1042:
Non-violence is not new.
It’s as old as the hills and the very bedrock of wise philosophy. But because it has no form, no presence and
no outlet, it can only stands like a beacon to light the way for a possible
future. True to character, it doesn’t push itself forward, but steps back and
allows violence to pass by, to make us remember that we exist in a world where
violence still rules.
But it has a presence in the bigger picture, the picture of
the future, where violence looks like something crude and irrelevant.
There will always be conflict and differences of opinion,
but just before we resort to lashing out, it would be good to consider other
ways of dealing with one another. If
non-violence has any voice at all, it will say “calm down” in the middle of a
heated argument. It applies the brakes
just in time, in order to avoid an explosion.
Its value is in avoiding the long up-hill struggle to repairs things when
they’ve gone violent.
Non-violence keeps high emotions under control, working on a
sort of count-to-ten principle. And when
it comes of age, when non-violence becomes the dynamic tool we use almost
unselfconsciously, then it must be a fearless tool which inspires us to engage in
robust interaction.
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