“Join the experiment”–Daily Metta

December 27:

“Those who are attracted to nonviolence, should, according to their ability and opportunity, join the experiment.”

–Gandhi (Harijan, August 11, 1940)

If you heard these words directly from Gandhi in 1940, would you take them more seriously than if you were reading them today? Gandhi’s call was as relevant then as now. We, too, should not be content to sit there and watch nonviolence unfold in the world (which it is slowly doing) —get involved! Explore your opportunities—the gifts you can share with the world, your abilities—and use those as tools to chip away at the dehumanization and violence that has cast its grim shadow over our image of ourselves and our relationship to the world around us.

Unlike training soldiers for violence, where we have to brainwash people into wanting to harm others and repress any sense of independent thinking that might awaken a sense of responsibility for their actions, Gandhi wants us to draw upon our deep, inner voice and act on it with full consciousness of our responsibility. He is not asking us to do anything beyond our capability. He asks us to join the work, the experiment, where we feel we can make our best contribution. That is not to say, however, that we can be complacent, because this kind of work is a tool for growth. We will learn to face new challenges, answer new calls to action with new experience. This is the beauty of nonviolence as an experiment, and no one need feel that they are left out. There’s room for everyone, and Gandhi here is inviting us in, personally.

Experiment in nonviolence:
Ask yourself where your gifts meet the needs of the world and find some ways that you can start using them in service of the nonviolent revolution.