Seeds of Conflict as Seeds of Harmony

Long ago Rousseau remarked man is born free, but everywhere he is bound in chains. Man may have been born free, but what is equally true is that he has been born as a different individual than his fellow human beings. God's plenty thrives on infinite variety and not similarity. Differentiation is, therefore at the heart of Creation. At the biological level, differentiation helps to define species and to distinguish one species from one another. At the level of the same species it helps to define and distinguish varietal and individual characteristics. None is similar to another. And as the biologists would tell us there is a method in this maddening variety. Each variety and species fulfils an important function in the eco-system that keeps it going. None is more important than the other no matter how simplistic and/or complex a species may be. The Indian seers used the word Dharma to define this functional significance. As long as Dharma was upheld, the Creation could go on uninterrupted. But, the moment Dharma was tinkered with, causing Dharam sankat, the survival of the world was endangered.

As long as Creation had to grapple with differences at the biological level without the intervention of man, Dharma remained in the ascendant and the world was safe. But, as man became aware of his mental capabilities and superiority, he pitted himself against the rest of Creation. The entire history of Western civilization is based on this cardinal belief in the superiority of man over Nature. The East which was the font of the harmonizing philosophy of Dharma, due to its descent into the Dark Age of spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy, forgot this age old mantra and fell to the dazzling lie of Enlightenment philosophy. It too followed suit, much to its discomfiture and loss when Nature backfired. This may be called as the divide of the first order.

Within the human universe, differences got defined by the identities that individuals and social groups/sub-groups acquired. Identity, as Ken Browne remarks, is about how we see and define ourselves and about how others see and define us. In other words, identity is the outgrowth of socialization.