The art of warfare is inherent in all spiritual cultures – even in the Vedic culture. In some cultures, such as the Japanese one, this art is most prominent and takes the form of various martial disciplines like Kung-Fu, Jujitsu, Karate and so forth. It is interesting to note that these disciplines do not merely consist of martial training but comprise an essential spiritual component as well. This article attempts to elucidate its relevance to the modern era, dominated by technological and essentially materialistic modes, by exploring the different dimensions of warfare and the spiritual alternative to modern warfare.
The Evolution of Warfare
One of the basic necessities of the human being is to defend himself. Even prior to the advent of civilization in the modern age, early man felt the need to defend himself against a variety of threats - from vanquishing predators to defeating hostile tribes. He is typically depicted holding a spear, made with something as rudimentary as a tree branch and a stone sharpened by merely another stone. This marked the first instance of our ancestors having employed their evolved brains in order to invent a weapon. The invention of fire, ironically kindled in a similar way by the repeated impact of two stones, marks another milestone in harnessing the forces of nature which would later form the basis of military bombs and incendiary missiles. Organized defence subsequently took birth with the development of civilization and man felt the need to marshal its strongest and most agile towards a united front, in the face of those who sought to subvert and overthrow its society. This eventually led to the creation of various weapons, military strategies, sophisticated tools of assault and defence, and military tactics. The recent era has been marked by the development, through science and technology, of a gamut of automatic guns (pistols, AK-47s, shot guns, sniper guns, etc), various missiles manned by autonomous guidance systems, EMF gizmos and nuclear bombs.
Figure: Modern warfare (Credits: Deviant Art - Pinterest)
Modern warfare
Modern warfare, recently however, took a detour precipitated by technological advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI). We are now seeing the creation of AI-powered killer bots equipped with automatic guns, and drones, equipped with missiles, which can be remotely controlled and are equipped with advanced target locking systems. Technology may replace humans entirely with robots in the armies of the future, and the frenzy towards robotics nowadays may very much be motivated by a military objective. This premise is based on the fact that a major portion of the funding for technological advancement is derived from military research budgets.
Figure: Military drones (Credits: News Decoder)
The post-modern era has also seen the development of cyber warfare as a means to destabilize the technological infrastructure of countries which are key national interests. Most major cyber-attacks target critical military, industrial and scientific research institutes, and these breaches can number as many as several per minute. A breach leading to a technical malfunction in nuclear power grids or nuclear weapons facilities can lead to major disasters, thus destabilizing entire countries. AI has, in turn, been deployed to monitor and counter these attacks autonomously. AI-powered antiviruses for civilian use are already available, e.g Sophos Intercept, and AI is already being integrated in antivirus software native to operating systems such as Windows, e.g Windows Defender.
Another notorious way in which nations envisage warfare nowadays is through chemical and biological weapons, as we have witnessed recently. The use of chemical weapons in Syria during the term of US President Barack Obama, and his decisive action against it marks a new era of warfare. Furthermore, the current Covid-19 pandemic may be the first instance in the 21st century when a biological virus was weaponized and unleashed globally. Today, there is little doubt that Covid-19 is nothing but an instance of biological warfare by the Dragon country in an attempt to counter the American hegemony – a very well orchestrated and successful coup. I explore this possibility in a controversial article entitled Covid-19: An Antithesis.
The Military Industrial Complex
However, we will not comprehend the modern context of militarization without understanding the underpinnings of its logical infrastructure - the Military Industrial Complex (M.I.C). The pursuit of military development as an industry since the beginning of the 20th century gave rise to a full-fledged hegemony in the form of the Military Industrial Complex: an informal alliance between a nation’s military (primarily the US military) and the defence industry that supplies it, constituting a vested interest that influences policy-making at the highest instances of global decision. This has arguably been one of the most powerful lobbies in the history of the United States - the others being, of course, Big Pharma, Wall Street and the Drug Cartels. Consequently, the lobby of the M.I.C has had a powerful sway over US Foreign Policy ever since. One of the factors that typically influences America’s decision to go to war is (wait for it) the date of expiry of its military stockpiles! These powerful forces have, since long, undermined nationhood in the United States and resulted in furthering America’s reliance on the triangle of technological militarization, economic development and capitalism. This has resulted in the institutionalisation of the corporate culture across the professional spectrum and very high levels of materialism and corruption.
