In this video, Michael discusses what we can and cannot be predicted about violence and nonviolence to further explain the concept of “work” vs. work. Violence, he concludes is much more predictable than nonviolence. Find out why… Please add your comments below. About Daily Metta Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s executive director, launched Daily… read more
Tag Archives: “work” vs. work
Le Chambon and Prague Spring: Your Daily Metta Weekend Video
In this video, Michael wraps up Chapter 4 of Search for a Nonviolent Future, “Work” vs. Work, with two stories: Le Chambon and Prague Spring. Please add your comments below. 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… read more
Making Nonviolent Energy WORK: Daily Metta WEEKEND Videos
Nonviolence, from a scientific standpoint, can be understood as a type of energy. How do we recognize and harness this energy? To what effect? Michael Nagler explores these ideas.… read more
Pure Heart: Daily Metta
“As a Satyagrahi I hold to the faith that all activity pursued with a pure heart is bound to bear fruit, whether or not such fruit is visible to us.” ~ Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 168 As followers of the Metta Center will immediately recognize, Gandhi is pointing here to the principle we… read more
Humiliation Tactics and Shaming: Daily Metta
“Nonviolence is who we are.” In today’s Daily Metta video, Michael reviews the deeper dynamics of nonviolence and touches on ideas such as humiliation tactics and shaming as well as “work” vs. work while analyzing a long quote from Marshall Frady on Martin Luther King, Jr. Please add your comments below. About Daily Metta Stephanie… read more
“Nonviolence running through us”–Daily Metta
July 25: “The silent cry goes out daily to help me to remove these weaknesses and imperfections of mine.” –Gandhi (Harijan, June 22, 1935) Nonviolence is like a current of electricity. In order for this power to work at its full capacity, we have to let it pass through us, without getting in its way,… read more
“When nonviolence doesn’t ‘work'”–Daily Metta
June 3: “Every good movement passes through five stages: indifference, ridicule, abuse, repression and respect.” –Gandhi (Young India, March 9, 1921) Many of us take for granted that a nonviolent movement will be immediately respected, but its most important — and lasting — effects are in the way our collective consciousness is awakened when… read more
“The Practical and the Spiritual”–Daily Metta
March 18: “If any action of mine claimed to be spiritual is proved to be unpractical, it must be pronounced to be a failure. I do believe that the most spiritual act is the most practical act in the true sense of the term.” –Gandhi (Harijan, 7-1-1939, p. 181) Seeking the practical is always… read more
“Work” vs. Work
The distinction, “work” vs. work is necessary to stress that the beneficial results of nonviolent action often lie in the future. “Work” means the immediate and obvious effects, while work without quotes designates the resulting underlying and fundamental shifts brought about by nonviolence. In other words, it means not “got what we wanted,” “does good… read more
Constructive Program
Constructive program (CP) is a term coined by Gandhi. It describes nonviolent action taken within a community to build structures, systems, processes or resources that are positive alternatives to oppression. It can be seen as self-improvement of both community and individual. CP often works along side obstructive program, or Civil Disobedience, which usually involves direct confrontation… read more
