asaNa Magazine | March 2017 7
“The condition of man is a condition
of everyone against everyone,” said
Thomas Hobbes some 400 years ago.
When it comes time to taking care
of business it’s about banging heads
with iron and blood, no matter what
century it is. “Force and fraud are in
war cardinal virtues,” added Thomas
Hobbes. In other words, no one gives
a hoot or hell for the other man,
woman, or child. It’s every Man for
himself and God against all.
It’s every horse mule camel
for himself, too. All faiths and
persuasions have crossed swords,
from Jews to Buddhists to Christians.
The European Wars of Religion in the
16th and 17th centuries cost more
than 15 million souls. Islam has been
at it since just about Day 1. In Sri
Lanka the Tamil Tigers and hard-
line Buddhists have been fighting
tooth and nail for several years.
They were and are fighting for their
beliefs, their beliefs being a ball and
chain.
More than 230 million people died
in the wars of the 20th century.
“It was a beastly century,” said
Margaret Drabble. It’s impossible to
say how many were injured displaced
disappeared. At the end of the day, at
the end of the century, who’s to say
who was right and who was wrong?
Whoever was left is who says. The
verdict is still out on the 21st century.
In the 5,000-year history of yoga,
however, there are no recorded
battlefield deaths of any man woman
child true-blue to the eight limbs
of the practice. Even though there
is a standing pose on the mat called
Warrior, there are no thrust and
parry, no AK-47’s, no nuclear arsenal.
There are no memorials of stern men
sword in hand on horseback in any
yoga studio anywhere.
Wars are fought for many reasons,
but those reasons can be boiled down
to nationalism, revenge, and material
gain, both economic and territorial.
The wages of war are swinish darkasaNa Magazine | March 2017 7