“Universal Spiritual Humanism: A Necessary Paradigm for Our Times” Michael Nagler will be the keynote speaker at this special Memorial Day program at Vedanta Retreat in Olema, CA (West Marin County). Vedanta is the oldest of the major living religions of the world. It affirms that all religions lead to the same Truth—“Truth is one;… read more
Tag Archives: michael nagler
Compromise: Daily Metta
“Human life is a series of compromises, and it is not always easy to achieve in practice what one has found to be true in theory.” ~ Gandhi, Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 39 The ability to compromise was one of Gandhi’s remarkable, if not baffling, characteristics. While it often alarmed his friends, in most… read more
Sacrifice Trap: Daily Metta
“Western civilization may or may not be good, but Westerners wish to stick to it… They have shed rivers of blood for its sake… It is therefore too late for them now to chalk out a new path for themselves.” ~ Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 84. If it seemed “too late” in this… read more
Rethinking Violence and Nonviolence: Daily Metta SHORT WEEKEND VIDEOS!
When Michael was a teen, one of his first jobs was helping a friend who wrote “Super Boy” comics. In this Daily Metta video, he explains why he has since come to question the sanitization of violence that is sold to us in the commercial mass media, debunking some commonly held myths, or falsehoods, about… read more
Ways to Justice: Conference at Stanford
The purpose of the “Ways to Justice” conference is to bring together prominent scholars and activists who share an interest in the methods of struggle used in grassroots justice movements. A collection of historical anniversaries being marked in 2016, including the 50th anniversaries of the rise of the Black Power movement and founding of the… read more
Harnessing Nonviolent Energy: Daily Metta Weekend Videos!
December 28, 1898, two events happened on this day that are quite significant for our civilization: the beginning of the atomic age and the launch of modern mass media. Find out what this has to do with nonviolence! We’ve reached Chapter Four! Michael explains the famous “work” vs. work concept as it applies to nonviolence:… read more
Person-Oriented Society: Daily Metta
“I am clear that whilst this machine age aims at converting men into machines, I am aiming at reinstating man-turned-machine to his original estate.” ~ Gandhi, CWMG, 62:145 As Martin Luther King said, “We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ civilization to a ‘person-oriented’ civilization.” Not only is dehumanization the main cause and… read more
Tolerance & Study: Daily Metta
“Mutual tolerance is a necessity for all time and for all races.” ~ Gandhi, Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 401 There could hardly be a more needed message for our day. But Gandhi will go beyond mere “tolerance” and argue that every child must be given a “reverential study” of all the world’s major faiths.… read more
A Higher Court: Daily Metta
“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.” ~ Gandhi, Quotes of Gandhi, UBS Publishers, New Delhi, (1995) p. 34 When it works to redress a wrong—one of the best-known applications of nonviolence—it awakens the conscience of the wrongdoer or the “reference… read more
Untouchability: Daily Metta
The removal of untouchability is one of the highest expressions of ahimsa. ~ Gandhi, Mahatma 4:239 Gandhi, like Jesus and Buddha before him, felt that animal sacrifice and the human pattern it encoded, scapegoating, was the most violent and dangerous social institution. Do we not call the destruction of the Jews in Europe the “Holocaust”… read more
