[Posted December 11, 2009]

Pax in Terra, War on Maya

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

OBAMA (in other words): Paratur pax bello; CHAITANYA: God's name the ultimate weapon

Associated Press Dec 9, 2009 - PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

Text of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech

The text of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, delivered Thursday in Oslo, Norway, as provided by the White House:
But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other. go to story

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End to war?

We Need the Wholesale Solution: war is only one symptom A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

MR. GOLDSMITH: Bhagavad-gita speaks of war. It started out with a war. PRABHUPADA: No, what Bhagavad-gita says... Bhagavad-gita does not say that stop war. Bhagavad-gita says stop your repeated birth and death. Bhagavad-gita is not concerned with the war principle. The war will remain so long the human society is there. How can you stop it? ... Of course, when you are Krishna conscious, when you are not in this material world, then there is no question of war also. My point is that war is not only the only disturbing principle. There are many other disturbing principles. So we have to make a wholesale solution of all principles. That is the point. KIRTANANANDA: War is only a symptom. PRABHUPADA: Yes. more

Materialism at the heart of wars

excerpt from letter to Jawaharla Nehru, Bombay, August 4, 1958

You are thinking of adjusting western ways of material adjustment with Indian culture of spiritualism and I beg to give you herewith the clue that materialism conducted with an aim of reaching spiritual perfection, is the right adjustment of human activity.

If the aim of spiritual realization is missed, the whole plan of materialism is sure to be frustrated and that is the law of Nature. The law of nature is so made by a superior authority and no body can surpass the intricacies of material nature simply by partial adjustment of material science. The history of the West beginning from the time of the Greeks and the Romans down to the modern age of atomic war—is a continuous chain of sense gratificatory materialism and the result is that the westerners were never in peace within the memory of 3000 years of historical records. Neither it will be possible for them at any time in future to live in peace [as long as] the message of spiritualism just suitable to the present age does not reach their heart.

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