Thank you DK Matai for your post.

The doctrine of Ahinsa, is indeed an inspiration for living with impeccability. Non-harm in thoughts, words and actions.

"To one who follows this doctrine, there are no enemies".

Little babies embody this after birth.

There seems to be no violence or need to hurt, when one is very young, or very old.

"once a man, twice a baby" is an expression I recently heard.

Why do we lose our way, in the growing up years? Lose our ability to allow for diversity of expression and forms, to act from care and tolerance, and kindness?

This year I have been involved in several peaceful 'protests'. Peace presence, as I like to say. Gathered with others, to speak, sing, and listen.

The 'force' of peace is Alive and growing.

Love,
~ Kate

Non violence is not out of fashion. More and more people are becoming dumber and dumber to understand it and appreciate it.

Don't be surprised if people say that Gandhi is responsible for the deaths in their family.

Thank you for your kind thoughts, observations and views.

The dumbing down of society is linked to the lack of curiosity. If we remain curious then it is easier to be aware of creative solutions, non-linear solutions.

Those non-linear solutions lead us towards new ways of looking at challenges and thus towards non-violent and diplomatic conduits.

Yours ever

DK

DK Matai
The Philanthropia, ATCA, mi2g.net

The concept of non-violence sounds so good on paper. Indeed Gandhi was able to shame the British into retreating from India by employing the “weapon” of non-violence. A child indeed has no enemies because she isn’t in a position to harm anyone. Nobody has ever seen anyone hunting for cows because the cow is the meekest of all animals.

But the point is if you see your kid being molested by someone, how would you react? The kid certainly has done no harm to the molester; nor have the cow and chicken, to the beef-eater and the chicken-eater respectively. Ever wondered why only the weak and helpless animals are served on our dinner tables? Cows, lambs, chickens, goats—we have eaten them all. But you will never ever see a lion dish on a menu. Lion, unlike a cow, knows how to protect himself. And indeed we have designated lion as the king of the jungle. Cow has no hell of a chance to be enthroned the queen of the jungle!

Our love and admiration of aggression and war is clearly reflected in our lingua franca as well. All languages in the world have their equivalents of “lion-hearted” and “chicken-hearted”. Lion-hearted of course means brave, adventurous, and gallant. Chicken-hearted of course is used in a highly derogatory sense to mean a coward, a wimp, a sissy. Why such bias against such a delicious item of food that stimulates our palate like nothing else?

In our heart of hearts we admire someone who we fear; there’s a saying in Hindi that you can’t love someone unless you are also afraid of them ( Bhaye bin hoye na preet). Love without fear is either pity or a sign of insecurity.

Gandhi used non-violence more as a political weapon than as a moral one. He always said that when he was advocating non-violence he was talking political wisdom, and not adhering to the edicts of some ancient Indian morality or ethics. He wrote many letters to “Brother Hitler” teaching him the virtues of non-violence. But when he was shown the pictures of the victims of the Holocaust, he immediately endorsed the physical liquidation of Hitler.

An Indian mystic said that turning the other cheek when you are slapped by someone is the ultimate humiliation you can mete out to your attacker. By not retaliating you’ve reduced him to a non-entity, as if he doesn’t even exist. For what? Because you want to reach the goal of having the world at your feet some day!! You want to win the Nobel Prize for Peace! You want Oscar award winning movies to be made on you!

Every foreign dignitary visiting India goes to the Samadhi (Cremation Spot) of Gandhi. He stands in silence for a few minutes and then signs a guest book. “We must walk on the path shown by Gandhi”, “Gandhi’s message of non-violence is more relevant today than it ever was”, “We must try and discover the Gandhi in ourselves”. From President George Bush to the Paki self-appointed President General Musharraf, every Tom, Dick and Harry, who goes by the appendage of a “world leader” of the day, has written such things in that guest book.

It ought to be obvious that Gandhi lives only as a symbol today—a symbol of peace, and universal brotherhood. India has designated him the Father of the Nation. Indeed Gandhi deserves this title, the epitome of all virtues that he was. He practiced first and preached later.

In the 21st century world of today, we only preach, preach and preach. To use non-violence as a weapon you have to be braver than a lion; you have to be absolutely dead in your body; resist the aggressor you will but only passively. If you see an evil being committed, be an active obstruction without in any way injuring the evil doer. Under no circumstances you shall strike back. Men, women and children dying at their posts without fleeing, without retaliating in any manner is the highest form of bravery the world has ever seen, says the Father of the Indian Nation.

Can you do it? If you can’t, please stop “discussing” non-violence for God’s sake!!

