The spiritual unity of all souls remains inviolable in spite of all wars; and from the point of view of ultimate reality, it remains true that no soul is really at war with any other soul. There is a war in different ideologies; and this war of ideologies extends to and involves not only the minds but also the bodies of the people; but the undivided and indivisible soul remains one in its unimpeachable and integral unity.
Wars, and the suffering which they bring, cannot be completely avoided by a mere propaganda against wars; if they are to disappear from human history, it is necessary to tackle their root-cause. The root-cause of the chaos, which precipitates itself in wars, is, that most persons are in the grip of egoism and selfish considerations; and they express their egoism and self-interest individually as well as collectively. This is the life of illusory values in which men are caught.
Even wars require and call upon the existence and exercise of cooperative functioning; but the scope of this cooperative functioning is artificially restricted by identification with a limited group or ideal. Wars are often carried on by a form of love; but it is a love which has not been understood properly. In order that love should come to its own it must be free from all its trammels and become unlimited. Love does exist in all the phases of human life; but it is latent or is limited and poisoned by personal ambition, racial pride, narrow loyalties and rivalries, and attachment to sex, nationality, sect, caste or religion. If there is to be the resurrection of humanity, the heart of man will have to be unlocked so that a new love is born into it—a love which shall know no corruption and which shall be entirely free from individual or collective greed.
– ’Gems from The Discourses of Meher Baba’, p13