Choose terror of love over war.

Byline: HEART TO HEART By Krishna Singh For The Register-Guard

"Truth is the highest thing, but higher still is truthful living." - Guru Nanak 

If I succumb to the illusion that you are a stranger, I will never be able to live the truth. Between you and me, O my Other, my Friend, we share a reality that is even more intimate and lovely than the bond I share with myself. If I can't see God in you, I shall never see God at all. We can easily pass each other on the street as strangers. But this is a false understanding of who we are, as human.

To share the heart of our humanity, as the divinity that exists between us, can be overwhelming. We run to avoid such intimacy. Voices rise up within us that say, "Don't do it. Don't do it." These are the voices of our fear, the forces inside that bring failure. To know you requires that I disclose myself to you. To have the strength of nerve and character to disclose ourselves sometimes involves a risk that is terrifying.

What is the alternative? War is the extreme alternative. War is hostility between strangers. So which is more terrifying? The terror of love? Or the terrors of war? We have to choose which terror we'll face. Today, one or the other seems inescapable. No more fence-sitting. Which option shall we choose, my Friend? To dare to cross the terrifying barriers to love? Yet where will we end up if we choose to remain in the egotism of hatred and revenge, if not the terrors of war?

Guru Arjan Dev, whose mastery of writing and music established the legacy of Sikh Dharma, was martyred by the empire of his day, rather than compromise the integrity of his word and his heart. He faced hatred with pure love.

He was forced to sit for five days and nights on a red-hot iron plate, over a roaring bonfire, until his flesh was cooked. He was alive, aware of radiantly loving for five days, until the very end. A Muslim saint offered to intercede on his behalf, but Guru Arjan Dev said, "No. This is to demonstrate that humanity must learn the mastery of death. I am doing this so my Sikhs may understand how to endure in loving-kindness, should such circumstance ever befall them as well."

For five days and nights, his every breath spoke gratitude to the infinite power of divine reality: "Thank you. Your will is sweet, O Lord."

Love is the only way. Between us is an Infinity that is unfolding. To participate in this unfolding is the essence of the happiness and realization of our common humanity. The only place where humanity will ever find God is the heart of humanity. If we are to find it, we will find it in each other.