Sanjeev

DK:

I think the concept of Ahimsa and Non-violence is not a simple - "Turn the other cheek" concept! It has to be put in context always.

Gandhi's own experiments in non-violence were indeed praiseworthy and great... until the subject was he himself! When he as much as "demanded" it of others , then he entered a dangerous territory!

I believe two things about Non-violence:

1. In itself, it is not a Moral.
2. If at all, it is a Personal Virtue!

It is pretty presumptuous of anyone to ask others to remain silent or fold their hands when faced with dangers! Gandhi would have never understood the feelings and constraints of a Father whose daughter was raped and killed in front of him...

.. and for a person would was famed to have not recommended a kid to stop eating sugar when he himself had the same vice... because he had not conquered that situation himself...

.... dont you think it was rather ironic that he went about thrusting the "Non-violence" medicine down people's throat when he could not possibly have understood their pain?

Now, to understand my first point, please read Gita... something that Gandhi almost sweared by but could not completely understand. In Gita, Duty was paramount.. non-violence wasn't! Krishna could bow to Bhishma despite being from the "other" side because he was great in doing his duty!

Now, how does Duty govern Non-violence? If you see A killing B with a knife. What is your duty as a human being? Non-violence or Saving B - even if it involves hitting B? IS going for hunger strike at that point or calling for love "Non-Violence" or "Inaction"???

Does your Non-Violence Act help the Violent or the Victim??

Once you answer THIS question, your context will be very clear.

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

"Non-violence or Saving B - even if it involves hitting B"

should have been

"Non-violence or Saving B - even if it involves hitting A"

Dear Sanjeev

For many powerful leaders and followers of Realpolitik, the option of non-violence and the diplomatic solution no longer exists. For them, the only option that remains is the bomb and bullet one. It is in this context that one moots the question, "Is non-violence out of fashion in the 21st century?"

Non-violence is not the only option but it is worthy of consideration for the simple reason that it then seeks communication and co-operative dialogue as the next step.

Thank you for your thoughts and I remain

Yours ever

DK

DK Matai
The Philanthropia, ATCA, mi2g.net

Dear Desh

I note your philosophical point and what one needs to reflect on is the collective good and well being of a society at a macro level.

In the battle for hearts and minds, where empathy is necessary, non-violence as a doctrine has an important place amongst the options available. It should not be discounted outright as of no value. Are we, in the West, realistically winning the battle for hearts and minds? If not, our soft power, our values-driven power, is eroding very fast!

I agree with you that different personal circumstances may provoke untoward reaction and yet it is imporant to remember that the road less travelled by, the non-violent road, may also have some outcomes which are mutually beneficial to both interlocutors, where the interlocutors are complex and large societies with vulnerable children, women and old people.

Take the example of the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Hezbollah around 10th July which sparked off this massive conflict between Israel and the Lebanon on 12th July. The dire consequences are over 1,000 Lebanese dead -- many children and women -- and nearly 140 Israelis dead. Over one million people in the Lebanon are now displaced according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Similarly a million Israelis are living in underground bunkers.

1. Was the "violence option" the right one or the only one, in retrospect?

2. In this context, the request for an urgent cease fire, which has belatedly culminated in UN Resolution 1701, is essentially a clarion call for bipartisan non-violence in the interest of collective humanity.

3. We forget our responsibility for fellow humans on both sides of the conflict at our own peril, if we do not remind ourselves and the interlocutors of the non-violence option. In mass violence, not just the aggessors, but the observers -- as an "advanced civilisation" -- may be dehumanised in the process.

"All we are saying, is give peace a chance!" (Lennon)

Best wishes and I remain

Yours ever

DK

DK Matai
The Philanthropia, ATCA, mi2g.net

DK:

I agree with you about the peaceful resolutions and the importance of non-violence. I personally am loathe to look for a violent solution to any dispute too and have a high regard for Ahimsa as a Personal Virtue! But I forward Non-violence as a panacea with caution!

Your example about Lebanon and Israel is a good one - but it looks at the picture from a very short-temporal perspective. An incident in itself may not be important - but the baggage that weighs on it makes it either catastrophic or otherwise.

In that past lies the seed of that decision.

I have written a post on Newsvine (http://drishtikone.newsvine.com/_news/2006/08/10/320444-islamic-fundamentalism-and-the-modern-freedoms)

When you read that post, it will be easy to jump to conclusions and make your mind on whether you agree or disagree with that viewpoint... but I request you to NOT do that. After the post are a series of comments from variouos people and in a way those comments will "better" explain my post.. so please do read them too... and you will know why I say so.

