Image credit : The above image was created by me using an AI chatbot.
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Vithalladas was a Hindu Monk in his forties. He was serving as a volunteer for a prominent humanitarian organization of India, which had a branch in Israel.

Ever since childhood he showed signs of being a bright-minded scholar. As he grew older he became passionately curious in learning about various religions and its philosophies, other than his own.

Which is why, he befriended many scholars, intellectuals, scientists, thinkers, clerics and monks from other religions. To name just a few; Vithalladas befriended Sister Agatha who was fulfilling her duties as a nun for a Catholic organization in Israel.

Other than Agatha, he knew Rabbi Elijah, Father James - The Protestant, Muhammed bin Aabid - who was an equally erudite & a broad-minded religious scholar like Vithalladas, Gururahim Singh - a devout Sikh accountant for a major Guru Dwara in Israel, the twin Buddhist siblings Kannika & Renzin - who were a part of the global Dhamma organization globally famed for their mindfulness courses, a Swetambara Jain Businessman of Indian origin, and an aged Zoroastrian priest.

All of them knew each other for a decade in Israel, so their friendship had become deep-rooted in the present time, and all of them shared a healthy bond with each other even today.

Vithalladas being a well-informed scholar was well aware how things were worsening around the World, from a geo-political perspective. He observed that gradually, humanity was headed towards the next World-War, owing to their religious, cultural and ideological differences, religious extremism, politics of greed, hyper-nationalism, and long-continued territorial disputes.

His fears became true when only a week back, a certain terrorist outfit launched a massive attack on all of Israel's major cities, from air, from land, and by sea, in which many hundreds of innocent citizens of Israel & tourists lost their lives. But the terrorists simply didn't stop their atrocities then & there, as they kidnapped hundred other civilians and took them to Gaza strip, threatening the Israeli government to kill them one by one, if it'd decide to invade Gaza.

Israel being a strong country, affluent with advanced militaristic technology immediately retaliated with multiple-airstrikes on Gaza, killing the many Terrorists and the Palestinian citizens alike. Day by day Vithalladas and his fellow companions observed that tensions were escalating between Israel & Palestine, and they feared that other countries may soon join either Israel or Palestine, which may eventually culminate in the third World War.

It wasn't the only armed conflict in the world at that time. Russia & Ukraine were also at war with each other for two years. Other than these two major conflicts, many other small to medium scaled armed conflicts, insurgencies and civil-wars were ongoing around the globe, which instead of improving were becoming worse with each passing day.

Moreover, many countries such as China, North Korea and Iran and many others, were becoming more & more hyper-nationalistic and were also aggressively engaged in rivalries with their neighbors.

Few autocratic world-leaders of such countries kept on increasing their nuclear arsenals, despite sanctions were already imposed upon them. They repeatedly threatened each other with nuclear-attacks, if anyone would try to stop them from achieving their motives.

Such a fragile environment around the world, made Vithalladas and his friends worry for humanity's future.

All of them decided to meet inside a bunker in Tel-Aviv.

During their meeting Vithalladas broke the ice and told them that if World-Leaders of various countries continued to retaliate the violence of their enemies by an equally destructive counter-violence, then it wouldn't take much time for the entire humanity to be mutually annihilated due to a Nuclear-War.

Since Vithalladas was a science-enthusiast as well, he added that it wouldn't matter to the Universe whether human civilization perishes from Earth or not. For Universe, our tiny blue-planet called Earth is nothing more than a micro-miniscule figment of a sand-particle, and that one of the reasons why there are still no signs of advanced extraterrestrial life-forms anywhere in the Universe, was may be because, just like humans, these life-forms living in various other planets (like Earth) must be unwillingly choosing to destroy each other, before they could become intelligent enough to establish contact among each other.

This is why (Vithalladas continued...) the Universe is a hauntingly empty, dark and infinite void, in which intelligence is a rarity, just like peace.

At first his friends thought that Vithalladas was insane and that he was speaking rubbish, but when the latter argued with them rationally and logically, their defenses were immediately dissolved and they collectively asked him for an alternative solution to the presently hostile situation on Earth, if not violence & war.

With a smile Vithalladas simply said - "We'll have to make an exception in the Universe."

Befuddled, Sister Agatha asked him - "Exception? but how…"

He replied by saying - "If we have so far convinced ourselves that there isn't any intelligent life in the Universe, we must also agree that planetary-wars must be normal in the Universe, while peace must be a rarity."

