Peace: A Natural State of Human Mind.
Abstract: Human beings—though sometimes to survive or get what they need are driven to violence—are firstly peaceful. Buried inside every human mind, peace is holistically alive unless a cause with a right or a wrong signal raises its head within the mind of an individual or a group, it becomes frightful to harm others. When we argue, whether humans are naturally peaceful or violent, there is no dearth of evidence that humans are inherently compassionate, intrinsically altruistic, innately generous and naturally kind, even if they are in certain circumstances driven to act aggressively and violently. At the same time there is no dearth of evidence for those who believe that humans are inherently aggressive, violent and competitive, but still compassionately cooperating for personal as well as societal welfare. Since, a vast majority of the human beings is most of the time peaceful, peace seems to be naturally ingrained in their nature. It arises perfectly when an individual inertly and outwardly keeps himself in harmony with himself and the rest of creation. Its latent power is found in relaxation which gives rise to love, in its mindfulness which gives rise to vigilance, and in its consciousness, which gives rise to reason; all these together give rise to a feeling of “Peace.” Shakespeare expresses the feeling of peace in his play Henry VIII;
I know myself now: I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet confidence.1
But the enigma of peace challenges our mind when we find human beings imperfectly kind, unintentionally inconsiderate, self-serving and helpful in near-equal measure, and at the same time Bottom of Form surprisingly experiencing cruelty that results in their being more aggressive and violent. However, while kindness often transforms human beings in ways that lead to greater compassion and generosity, it is far more reasonable to perceive humans as capable of astonishing altruism, and most of the time, getting along fine together. Mirza Ashraf
(for full article, please visit: https://independent.academia.edu/MirzaAshraf
“Innately peaceful” is nothing special or a true statement about humans.
A stone lying on the ground is peaceful, a sleeping lion is peaceful and a snake coiled up on a trail is peaceful. Actually Mirza Sahib admitted right in the first line that humans are peaceful until their survival is threatened or they need something.
To dwell on this (innately peaceful or not), understanding where we come from is very important. If we come from a garden of Eden where man was well provided then you can say we humans are basically peaceful but if you are of the view that we evolved from a lower species then what’s innate is the basic instinct – survival, hunger and fear defines and shapes our behavior. Let me tell you having watched many survival shows that a peaceful man will not last seven days in nature.
So our being peaceful or not only depends on what situation we are in and being peaceful is not something you are predisposed to or are born with.
Babar Mustafa