The Science of Nonviolence

What science tells us today about human nature is thoroughly compatible with the worldview we have articulated. There is no conflict whatever between the methodology and findings of science and the higher image of the human being in which nonviolence is a defining potential.  Science at its best entails a rigorous approach to observation and the testing of hypotheses. The science of nonviolence is no exception. While science in the West has been practiced as mainly an observation of the outside world, the science of nonviolence must embrace an internal component as well. Gandhi, for whom nonviolence was entirely a science, was thoroughly convinced that there are laws of spiritual behavior just as rigorous, reliable and predictable as the laws that govern the material world. On this page you will find some of the latest findings of many relevant fields of science.

Compassion Research

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This posting from the Greater Good Research Center at UC, Berkeley is a superb example of what Sudheendra Kulkarni calls “modern science’s unmistakable journey from man’s outer reality to his inner reality.” Kulkarni’s own book, The Music of the Spinning Wheel, argues that the internet, if properly handled, could be the equivalent of Gandhi’s charkha (!).  Read… read more

Spirit and Science in the Vedanta

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IN AUGUST OF 1932, MAHATMA GANDHI WAS IN PRISON WHEN NEWS REACHED him that the “Paramount Power,” the British Raj, planned to introduce separate electorates for the untouchables and the caste Hindus. Believing that this would amount to a “vivisection” of India, what was he to do? On September 13th he stunned the nation by… read more

Seville Statement on Violence, Spain, 1986

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This important document created with help from UNESCO in Seville in 1986 addresses the scientific inaccuracies of the “innate aggression” theorists. *** Believing that it is our responsibility to address from our particular disciplines the most dangerous and destructive activities of our species, violence and war; recognizing that science is a human cultural product which… read more

A new look at “people power.”

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In this wonderful TED talk, Bonnie Bassler (professor of Microbiology at Princeton) enthusiastically tells us that we are human beings, but 99 % bacteria! As she explains the awesome ways that bacteria communicate and work together toward a common goal, one cannot but help to extrapolate notions of how we have inherited the power of… read more