The city of love was shaken with a series of meticulously planned and coordinated suicide bombings and mass shootings on the evening of 13 November, 2015. This deadly act of war planned in Syria, organized in Belgium and executed with the help of French. The ISIL called this hellish act as revenge for French involvement in Iraqi and Syrian civil war. Dalai Lama, the living embodiment of humanity and compassion, has a message for us.

"We cannot solve this problem only through prayers. I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place. We need a systematic approach to fostering oneness and harmony. If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody's interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments."

The Dalai Lama never ceases to amaze us with his profound thoughts on humanistic values. His advice was not to pray for Paris, but to work for peace. Needless to say, peace comes at a price and it definitely doesn’t show up at the cost of the lives of fellow human beings. We are all human before anything! It is sad to see countries committing diabolic deeds in the name of peace. Clearly we have different definitions of peace today. The degree of violence is growing exponentially with the redefinition. The violence we observe is the potential outcome of unsettled issues between rival nations. It is an emotional outburst that is deadly beyond the realm of credibility. Rumors have it that the bombers were on drugs which helped them to stay awake for many nights and kill without feeling anything. Yes, apparently there are drugs to practice sin. I wonder if there is any drug to feel more human. I also wonder if we should fear advancement in science and technology. God bless us! Should we call this as an age of sheer ignorance? Civil war for attaining inner peace, really?

The US cities welcomed refugees. So did Canada. The city of romance, aka Paris is bestowed with both political and military power after the war. We are still far from global harmony and integrity. With all respect, showing sympathy after a war is not integrity in true sense. The undeniable fact is that we can never prepare our homeland for mass horror and heinous crimes. It is time the human race got savvy and did the right thing to stop terrorism. It is a single shot. Terrorism is a human made unlike natural calamity. So, there are better things we could do other than just disaster management. We need to BELIEVE that we can do better than missile launching and burning candles in response to terror.

Today terrorism is not a go-to solution for the youth of Muslim nations only. You will agree more when you google the list of terror attacks happened in 2015. You may need to scroll down. Like, a lot. It is heartbreaking to know that suicide bombers are usually less than 30 years. We can end this by finding ways to combat poverty and injustice in the world. Promoting political reform in weak or failing states of Muslim is a nice way to start. It is important to address conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism and suppress new recruits. Much appreciation to civil-society initiatives that is devoted to bridge the gap between Americans and Muslims. A number of initiatives, led by governments seek, in particular, to bring to the fore voices promoting tolerance and non-violence, to highlight the plight of victims of terrorism and encourage solidarity with them. It is the feeling of hopelessness, anger and frustration that drives young minds to fight holy wars for a living. Education and employment guarantee a purpose for the youth who otherwise commit to terrorism on a whim. This is a better strategy, one that out wins the prospect of nuclear weapons for solving issues. Weapons only fuel hatred and animosity, which does no good whatsoever. We can solve our most difficult political problems when we accord respect to everyone’s understanding of those problems. We do not need an ideologically driven society to restore goodwill. We need a pragmatic one that accommodates all that we know and feel. Let us not kill ourselves over superficial differences based on religion. No religion justifies mass murder or hostage-taking. And it’s never too late to stop teaching hate. How wonderful it would be to spread nothing but love and compassion. "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind", Gandhi ji said. We are one people and we are running out of love. It’s time we humble up, heal the world and make it a better place. Isn’t it?