"And for that…" He continued "... We'll have to counter violence by nonviolence, hatred by love, revenge by forgiveness…Eventually making an exception in the entire Universe."

"We'll have to win the hearts of various aggressors and counter-aggressors, governments and insurgents, communists & capitalists, liberals, conservatives, and nationalists, moderates & extremists…By bravely & openly displaying our kindness, our energetic display of spiritual devotion, one inter-religious unity, and our unconditional love for everyone of them."

"We'll have to sow the seeds of universal harmony inside them, in a hope that it may change their hearts & minds totally, when mutual-empathy would arise inside them, for each other."


Before Vithalladas could continue his rhetoric any further, Kannika - the Buddhist mindfulness teacher laughed, and ridiculed his old-friend by commenting "Are you out of your mind, Swamiji? Do you even know what you are saying or proposing in such a critical situation?"

Others in that bunker immediately laughed in unison. Yet, Vithalladas was undeterred. He argued by saying - "Yes, I know very well that I'd be considered the biggest fool there is for proposing such a deluded solution. I even know that I, and others who may join me in such a hopeless cause would most likely fail or be killed, but still I believe all of us should at least try putting-forward our alternative-solution."

For making his proposal stronger he cited famous historical examples of peaceful movements which non-violently brought forth a social & political change.

He gave examples of Gandhi's non-violent freedom struggle of India, Luther King Jr's civil rights movement for the rights of African-American community in USA, Mandela's Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, Acquino's peaceful opposition against the Phillipian dictator, the spiritually inclined Velvet Revolution meant to protest against the Communist regime in Czech-Slovakia, Aung San Suu Kyi's democratic struggles against Myanmar military, and the peace-movement in USA during their war against Vietnam.

Vithalladas also gave examples from the lives of famous pacifists such as Bertrand Russell, Einstein, John Lennon, the current Dalai Lama, and many spiritualists such as Thich Nath Hanh, Aurobindo, Vivekananda, various Sufi-Saints and the likes of them from various religions.

Eventually the entire inter-faith group was convinced by Vithalladas. They planned to gather at least hundred or hundred and fifty adherents from their religions, in order to orchestrate a peace-rally in Tel-Aviv, meant for interrupting the war between Israel & Palestine.

And just within a few days, all of them proved to be successful in gathering hundreds of volunteers from Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism.

That day the Sun had just risen in the morning when the war-silent Tel-Aviv was awakened by the melodious noises of various folk musical instruments and various devotional hymns from different religions.

The citizens, the soldiers and the authorities of Tel-Aviv noticed that at times, this mysterious crowd would sing devotional-songs from Eastern religions and at other times they'd collectively sing hymns from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

There was curfew in the entire Israel, yet slowly the residents of Tel-Aviv started coming out from their homes in order to actually see where such hypnotizing noises were coming from.

What they saw shocked them beyond every measure.

They watched various volunteers, monks, and renunciates of different ages, genders and nationalities from Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Hinduism and few other Neo-Pagan religions.

All of them were intentionally dressed in the traditional clothes of their religions & cultures. None of them were purposefully dressed in any modern western clothes.

Many of them were displaying huge placards above their heads, in which various Anti-War messages were written in a very infographic manner.

Many others among them were dropping dozens of copies of a multi-page pamphlet (everywhere they walked) in which a plethora of verses from different scriptures of all the major religions were accurately cited. These verses promoted positive qualities like world-peace, non-violence, altruism, charity, mutual tolerance, universal-harmony, free-will, God's redemptive nature, acceptance of diversity and non-coercion of anyone's faiths, respect for Mother Nature et cetera.

The purpose of printing such a pamphlet was to break a dangerous misconception in everyone's minds - that religions justify violence, and to bring about a change of perception in followers of various religions & various ideologies, such that they'd realize the hidden-unity behind the baffling diversity among humans.

An entire team of volunteers among this rally were trained musicians. They were playing various traditional & modern musical instruments, while all others were continuously singing various devotional hymns in different languages, from different religions. To amplify their music & their choir, all of them had microphones and speakers attached to their bodies.

Many of them had open slider-bags clung to one of their shoulders and their waists. These bags were big & wide, overloaded with vivid, fragrant flowers. These volunteers were dropping petals of a handful of these flowers everywhere they walked, in all directions.

Their rally also contained twenty or so climate-scientists all of whom had various forms of placards & flyers, speaking about how wars and human negligence make climate change already worse than it is, and how it'd impact the entire world, pretty soon.