Figure: The Military Industrial Complex (Credits: Southern Cross Review)
Hence, since the world, more or less, emulated the American model, this resulted in the whole society drifting away from the real roots of civilization – nature. A natural lifestyle is based on a closeness with nature, a spiritual connection with the universe and filial social relationships centred around the Supreme. However, exploiting the resources of nature in an attempt to lord over it, in order to create a false and temporary notion of hedonistic happiness, based on confrontational materialism, gradually came to be the de facto lifestyle of everyone, and it was accepted almost without question. Nevertheless, society can depart from nature only up to a certain point, until its ways start creating significant disturbances in the cosmic order, which is when nature decides to strike back. This is precisely what we have been seeing in the last century: rapid material development and consumerism, based on the exploitation of scarce natural resources enabled by the US war machine. However, this over-exploitation of nature has, in turn, led to the very ills that today besiege our planet: climate change, pollution, ecosystem destruction etc…
This is set to change as the re-emergence of various powerful spiritual movements around the world has contributed to a strong sense of awakening and verily the interconnection of the human race via the global infrastructure of the internet meant that this change has diffused to all the corners of the globe. When change happens in one part of the world, it is easily echoed across the other thanks to the internet, which remains a critical tool for our freedom. America, or any other emerging power for that matter, needs to decouple the Military Industrial Complex from the material progress of society and leave the latter to be healed in nature’s bosom. I wish and hope that the coming future sees the human society recognize the fallacy of the materialistic way of life through a genuine spiritual culture which would lead us to reconnect with our roots in nature.
Spiritual Warfare
Nevertheless, a discussion of warfare is incomplete without approaching alternatives to materialistic methods of warfare. What is not popularly known and understood, is that there are many methods of spiritual warfare – ranging from psychic ones to full-fledged spiritual ones. The psychic ones can range from benign inquisitions into people’s minds and to full possession of an individual’s body and consciousness. Furthermore, various modes of spiritual attack include mantric and tantric warfare. Mantric warfare - developed to its fullest state in the Vedic culture - implies precipitating various causal effects and phenomena in the material world through the power of sound or ether. For instance, the utterance of one specific mantra can bring about an instantaneous shower of arrows. Tantric warfare involves the employment of occult means (tantra) to bring about the enemy’s immediate defeat or death. Unrealistic though it may seem but such arcane knowledge is indeed described in various scriptures of the world but have been confined – for obvious reasons – to certain mystery schools.
Figure: Tantra (Credits: Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma)
On another note, spiritual practice itself leads to the awakening of various energies within the body, which can confer uncommon prowess to someone. The full development of one’s spiritual talents results in the possession of these energies, conferred by the kundalini shakti - a secret source of mystical energy harboured at the bottom of the human spine near the coccyx, which enables spiritual ascension. I have extensively documented this mystical energy source in my first book, The Spiritual Science of the Vedas (available on all major ebook platforms). These spiritual powers would confer upon the spiritual practitioner the ability to be able to control different forces of nature, including the ability to vanquish an opponent in combat through display of spiritual energies – the likes of which are seen only in Hollywood productions like The Last Airbender. Because we have these talents inherent within us since time immemorial, they manifest as our fantasies in pop culture.
