“Truth is self-evident. Nonviolence is its maturest fruit. It is contained in Truth, but is not self-evident.” ~ Gandhi, The Message of the Gita, p. 14

That nonviolence is not self-evident is, alas, too true. But it’s not to hard to infer, if not feel it operating, when we know how and where to look. The great paradigm shift (aka “Great Turning,” aka “New Story”) that’s now happening, and to foster which the Metta Center devotes basically all its efforts, will make both nonviolence and its embeddedness in Truth more evident. Instead of incessantly repeating failed strategies like wars and keeping handguns for “protection,” we will understand intuitively why they are failing, and must ever fail. Instead of writing off instances of conspicuous courage as “flukes,” we will understand and build upon them. In all this the research of Erica Chenoweth, Maria Stephan, Kurt Schock and increasingly other scholars will play their role. But as Gandhi points out, we will have to “move the heart” also.

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About Daily Metta

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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