“I see there is an instinctive horror of killing living beings under any circumstances whatever.” ~ Gandhi, Young India, November 18, 1926

This is one of many insights of Gandhi’s on which science has now weighed in. I am thinking of the work of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (On Killing, and Let’s stop teaching our kids to kill) and of the psychologist Rachel MacNair, who came up with the concept of Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS) to account for the appalling amount of suicide by veterans—still running at over 20 per day. But an “instinctive horror,” even one that is such an essential part of our human makeup, should not become a fetish, which has been done in certain circles today around the issue of abortion. He goes on to say that he would unhesitatingly put a dog out of its misery rather than let it die a slow, agonizing death of rabies.

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Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s executive director, launched Daily Metta in 2015 as a way to share Gandhi’s spiritual wisdom and experiments with nonviolence.

Our 2016 Daily Metta continues with Gandhi on weekdays. On weekends, we share videos that complement Michael Nagler’s award-winning book, The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World. To help readers engage with the book more deeply, the Metta Center offers a free PDF study guide.

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