Figure: Spiritual Warrior (Credits: Spiritual Warrior Path)
Superiority of spiritual warfare
It is beyond doubt that spiritual warfare is, hence, vastly superior to materialistic modes of assault because it is power that comes "from God through God". Man is made in the image of God and is conferred upon these powers when he regains his divinity as Son of God. What our ancients were able to do, merely 5000 years ago, in the Mahabharata can only be second guessed today. The degree of development of spiritual warfare was incredible and we can imagine – yet again in film only – how advanced it was. When the Mahabharata hero Arjuna, and his eternal friend and divine charioteer, Sri Krishna, stopped the wheel of time (Kaal-Chakra) in order to disarm Bhishma, the celebrated grandsire of the Kuru dynasty, and pepper him with arrows, this was an awe-inspiring moment in spiritual warfare. This was done because Bhishma was such an accomplished spiritual warrior that it was impossible to stall his incessant attacks. Arjuna had mastered all techniques of spiritual warfare and all his arrows unleashed by his famous bow, the Gandiva, were no less than missiles imbued various spiritual energies and decoded with mantras which were the passwords to their manifestation. Yet, in spite of all his spiritual mettle, he had a hard time defeating all the military phalanxes of the senescent Dvapara Yuga (Bronze Age). We can only imagine, then, how advanced was spiritual warfare in those times.
Figure: Arjuna of the Mahabharata era (Credits: Quora)
Singularity and hybrid warfare – the future
The future of warfare will invariably be marked by two main currents: technological singularity (when machines achieve superintelligence) and hybrid warfare in which spiritual techniques are employed materially. We have already seen the use of such techniques as remote viewing in North America and Russia, in which spiritual agents psychically penetrate remote military infrastructures in an attempt to elucidate their military facilities and strategies. This is an instance of a hybrid spiritual technique employed to create an inquisition into a foreign facility. The emergence of machine superintelligence may see the rise of a General AI endowed with a spiritual consciousness, much like Vision of the Avengers saga. We often anticipate the future in our films: what was science fiction yesterday often comes reality soon enough - such is the pace of technological disruption. If humans come to further develop their spiritual talents, we may even see some who possess augmented spiritual techniques such as interference telemetry in which we are able to influence electronic equipment at will. We may even come to the point of being able to download information from electronic equipment simply through the advanced development of consciousness. That is an awesome future for tech savvy spiritual savants! It will denote a new era in human-computer interaction. All of this may lead to a polarization in approaches to war – on one side, the materialistic or technological approach, on the other side, the purely spiritual approach - verily a polarization between the forces of light and darkness which we will witness in the new Age of Aquarius.
Figure: Vision of the Avengers series (Credits: Esquire)
Back to the nature
However, if we are to reason sensibly at all, we will realise that militarization itself is futile. Reaching the heights of spiritual advancement will render obsolete all forms of assault, war and weaponry since we will have understood the value of living in spiritual and universal brotherhood. There is, furthermore, certainly, no need of looking upon space as a war zone nor for the fantasies of a ‘space force’, nor even looking for the next planet for human settlement. Our planet is more than enough for our happiness, and space is a domain better left alone for scientific exploration to decipher the mysteries of the universe.
To conclude, I invite you to read the Dhanurveda, for more information on the science of warfare in Vedic times, and to consider reading His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami’s numerous books, for an exposition on the glory of our ancient Vedic past and authentic spirituality.
Thanks to my wonderful audience for being part of this amazing journey!
Om Tat Sat.
© Nithin P. Gukhool (Krishna Leela Prakash)
22 January 2021 - Republic of Mauritius.
Further reading
1) The Dhanurveda:-
2) Spiritual Warrior: Uncovering psychic truths in spiritual phenomena - book by Bhakti Tirtha Swami:-
https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Warrior-Uncovering-Psychic-Phenomena-ebook/dp/B005P1AZTA/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1611252343&sr=8-1 (B.T Swami, 2011)
3) Remote Viewing book:-
(Remote Viewing Secrets, McMoneagle, 2013)
The author: N.P Gukhool (Krishna Leela Prakash)
The Guru: His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada