The Noose Around Our Necks (Part One)
We are all victims of mistaken identity.
We know that we exist. And we all share a sense of identity which manifests inside of us as a feeling of “I am”. We believe that this “I am” sensation originates within our physical bodies, and that our minds are the products of our brains, and that as a result of this we are limited by both our bodies and our minds.
The teachings of the Sages throughout history tell us that we could not be more wrong. They claim that each one of us is an unlimited expression of a Source that has the power to influence the entire universe, if only we could rid ourselves of the false belief that we are trapped inside our physical bodies.
What these Sages tell us is that everything we see around us is nothing but a stream of images that are projected from within upon our screen of consciousness. And our sense of individuality is derived from the underlying nature of the “I am”, which has its source in the sublime Reality of Transcendental Awareness.
As we become conscious of the vast universe which surrounds us, and which our minds have projected, we are naturally overwhelmed by its majesty and size. Believing ourselves to be captured within the confines of our bodies, we imagine ourselves to be inconsequential specks, lost in an ocean of uncaring space.
We believe that we are victims of alien forces operating in a hostile world which confronts us with dangers on every side. We do not see that we have created this world, and that the dangers which apparently lie in wait for us are nothing more than the phantoms of our own fearful thoughts. The Sage has learned to laugh at the universe and to resist its galaxy of fears.
We are afraid of the universe because we do not understand its nature. We do not grasp how it responds to those thoughts, desires and fears from which it has been built. At the dawn of our experience, we are simply witnessing a parade of images. In time, we learn to objectify these images, believing them to be separate forms physically located in space, and subject to a process called time.
As we grow, we learn to classify these forms. At first, we divide them into those that are living and those that are inert. Living forms are regarded as other creatures while the inert forms become part of our environment. We learn to classify other creatures according to their physical attributes and habits.
This system of classification is most complex in our dealings with those creatures we call human, like ourselves. We learn to regiment these people according to various characteristics and patterns of behaviour, thus classifying people according to such observable differences as sex, colour of skin and other physical features.
We also categorise them according to their habits, dividing them into groups defined by their language, dress, religion, education, abilities, beliefs and inclinations. As we grow in experience, so we learn to separate our experiences into two broad categories.
One of these categories covers those experiences which bring us pleasure, while the other embraces those experiences which bring us pain.
To a very large degree, we strive to order our lives in a way which provides the greatest number of pleasurable experiences, and which limits, as far as possible, those incidents which are painful. The general pattern of this process is determined by our culture, those conditional responses upon which we have learned to organise our lives.
In arranging our lives in ways which are most satisfying, we are inevitably confronted by the problem of good and evil. Our classification of experience into these two opposing groups is determined by our sensory perceptions as well as by the dictates of the society in which we live.
For the most part, those things which bring us pleasure are regarded as good, while those things that bring us pain are thought to be bad. The problem that faces each one of us in in dealing with these twin polarities of good and evil, is that they generally manifest themselves through the direct actions of other people.
Those incidents in life which bring us pain, but which are not ascribed to human agency, such as natural disasters, are regarded as accidents of fortune. They are not considered to be evil in themselves. We are encouraged to deal with these reverses with stoic fortitude.
It is only when pleasure and pain involve other people that the question of good or evil arises. The determination of good or evil is always a subjective judgement, based on direct experience, and moulded by the thinking of society. Different societies have different codes of good and evil.
The fundamental challenge which we face in life is dealing with people who do things which cause us pain.
It is a natural response in life to link other people with the subjective sensations which they invoke in us. If another person acts in a way which causes us pain, the pain that we feel becomes identified with that person. If that action has been defined by our culture as evil, then by extension, we associate this evil with the person involved. Being identified as the agent of this evil, that person becomes, by extension, an “evil” person.
Likewise, if a person does something which causes us pleasure in a culturally acceptable fashion, then that person is regarded as “good”. We transfer our personal feelings onto those people whom we consider to be responsible for them. Depending on the subjective sensations which we feel, we brand others as good or evil.
These judgements are seldom permanent, however, for someone who is classified as good may later come to be regarded as evil, and vice versa. In the process of living our daily lives, we are all faced with the problem of dealing with people who do things which we call evil.
Our natural response against those who do us harm is to retaliate. We wish to repay them for the harm which they have done to us. We therefore transfer our subjective feelings of pain to those persons who are the instigators of these feelings. In like fashion we also come to bear the brunt of that pain which we have caused in others.
This cycle of violence enacted upon the violent is one of humanity’s most ancient and intractable problems. It stems from the enduring desire by people to reward pain with pain.
As we live our lives within our world community, we remorselessly pursue a policy of vengeance, seeking out the perpetrators of evil, and subjecting them to various forms of punishment. But repaying violence with violence can never solve the problem of violence. The cycle of violence simply escalates, involving ever greater degrees of violence, which ultimately embroil more and more people.
This continuing desire to meet pain with pain, violence with violence, and death with death, has created a spiral of conflict which has led, in the course of the last century, to two global wars, and now threatens to undermine the continued existence of all life on this planet. It is a circle which Scottish psychiatrist Ronald Laing likens to a noose around our necks.
“Millions of people have died in this (20th) century and millions more are going to, including, we have reason to expect, many of us and our children, because we cannot break this knot. It seems a comparatively simple knot, but it is tied very, very tight – round the throat, as it were, of the whole human species.” 3
What makes this spiral so difficult to break, and why this knot is tied so tightly around the neck of humanity, is that we all instinctively feel that rewarding pain with pain is the proper response to the harm that is done to us. Yet this emotional reaction defies all reasoned thinking.
The founders of religions and enlightened Sages have tirelessly pointed out the folly of our ways. This continuing cycle of violence meted out in response to violence can never bring violence to an end. In his sermon on the mount, the Prince of Peace told the gathered throng:
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43-44) 4
Five hundred years earlier, the compassionate Buddha had taught: “For hate is not conquered by hate; hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.” 5 In like fashion, the Chinese Sage Lao Tse urged: “To the good I would be good; to the not-good I would also be good, in order to make them good. Requite injury with kindness.” 6
Yet we invariably allow our emotions to dominate this reasoned response. Every day brings home to us the iniquity of evil, the harm which violence brings in its train, and the sorrow and suffering which it entails. We see everywhere the consequences of evil and we resolve firmly to fight against them.
On every side today we are counselled “to take up arms against a sea of troubles”, so that, by opposing, we may effectively end them. This need to oppose evil is clearly expressed in the oft-quoted words of Edmund Burke: “All that is needed for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing.” And what should good men do when confronted by evil? Why, resist it, naturally.
Yet it is precisely by resisting evil that evil is strengthened and perpetuated. Speaking of evil, Jesus told the assembled multitude, “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39) 4
These words of Jesus are seldom taken seriously today. They are not considered to be vital indicators of practical value in dealing with the problem of evil. Nisargadatta Maharaj has reiterated this advice. “It is exactly as Christ said, ‘Resist not evil.’ By resisting evil you merely strengthen it.” 7
The folly of confronting evil with stern opposition is also stressed by Jiddu Krishnamurti: “Resistance to evil strengthens evil. The moment I resist, evil must be on one side and the good on the other and there is a relationship between the two. When there is no resistance, there is no relationship between the two.” 8
The reason why this Gordian knot of doom is tied so tightly around the neck of humanity, and the reason why it is so difficult to loosen, is because of our prevailing obsession with resisting evil. We are all intent on seeking out evil wherever it lurks, and in whatever form it exists, in the hope of banishing it by active intervention.
The problem which the Sages have continually pointed out, is that it is our very action to overcome evil that perpetuates evil. It is the act of resisting evil which creates the adversarial relationship that intensifies the original force of evil. When evil is met with resistance in the form of violence and revenge, the original force of evil is simply strengthened.
The evidence of this spiral of violence confronts us today on every side. No matter how emotionally satisfying and self-justifying it may seem to intervene actively against evil, it can do nothing but add to evil. It does so because we have chosen, in our enthusiasm yet ignorance, to fight fire with fire.
Hatred begets more hatred and vengeful violence generates yet more violence. This is so self-evident that it hardly seems necessary to point it out.
But the noose that is remorselessly strangling humanity is not about to be loosed by simple logic. There are intense feelings involved. When we suffer deeply, it seems instinctive to unleash our feelings of anguish and sorrow back at their originating source. Even though we may acknowledge intellectually the folly of our ways, we do not know how better to respond.
It was Mohandas Gandhi, later to be called the Mahatma or Great Soul, who demonstrated in his life the correct response to evil. Gandhi did not simply accept evil and surrender to its inevitability. Whenever he met oppression and cruelty, he actively resisted it.
Yet his resistance was unlike any other form of resistance which had been followed up to that time. It carried within it the healing balm of love, which acted to remove the causes of evil, rather than simply to proliferate the effects of its expression.
Gandhi called his scheme of active resistance to British rule in India Satyagraha. It was a term selected to denote positive action, but which became weakly translated in the West as “passive resistance”. Gandhi never failed to express his repugnance at this translation, for there was nothing passive about the action that he proposed.
The term Satyagraha was derived from the Sanskrit words Satya meaning “Truth” and Agraha meaning “to hold firm”. As Gandhi himself described it: “Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (Agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian Movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or Non-Violence.” 9
The force which Gandhi proposed to unleash in his battle for the independence of India was not a form of aggressive violence against the people to whom it was directed. Those who have misunderstood his teachings have portrayed them as a form of obstructionist non-cooperation, designed to impede the ability of the British to govern effectively.
It was the very opposite of this. Gandhi’s “Truth Force” required extraordinary discipline and dispassion. His followers were required to divorce their actions from any heightened emotional condition. Satyagraha demanded absolute renunciation of physical force. It required enormous self-sacrifice, and the ability to bear suffering bravely.
His followers were obliged to risk the horrors of military confrontation, but without resorting to violence themselves, or even the desire to hurt those who were responsible. What Gandhi proposed to do, and was ultimately successful in achieving, was to demonstrate the iniquities of oppression, by voluntarily and willingly submitting himself, and his followers, to the suffering which this oppression caused.
Wherever violence was entrenched, he willingly offered himself as a victim of that violence. He did this, not in a spirit of retaliation or vindictiveness, but in a spirit of love. As he explained, “I have found that mere appeal to reason does not answer where prejudices are age long and based on supposed religious authority. Reason has to be strengthened by suffering and suffering opens the eyes of understanding.” 10
Satyagraha was thus the complete opposite of compulsion. Its purpose was not merely to change the actions of those to whom it was directed, but to transform their very lives. Its aim was, as Gandhi pointed out, “Conversion – not coercion.” 11
Gandhi’s inspired programme of action was not designed to force the British to submit, or to cause them any harm, but to reveal to them in human terms the consequences of their actions, in a way which would transform their hearts.
The challenge of how to impel people to change from within, rather than to compel them to change from without, lies at the root of the effective response to evil. For Gandhi, this meant divorcing the object of his action, the evil that he attacked, from those people who were the instruments of its manifestation.
His campaign was to attack British rule, not British people. Gandhi recognised in each one of his opponents a divine spark which could be encouraged to flame forth in inspired and benevolent action. It is this separation between the operator and the action that liberates evil from its perpetuating cycle of violence and destruction.
Attack the deed but love the person responsible. As Laing points out, “Love and violence, properly speaking, are polar opposites. Love lets the other be, but with affection and concern. Violence attempts to constrain the other’s freedom, to force him to act in the way we desire, but with ultimate lack of concern, with indifference to the other’s own existence of destiny.” 12
Whenever we attempt to coerce others into complying with our desires, for whatever reason, violence begins. This coercion may be as subtle as wanting family and friends to do as we wish. All coercion generates resistance, and it is this resistance which ultimately manifests in the form of outward violence.
It matters not what our motives are, whether noble or altruistic. The moment we choose to impose our will on others, we have adopted the path of violence. This violence escalates, infecting and affecting all those with whom we come in contact.
In our desire to gain our own ends we are the instigators of violence, no matter how much we may justify our actions. Violence always begins at the level of the individual. Individuals coerce other individuals, leading societies to seek to compel other societies, until a state of outward hostility arises. The source of this aggression rests ultimately with every individual – you and me.
We impose this violence upon our society by the exercise of our personal and selfish wills. In the words of Maharaj, “Selfishness is always destructive. Desire and fear, both are self-centred states. Between desire and fear anger arises, with anger hatred, with hatred passion for destruction. War is hatred in action, organised and equipped with all the instruments of death.” 13
We have been lulled into believing that wars between nations are the responsibility of the governments of those nations, and that warfare is simply the result of hostile actions between governments. Warfare is never just the coincidental result of decisions taken by people in high office. It is always the culmination of a long history of violence perpetrated within society and against other societies.
The root of all violence in society rests with those individuals who comprise that society. A nation of individuals committed to peaceful thoughts will never be defeated by war. This will not be the fortuitous result of divine intervention that will safeguard them from hostilities. Peace will be the inevitable outcome of their thoughts.
In the decade of the “flower children” of the nineteen-sixties, it was common to ask how best to avoid war and contain violence. The question was whether this could be done better by a generation that loved peace, or one that hated war? To many this seemed a tautological question – a case of splitting philosophical hairs.
Yet from the point of view of enlightened philosophy, the two cases are diametrically opposed to one another. A generation that loves peace will be comprised of individuals who focus their thoughts on peace and harmony. A generation that hates war will consist of individuals filled with thoughts of hatred.
These hostile thoughts would ultimately rebound against their thinkers to produce that very state of war which they least desired, but which they had actively courted. Thoughts inexorably reflect themselves in outward circumstances, not only for individuals, but also for nations. As Maharaj once replied to a visitor who pointed out the horrors of war:
“As long as people are bent on dividing and separating, as long as they are selfish and aggressive, such things will happen. If you want peace and harmony in the world, you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds. Such things cannot be imposed; it must come from within. Those who abhor war must get war out of their system. Without peaceful people how can you have peace in the world?” 14
Continued in Part Two
References:
3 Ronald Laing, “The Politics of the Family”, CBC Enterprises, Toronto, 1969, p. 49.
4 King James version of the Bible.
5 “The Dhammapada”, translated by Juan Mascaro, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, p. 35.
6 “The Sayings of Lao Tzu”, translated by Lionel Giles, John Murray, London, 1905, p. 56.
7 “I Am That”, Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman, Book II, Chetana, Bombay, 1973, p. 100.
8 Jiddu Krishnamurti, “Tradition and Revolution“, Orient Longman, Bombay, 1974, pp. 16-17.
9 Glyn Richards, “The Philosophy of Gandhi”, Curzon, London, 1982, p. 48.
10 Ibid, p. 51.
11 Ibid, p. 50.
12 Ronald Laing, “The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise”, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1967, p. 50.
13 “I Am That”, Book II, op. cit., p. 21.
14 Ibid, Book II, p. 257.
