China has warned world leaders and politicians against meeting the Dalai Lama, saying it would be perceived as a ‘major offence’!
I smiled as I read this headline; I’d seen the Dalai Lama many years ago; a man who’s very personality exuded such peace and tranquility, one came away feeling blessed and sanctified.
I’d not seen any Tibetan army around him, no soldiers with machine guns, not seen any sign of bulletproof vest on him; everything around him was about calm and quiet, and then I had watched videos of the Chinese army; marching in brutal formation to scare the living daylights of the viewer.
Faces impassive, trying to feign harshness, cruelty and glazed warlike look, jaws jutting in defiance, mouths curled in a surly grimace. Ready to take down any foe who stood in their way.
Yet, scared of the strong arm of peace.
The world has seen such muscle in many: Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Jesus, and others who changed the world not with guns but with a smile. Not killing bullets, but tender words. Not temper and angry rhetoric but gentle, soothing utterance.
And always, yes always, it’s the strong arm of peace that’s won in the end!
The men of war do come back victorious but are soon sent packing home. Churchill won the war, but four months later, lost an election. So, with others across the world. We all, I’m sure know Aesop’s fable about the wind and the sun:
The wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said, “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger You begin.”
So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew, the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak around him, till at last, the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on and took it off!
“You see my friend,” said the sun to the angry wind, “Gentleness works!”
Today I see Windy Trump berating the rest of the world with his missile and machine gun, rousing a rabid Korean pup from his idle barking and building rifts and walls with the Islamic world. The same with China, as its soldiers glare and blow hate on countries that don’t follow its thinking.
Somewhere behind a cloud, the sun shines, patient and waiting, hoping to envelop an edgy, oppressed world with peace and harmony!
I remember the Dalai Lama and will watch as China crumbles finally, under the strong arm of peace..!
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