Vithalladas - and his closest friends, the religious leaders who organized this peace-rally were repeatedly giving short-speeches about their agendas behind the rallies.

Throughout their walks, when the music & songs were made to halt for a while, either Vithalladas or any of his close-companions would be heard speaking, on how they are neither on the side of Israel, nor on the side of Palestine, nor were they proposing the recognition of West Bank & Gaza-Strip being given total independence.

Instead, what they were proposing was a one unified, new country which would contain all the parts of Israel, Gaza Strip and West-Bank in which citizens of all the religions would be able to live in mutual cooperation, dignity, and freedom.

They were also repeatedly condemning violence on the part of Israel or by anyone siding with Palestine, and were requesting the Palestinians and the Israelites, the Shia Muslims and the Jews to forget their deep-rooted hatred for each-other by trying to rise up above their various differences & by forgiving each other for the better of mankind, lest the humanity being eradicated from Earth, very sooner.

They also condemned any other such armed conflicts around the world, such as the Russia-Ukraine War, and requested whoever (around the world) would be listening to their speeches, to aim for world-peace!

This rally aimed to reach the Gaza strip, but only after half an hour of their brave experiments Israel's authorities came into action.

They quickly blocked all their paths by surrounding them from every side. After repeatedly warning them to immediately stop their demonstration and return back to their homes, the police started using violent means to curb the rally, when its participants refused to comply.

Within a matter of a few minutes a pandemonium erupted and the organized rally quickly splintered into disorder. All its participants were arrested by the police, none being spared. At least forty or fifty among them, including Pundara himself, Sister Agatha, The Rabbi, and Gururahim Singh were severely injured.

Those who were injured were immediately hospitalized under the strict supervision of the police, while others were straightaway sent to Tel-Aviv's prisons.

But the message which Vithalladas, alongwith his trusted friends and other volunteers were trying to convey to the whole-world was accomplished to a larger extent.

It's because this peace-rally was recorded in various devices of the residents in Tel-Aviv, and in the cameras of various war-time reporters who were present in Israel.

Also the participants of these rallies had dropped so many pamphlets, flyers, and placards around the streets of Tel-Aviv that it became nearly impossible for the Police to grab or destroy each & every of such material.

Soon the pamphlet which the organizers had prepared, was soon digitized, converted into various languages of the world, and made viral on social media.

Almost no authority in the World was completely able to prohibit either these pamphlets or the videos showing this peace-rally, its music, its songs, and all the speeches by all its leaders.

Only days later, few other similar rallies were seen in three major cities in Israel, whose number only kept on increasing in the subsequent seven days.

Clashes continued between the Police and the peace-participants of such rallies. But despite all the injuries neither did their songs stop, nor did their music, or their droppings of flowers & pamphlets around every street & corner, and their speeches.

Then, on a certain miraculous day - many Muslim peace-protesters from the Gaza strip, Westbank, Lebanon and Syria were seen trying to organize similar rallies, protesting against all the Islamist-extremists in their countries.

What happened a week later - surprised the entire World, when protestors from a huge crowd of a unified peace-rally in Israel, met their Muslim counterparts near Gaza. It was for the first time in recorded history when the entire World saw innocent Palestine civilians from Gaza & West bank openly hugging the peace-protests of various religions from Israel, especially the Jews. hundreds of them were seen to be crying, with their heads resting on each-others' shoulders.

This brought about a temporary ceasefire between Israel and all the Islamist-Extremist fighters.

However, such a method of peaceful-protests, catalyzed by the touch of spirituality & devotion, wasn't limited only in this area. Few months later similar non-violent rallies were seen in countries like Russia, Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico, USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and many countries of Europe & Africa.

A year later, it was as if the entire world was overwhelmed by a 'Spiritual-Revolution' and the various positive vibes that spread from it.

Future of World was still uncertain, because many greedy politicians, many autocrates, and religious extremists from various religions were still zealously defending their ideologies and their causes, unwilling to change for the greater good of everyone.

Yet, the thing was very certain. Vithalladas was still lying on a hospital bed due to being critically-injured and his allies had truly created an exception in the entire Universe.

Most of the organizers of the original peace-rally in Tel-Aviv were now released from jails. Though, all of his companions, including Vithalladas were still imprisoned.


© Kishan Trivedi

#writcostory #worldpeace #spiritual #awareness #humanrealitycheck #songs #music #shortstory