We know that war must be avoided. We probably recognise that it is not necessarily the case that war should be avoided at all costs. One of the tragedies of human existence is that sometimes the alternative to going to war is more dangerous, or more heinous, than the war itself. Within war, we can be led into perpetrating dreadful acts. Within war, we can be tested in ways we never would have been tested if there had been no war. Within war we can find ourselves being tested to the point of extreme bravery and extraordinary nobility. War is life writ larger and more fearsome than most of us would ever want. We can incur considerable karma when at war. We can also be ‘paying off’ karma when at war. Also, and we forget this at our peril, the events and deeds that lead us to war are rarely the prime movers – the essential causes – of war. War that can lead us into heightened bouts of karmic shifting, is itself the karmic consequence of past, and sometimes even long-forgotten, acts and thoughts.
