Nonviolence - A Way of Life

by Arun Gandhi

M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

Web: www.gandhiinstitute.org

Phone: 901-452-2824

Fax: 901-452-2775

Mailing Address: M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

c/o Christian Brothers University

650 East Parkway, South

Memphis, TN 38104

If we believe that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had the foresight and wisdom to predict the future of the world then we must accept the premise that the problems that society faces today are far deeper than they appear to us. We have been watching with some trepidation the unmistakable erosion of society, of values, of humanity and life in general. As we do with conflicts of any kind we try to either suppress the conflict, ignore it, pretend that it does not exist or, at best, we have tried band-aid therapy as a solution.

Often when I look at the world today from grandfather's perspective, it appears analogous to an inveterate smoker who won't give up, even after being diagnosed with lung cancer. His response to the doctor's warning is:

"I will not give up smoking but you are the doctor and you must cure me."

The doctor does his best, but finally the patient dies and everyone blames the treatment and not the smoker who refused to change his habits. The world persists in following its destructive ways. Wise people like Lord Krishna, the Buddha, Mahavir, Jesus and Muhammad, and more recently Gandhi who extracted his philosophy from the wisdom attributed to these great sages, have tried, like the hapless doctor, to show us a cure.

From his understanding of the scriptures Grandfather concluded that human beings must simplify their lives; they must be governed more by positive attitudes than the present negativity that consumes us; that we must learn to build compassionate communities and not heartless mega cities and human habitation. His philosophy of nonviolence is, therefore, all encompassing. It touches every aspect of human life and appears to be the best prescription for an ailing society. Nonviolence, he said, is not a jacket that you can wear today and discard tomorrow. Indeed, it is the skin that protects the human body from infections and total devastation.

Let us begin with self-examination. In our attempt to build a community we have built gigantic cities where the first lesson people get is the art of self-preservation. Understandably, this leads to selfishness and self-centeredness, the foundation on which negativism is built. When people are concerned only about themselves and their needs respect and compassion are luxuries to be indulged in only when convenient.

So, what was Gandhi's concept of an ideal community? He said a community is where people have a strong relationship with each other; where one would be willing to do something for another; where self-preservation would not be an obsession; where the concept of sarvodaya, welfare of all, would be lived.

I read an article in The New York Times last year written by a correspondent who visited his hometown in the Mid West to reminisce over his childhood. He said the town used to be small and everyone knew each other. Even the shop owners knew the families and the children, so the children dared not misbehave anywhere in town lest it gets reported to their parents. It also brought home to the correspondent that respected each other and were reticent to do anything that could cause embarrassment to one another. The article contrasted that time with the present. The town has now grown to more than three times its size, no one knows anyone any more, and there is none of the homeliness and respect left.

I consider this to be eloquent testimony to what grandfather said many years ago, "Build large cities and you will destroy humanity." Cities have become a conglomeration of neighborhoods, and even neighborhoods are not really a community in the true sense. Often people living in a neighborhood do not know each other. Big city life has made everyone so self-centered that if someone were to take interest in another's activity one would be called "nosey". People have a nodding acquaintance and often not even that.

Some years ago a friend and his wife moved from India to New Jersey. They found an apartment and when moving in and were surprised that none of their neighbors even peeped out of their doors to see who they were. They waited for a few days and then decided to slip an invitation to a Saturday afternoon of tea and snacks in the basement lounge into each mailbox. The residents in the building were surprised and curious. Why would some strangers invite you to tea and snacks, they thought. Out of curiosity many of them came and had a wonderful time. Although many had lived there for a several years they were meeting each other for the first time.

Grandfather saw this erosion of humanity happening in the growing cities around the world. He decided that what was necessary to save the world from the all-consuming violence was to restore humanity, human relations and understanding. As was his wont he taught through practice, not preaching. He started ashrams, two in South Africa and three in India, which were centers for the practice of nonviolent living. These were study and training centers where people experimented with a nonviolent life-style, worked out the kinks in the experiment, and when they were confident went out and started new communities.

In our overwhelmingly materialistic culture the work of nonviolence and transformation of attitudes may appear to be insignificant, but I am sure people said the same thing when Buddha, Mahavir, Muhammad, Jesus and Krishna talked of changes during their lifetime. Although we imbue them with many forms of divine powers, even they were not able to bring about a startling transformation of society. Perhaps society is not meant to be transformed in one swoop. That begs the question. Because a startling change cannot be achieved does it mean we do not attempt any change at all?

Human beings are naturally negative and aggressive because we have trained ourselves over generations nay, over centuries, to absorb such a life-style. However, it is no more natural for us to be negative than it would if a white tennis ball had fallen accidentally into a pile of black coal dust and become black. The ball would remain black if no one bothered to clean it just as we would remain negative if no one showed us another way. Every individual has the capacity to change, but unless we have the courage of our convictions a change becomes impossible. We are prone to another habit that inhibits our transformation; we wait for someone else to take the initiative. The result is that we are all perpetually waiting.

Gandhi insisted nonviolence was about qualitative change in attitudes, in relationship building and sustaining; in learning to deal with anger in a positive manner rather than abusing anger; and creating communities that are compassionate, understanding, accepting and appreciative. We humans tend to exist and go through life mechanically from birth to death, and the purpose in life is the same for us all. We get an education not so much to broaden our perspective and learn about the intricacies of life, but to acquire a career so that we can earn money and be successful. The measure of success is material, how much does one possess, how much does one make monetarily and how high is the ladder that one can climb. Consequently, we have become obsessed with material things. Materialism and morality, Gandhi said, have an inverse relationship, when one increases the other decreases. This is evident today in almost all aspects of our lives.

Nonviolence must bring us back to spirituality; it opens up a new dimension - the religion of ethics and morals. In our narrow-mindedness we have interpreted "rituals" to mean religion. We are ordered to perform all kinds of rituals to be recognized as "religious" people. Often the rituals are meaningless and are performed without any conviction. It is not how many times one prays that matters as much as how sincerely one prays and how much of the prayer, or the scripture, becomes a part of one's life. A person could go to a temple, church or mosque 50 times a day but if the message of the scripture does not help the person become a better human being capable of building better and meaningful relationships, being guided by compassion, love, respect, understanding and acceptance, then all that worship is worthless. We must do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

Today we fight and kill in the name of God. No scripture and no God have ever talked about killing, hating, abusing, and exploiting other human beings. These are man-made emotions and attitudes, which, if not cleansed, will destroy us. A friendly study of all the scriptures, Grandfather emphasized, is the sacred duty of every individual. He made the friendly study and found gems of wisdom in all the scriptures, yet none was perfect. Those religions, which, he said, believe they "possess the Truth", remain stagnant in the mire of ignorance. Whereas those who believe they "pursue the Truth" are constantly searching and changing and reaching higher levels. This has traditionally been the difference between the western family of religions, which believed they possessed the Truth, and the eastern family of religions, which believed they were pursuing the Truth. However, as the west exerts enormous influence over the east the pursuit of Truth has been abandoned and religion has become competitive and divisive.

Grandfather developed the "Religion of Ethics and Morals" which is simple and shorn of all the senseless rituals. Ethics and morals are common to all religious beliefs. One must sincerely and diligently abide by these morals and ethics so that it becomes our religion. We have to bring honesty, truthfulness, compassion, love, respect and all the other positive attributes back into our lives, so that we are obsessed with positive thoughts rather than negative attitudes.

This is why, Gandhi said, nonviolence can never be a strategy for conflict resolution, it must become a way of life.