Dk - it is easy to judge the "decision" at a point in time.. but difficult and burdensome to parse out the baggage behind it. The trouble with the world today is that either that baggage is analyzed with Politically correct glasses or with fundamentalist ones! Both are the "Brainless" Solutions - kind of like Govinda movies.. you dont need to think.. just take your brain out and put it in the freezer for three hours.. and come back happy.. and smacking! Rarely do we look at a "baggage" and say .. "Can someone please own their share please??"

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Non-violence is not a fact.

There is only violence and ending of that violence.

Dear Desh,
I agree when you say 'Non-violence' cannot be mandated. This is very apparent in the world scene, and in communities across the earth.

Inherent in the birth of form - is the desire to live. Evolution of human form seems to prove this. No matter how we kill form, or in the 'natural' process of dying due to illness, or old age - it keeps reappearing.

What replicates in form, besides the anatomy?
Thought systems, and beliefs.

DK offers in this post - the doctrine of Ahinsa - which allows for an individual (as well as a community) to choose and replicate as a way of life, a belief in non harm, in thoughts, words and actions.

To me, this is worthy and reflects the inherent nature of humans, born with the desire to live!

Somewhere in the process of birth and growing up, in discovering and learning, the value of diversity, uniqueness, and creativity - is dimmed. Often to die first in 'spirit' and then in death of the physical form.

What could we, would we Be, without the individual and collective 'baggage'. Maybe ... Happy, Loving, Free.

~~ Kate

Dear Kate, dear all

Knowledge of history: how we got where we got to, baggage if you will, is absolutely critical to understanding the present reality and it is also essential to stop ourselves collectively from repeating the diabolical mistakes of the past.

The end-stages of the Second World War with the Horishima and Nagasaki A-bomb explosions, paved the way for the development of the psychology of the cold war. For example, non-violence became the wise choice for two super powers when the Cuba missile crisis erupted in full in 1962. Otherwise, both the US and the USSR knew, there was Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).

In the same way, beyond a certain point of criticality it makes no prudent sense to engage in violence because there is the MAD doctrine at play albeit at a less grand scale.

The words of the poet Saadi inscribed at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, are worth notings:

"Children of Adam all come from the same source

When one is wounded, all share the pain

He who cannot feel the pain of others

Cannot call himself Son of Man."

With warm regards

DK

DK Matai
The Philanthropia, ATCA, mi2g.net

am glad .. we got to discuss non voilence here. wonder if we all differ in its merit as being an option to the madness we see today.

I do believe men ( humans ) will continue to fight till the last man stays. unless a feeling of Ahimsa arises. Ahimsa could be painfull and may not show its effect in immediate terms, but will gradually lead to lasting peace ( if there is such a thing as lasing peace)

Dk, great blogpost. I like Ahimsa spelled with the M,(Ahimsa) rather than N,(Ahinsa) like Desh and others. I apologise for being picky.

Yesterday, I had the good fortune of speaking to a sage from India. When asked this question, his answer was that, Arjuna was not allowed to flee the battle field, and was made to do his duty. So each one of us should do our duty. That is our Dharma. For a kshatriya, there is Dharma in self defense, and protection of what is rightfully his.

I am a firm believer in Peace. Thank you D K. Namaskar.

Dear Geeta

Namaskar!

Duty lies in listening to the clarion call of the conscience and making sure that whatever one does is not fundamentally damaging humanity, which at the end is, us.

Yours ever

DK

DK Matai
The Philanthropia, ATCA, mi2g.net

Ahimsa will never be obsolete. It's the very first ethical principle for yogi, yogini, and mankinkind. Thanks, DK, for the post.

Dear Geeta, much pain in the world has originated from a literal understanding of the Gita. Discrimination, even as we execute our dharma, is a must, I believe.
Love,
Donatella

Oops, DK, you had already answered Geeta saying eloquently what I said in my post.
Also, please read "mankind"

Post #12 = "When one is wounded, all share the pain

He who cannot feel the pain of others

Cannot call himself Son of Man."

Amen to that, DK!!

North

Dear DK,

Gandhi's concept of "Ahimsa" needs to be seen alongside his other key idea of "Satygraha" - passive resistance. This is where the real power of non-violence comes into play. It's about replacing aggressive power with a more powerful type of assertiveness. It's not about simply being nice to people!

Best wishes

Simon Keyes

DK

Great post.

