Nonviolence can work from any direction, including from governments. In a town in PA, civil disobedience has been made legal, protecting protestors from crackdown while defending their community from large corporations. (Read more about it here) Please add your comments below. About Daily Metta Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s executive director, launched Daily Metta… read more
Tag Archives: dharma
“Civil Disobedience and Conscience”–Daily Metta
August 14: “To put down civil disobedience is an attempt to imprison conscience.” –Gandhi (Young India, January 5, 1922) Gandhi rarely spoke of rights, always opting in favor of duties from which our rights emerge. This, according to Sushila Nayyar, is due to the curious fact that Sanskrit has no word for “rights.” It is… read more
“Voluntary Service or Resist”–Daily Metta
August 7: “Voluntary service of others demands the best of which one is capable.” ––Gandhi (From Yeravda Mandir) When it comes to formulating a principle around voluntary service, we could do much worse than turning to the Mahatma for some guidance. From the moment he “hit his stride” in South Africa he gave himself in… read more
“Duty of Noncooperation and Cooperation”–Daily Metta
January 7 “Sometimes non-cooperation becomes as much a duty as cooperation.” -Gandhi (Young India 1-19-1921) In Sanskrit, the word for “duty” is dharma. There is an expression repeated throughout the Indian spiritual tradition, ahimsa paramo dharma, nonviolence is the highest dharma, or duty. There should be no wonder why Gandhi was so keen on duties. It… read more
swadharma
In the Indian spiritual tradition, dharma means the way, literally law or duty. Everything and everyone in existence has its own dharma — its essential way of being in the world — that is in harmony with the overriding dharma of nonviolence that applies to all life (ahimsa paramo dharma). Thus a person’s swadharma (swa, own,… read more
Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita appears as a section of 700 verses within the ancient Indian epic the Mahabharata, where the warrior prince, Arjuna, collapses in dismay at the prospect of going into battle against his own relatives. He is admonished and encouraged by his charioteer Krishna (none other than an incarnation of Vishnu), and the dialog… read more
Vedanta
The vedanta is the ancient worldview that underlies all systems of Indian philosophy. A primary source for this worldview is the Upanishads. The Upanishads were handed down by tradition at the end of the Vedas, and Vedanta literally means “end of the Vedas.” This foundation of Indian spiritual thought, with its insistence on the underlying… read more
Dharma
Dharma is a Sanskrit word, based on the root √dhŗ, (uphold, support), and can be defined as the law, duty, religion, responsibility, path, or nature, which upholds the underlying order of the universe. Sri Eknath Easwaran has defined it, intriguingly, as “that which makes us secure.” Dharma is a key component of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and… read more
