Violence is like a stone dropped into the middle of a lake. At the center is the perpetrator of the violence or conflict, or the “ego,” the “me,” and once set into motion, the waves spread and spread, with ripple effects across time that affect all of us.

As long as the “me”” mine” survives, it is the logical extension of this fact that there must be violence. It is an inevitability, and the only peaceful path forward is to dissolve the ego, with all of its pointless strivings, useless antagonisms, and petty hatreds.

We are the world, and what we are, the world is. If we are hostile and greedy and violent and all the rest of it, then that’s exactly the kind of world we will all create together.

When one goes around the world—America, Europe, and different parts of Europe—and come to this country (India), one finds that human beings, whether black, brown, or yellow, or purple, whatever color you like, are almost the same: They suffer. They are confused. They are uncertain. They are seeking jobs, some kind of security, both physically as well as psychologically.

So, wherever you go, human beings are almost the same. They may have cultural, superficial differences, but inwardly, psychologically, they are essentially the same. So, you are the world, and the world is you.

Conflict is the natural result of this futile search for security, and as long as there is division among people, violence will be a fact of life. The problem – and the solution – remains with us, and there’s no “teaching” or “belief system” that can resolve violence once and for all, nothing outside of ourselves that can come to our rescue.

Thus, at the core, each of us must hold ourselves completely responsible for the state of the world and the violence occurring within it and committed in our names. This is a radical claim, obviously, but as you’ll see.  It is said that change, radical change, must be immediate and total, and not experienced in terms of time. We either change now, or we never will. We either find a way to see conflict clearly for what it is, what it’s doing to our psyches and our homes and our world, and resolve it now, or it will always be with us.