change ourselves everything would only get worse.
The nature, as you know, has a system of the self-cleaning.  The same Vonnegut wrote that it may happen that "one day, the arms race will capture the entire planet and then- bang!  A new Milky Way would appear”.
When he published these lines, the members of the ‘nuclear club’ could be counted by the fingers of one hand.  Today at least 40 states have the possibility to make the nuclear devices.  But the Nature would not wait until we destroy all of its creation in the frenzy of devastating warfare. It is much more likely that before it happens the Nature would destroy us one way or another.
Well, shall we keep fighting each other for the mammoth pastures, waving the nuclear club until predicted cataclysm of the writer or the Universe would not get tired to watch us and whisk off the planet as a failed experiment?  No.  I believe that we still have a chance.
Currently, our FIDE is preparing the match between Maria Muzychuk and Hou Yifan, which will take place in Lviv.  Lviv according to some is the citadel of Bandera followers and Nazism and according to others is a stronghold of the independence, the cradle of civilization and the shining city on the hill.
At the same time, the supporters of both versions hold on to them to the extremity that they are ready to kill each other.  The goal of the match in Lviv is to show the both sides that there is a way to resolve conflicts with the respect to the opponents.
We want to show that it is better to meet at the chessboard than on the battlefield and that the intelligence and mutual understanding is more powerful than the hostility. Moreover, the cooperation of the people with very different interests is quite possible, and in this case everybody wins.
The changes are inevitable, but we need to understand that their ultimate goal is the benefit to all the mankind.  Unfortunately, the cost is high. However, the final price depends on us all and how soon we will accept the impending goal and demonstrate the willingness to change.  ‘The bad peace is better than a good quarrel’ as the Russian proverb says.  I think we still have no idea how extremely much better.
Incidentally, Kurt Vonnegut himself gave the answer to his question.  "Last night I dreamed about our descendants a thousand years from today.  Once the humankind does still exist on our planet, it means that all our descendants have chosen the way to procreation”. He meant that only the peace and understanding would enable us to remain the united humanity, fit to fulfil its purpose chosen for us by the All Powerful.