“We must come to grips with what is causing the violence in our world.”
After watching today’s Daily Metta, offer your own reflections below!
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By: Stephanie Van Hook
Stephanie Van Hook is Executive Director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.
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Gandhi’s Influence on Dr. James Farmer
A Door Into Ocean
Bystander Intervention is only the beginning
Film Screening Thurs. Dec.10
We cannot love our “enemies.”
Thank you for the wonderful Daily Metta. You ask what causes the violence. I would also like to know what people think causes nonviolence. For what causes violence, I have only experiential and reflective knowledge, not a scholarly or research-based approach. It seems frequent causes of violence are insults to people’s need to be respected and loved and part of a community. Further, there is hunger, jealousy, greed, fostered hatred and lack of communication. Causes of nonviolence seem to include immense love and sense of being cherished. I hope you will post more. Wishing for the blessings of peace in this new year!
We have been divided. As a whole, we do not seek that which we were told to seek … love. We do not love the Earth, other life, nor do we love each other … humans.
We seek material goods, wealth, property. All of the violence, in my opinion, comes from that above.
Of course, peace will come as each of us finds our inner peace and can then love. It spreads like wildfire when we feel it being given to us, and we in turn, give it to others.
Hi Nancy, stay tuned. We’ll answer this in a daily metta this week.
Thank you Michael, I love these daily postings! And thank you Nancy for your comment, reading it now has inspired me to write a comment too… I thought to share here that I am coming to understand patriarchal violence in a ‘quantum context’, in terms of energy stealing. The feminine is the ‘wave-like’ nature which complements the masculine ‘particle-like’ nature of reality. Particle behaviour creates individual identity, wave behaviour creates a field. Both are important, true relationship needs both, as does evolution itself. In violence, the feminine ‘field’ energy that one partner / group gives to create relationship is ‘harvested’ by the other partner / group to support their particulate, egoic, narcissistic self / identity. It’s grand theft, and abuse of the feminine but on a subtle level, and its soul nature means that is hard to pinpoint, to know what’s going on. It’s easy for the feminine partner / group to ‘assume responsibility’ as this is another ploy of the patriarchy to assure their supplies of energy by this means. Nancy, you said that violence is often an insult to people’s need for love & respect, this is need relationship isn’t it
Oops, this flew off before I’d finished, maybe it’s Nature’s way of telling me I’ve written enough, it’s time to be making kids’ breakfast (I’m in UK) x