I don't know much about the subject. Know close to nothing about Ghandi and although I was alive to see Martin Luther King Jr. march and be assassinated I know little of his philosophy. I do believe that if Ghandi had opted for blowing up government buildings and conducting raids on innocent people there is a great chance the British would still be in India. And if Martin had proposed to use those same methods in America, well, I leave it up to the imagination.

I'm a simple man with simple views. I do believe without a shadow of a doubt that the only way to a world in harmony is to stop using every and any form of violence. As long as there is one shred of aggressive energy being exuded we will not see a world at peace with itself.

Desh

Interesting opinions in post #5. The idea of asking people to act in a subscribed manor to a situation the prescriber has not her / himself faced. It leads me to wonder if you actually faced the situation of an "A" killing a "B" with a knife and if so what you actually did in the situation. I think in this dialogue it is important to stick to real world situations, like the present Lebanon-Isreali conflict. "What if" scenarios are seldom helpful in a meaningful dialogue.The truth is we will never know what would have happened in India and America "if" Ghandi and King had chosen to use violence. See I break my own rukes of engagement.

DK

A story if I may.

In 1987 I was walking through Zürich Switzerland's main train station. I observed a group of skin heads chasing a skinny young man and yelling at him. It was the middle of the day and there were hundreds of people around but nobody was paying the least bit of attention to the activity.

A short time later in another part of the station I came across the group, about 4 young skin heads, and the young skinny kid was surrounded by the 4 and on the ground. A young girl was holding him by the hair and kicking him repeatedly. I immediately felt that this shouldn't be and looked around to see if I had any agreement. To my amazing the passersby were going about their business as if nothing unusual was happening. Something inside me said, "No this is impossible." "The world cannot continue to turn a blind eye to all the injustices that happen around it."

(As an aside) I am a New Yorker and spent my formative years watching people step over cold, hungry, poor, freezing bodies lying on the sidewalks of Manhattan as if they weren't there.

Without thinking or planning I went into the circle and grabbed the young lady by the shoulder. She immediately released her grip on the young skinny guys hair and proceeded to kick me repeatedly in the shin with heavy black military boots. Now the force was not great enough to break my leg but I must say it was causing me quite a bit of discomfort.

To this day I don't understand why I didn't throttle her right there and then. I'm not the kind of guy that takes a kicking sitting down. Or so I'd like to believe I'm not. There was some other force there with me. Of that I am convinced. I just stared into her eyes as she repeatedly kicked me and then even the pain was blocked. The skinny kid had scuttled away on the floor and made his exit.

I remember that she was with a big guy, a head taller then me dressed in all black with a swastika carved into his forehead. He was standing to my left and all of a sudden I was concerned that he was going to deal a lethal blow to me. With the young lady still wailing away at my shin I turned to look at my inevitable second attacker. To my utter amazement he was staring out into nothing. He literally wasn't present. It was as if some other force was there guiding all of our actions including my own.

One of the 4 skin heads noticed that their real object of anger was no longer in their presence and as quickly as this whole episode had begun they lost complete interest in me and ran off to find him.

To this day I can't make much sense of what happened and what it was all about. I don't know what people mean when they talk about non violence and passive resistance. As I said before I'm a simple person with a complicated makeup. What I do know is that it is my duty to intervene when I see injury being done to another and that I do not have to use anger provoking violence to achieve the dissolution of the injurious action.

Is non-violence out of fashion in the 21 century. I think among a select few that seem to be in very powerful positions of dicision making yes it is. I like to believe that among the clear majority of us common folk it is very much alive and well.

Just my two cents

LPB

Hi DK, Hi All!
These links may be helpful in arriving at a different perspective.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth/Part_IV/A_Spiritual_Dilemma

rv

Thank you so much DK for raising our awareness. Thank you so much LPB among others to be a living example of it. (I lived in ZRH in 1983, and the ... rather electric quality of vibes were not too easy for me. Good thing there was spiritual compensation with a great yoga school)

In all the variations from unconsciously to consciously according to the individual, we long to constantly BE who we are in our source or core. We are Love, Sacred, Divine. We wish the whole world to be so. How could we wish a world of love and peace if we are not love and peace ourselves? We forget that we always give first, whether we want it or not. There is nothing such as conquering, taking, without generating the same frequencies as those we are acting in - so a concept like war for peace or hate for love, conquering anything by lovelessness and violence is only a renewed generation of lovelessness and violence. Only manifesting our divine Selves could generate such a world. This is our challenge, to find no excuses, to find all the reasons to act from our core, not to react on the same frequency, if what is emitted toward us is of low level, but to stay focused, centred in our source and manifest It ...

... shining Love