How should we apply the Gitas wisdom to the current situation in Iraq?
Qualified violence is an unavoidable reality of this world, even when we view the world from a religious perspective. Everyone embraces the principle of qualified violence on some level. Any sensitive person can feel, however subtle, the spirit of violence behind even the peace protestor’s outrage as they chant for peace or denounce those in favor of war. We live in the human drama at the cost of others. One living being is food for another. In this plane we must kill in order to live, however politely. To do so politely only when absolutely necessary is the religious course of action. Beyond this, the spiritual path leads to the land of the soul proper and absolute nonviolence. Those noble souls who seek complete nonviolence must look beyond the material world, and even the religious world, to this realm of the soul to realize their ideal. In the Gita, Krishna instructs Arjuna on these two levels: the religious and the spiritual, with the former leading to the latter. From the religio
