War is over if you want it.
First spoken, written and advertised (!) in 1969 these simple, powerful and resonant words continue to inspire people all around the world. Yoko Ono gives them away. You can download a poster with these words in almost any language HERE at Yoko’s website. She encourages you to use these words and go forth and spread the message any way you like.
War is over if you want it.
Yoko Ono and John Lennon put these words into song many years ago. Yoko’s still singing. These days she uses the web and social media to share her music and though the media may change the message stays the same:
War is over if you want it.
I feel a bit vulnerable/silly/hippy saying it but I kind of feel everything I do is in some way an effort towards creating or finding peace. Unlike the beauty contestant though, I’ve probably given up on campaigning for ‘World Peace’. I think my focus is better put on myself rather than others; what can I do to be less hypocritical, judgemental or aggressive (passive counts) in my personal life, in my everyday exchanges and in my own family. As such, these days I wage a mostly silent campaign, one I hope can one day end the conflict between opposing forces each are sure are right, two forces in near constant battle, two forces within me. Today I’ll remind myself again:
War is over if you want it.
In my peace efforts—in my quest to find a balance between my inner impulse to create (breathe life) and a reptilian instinct to destroy (criticize/attack/kill)—I use the ‘weapon’ I’ve had most success with: words. I write every day. And when I write I find, as another writer did—and so eloquently put it, “my mind is no longer a nest of scorpions”, Edward St Aubyn.
Writing allows me to express—when I do it well—the internal conflicts manifested as external reality, the infinite loop of thought-word-action-experience I believe spiritual masters of every religion have been addressing when they’ve been reported as saying things like:
“The Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke, Jesus, Tolstoy)
“With our thoughts we make the world.” (Buddha)
“War is over if you want it.” (John and Yoko)
But then there are others who say war is part of life, death is part of life, violence is part of life. Maybe they are right? Maybe death does give life meaning and maybe violence gives peace its power?
Or maybe not?
Maybe as a race we are still learning? Maybe humanity is simply still evolving and part of that evolution involves going through this period (Kali Yuga?) when as a group—as a planet—we manifest the experience of ‘MIGHT is right’, ‘only the STRONG survive’ and, as George Orwell said in his prophetic work, 1984, ‘war IS peace’.
War is peace? They’re kidding aren’t they?
So for now, maybe a majority of planet Earth’s humanity will accept this media supported, cruel inversion that convinces righteous folk everywhere that some people deserve to die so others can offer those deaths as a sacrifice to the one true God. But perhaps it won’t always be like this? Perhaps not forever will we believe the lie that killing innocent people for oil or real estate is in anyway peaceful.
War is over if you want it.
Peace.
* How about you? Do you think war is a natural expression of man’s need to dominate others in order to feel safe? Or is there another way? A peaceful way?
