6) The elimination of violence
Based on an understanding that 'my' life
is not separate from 'yours', the basis for war and killing is
undermined. There can be no killing if 'you are not separate from me'
and if 'I am you'. The basis for all violence is undermined as a result
of the perception of unity.
Factors that foster the operation of denial and rejection of 'what is',
include:
- Helplessness
The perception of helplessness and the need to counteract it through
direct action which creates a feeling of empowerment is the primary
basis for all forms of aggression. An inability to tolerate
helplessness is the cause, in its many forms, for despair that becomes
rage, for desperation that becomes a lashing out at others, and for
the pleasure in cruelty that masks the truer and deeper sense of
having lost an essential part of oneself - one's heart and one's
capacity to love. Helplessness is the single most important feeling
and perception that contributes to the willingness to act out toward
others and, in particular, the willingness to take the life of
another.
- Lack of trust in Divine justice
In addition to helplessness, lack of trust in Divine justice creates a
desire to usurp power and to 'take measures into one's own hands'. The
perception that Divine justice is real and that the Law of Cause and
Effect operates on all levels, all of the time, takes the burden of
responsibility off human shoulders to mete out an exact measure of
response to an act of harm or injustice, and leaves it, instead, to
the Divine court of law to address issues in which harm has been
caused to others. This is not to say that the level of human law is
without importance. Only that the impetus and motivation to take
things into one's own hands in order to seek revenge, to release
long-standing energies of rage at the way one has been treated, or to
seek power that will be admired by others - or any of the other many
motives of a similar nature that can operate - such motivations are
reduced or eliminated if Divine justice is perceived as certain and
direct, and if the Law of Cause and Effect is firmly established
within each heart.
- Separation from others
Violence in all forms is also based on separation from others and a
sense that others are less real
than oneself. This perception is contributed to by the increasing
distortion and blurring of the boundary between reality and fantasy
that is promoted by media-images that are everywhere today, worldwide.
It is also contributed to by the willingness of people to not remember
their own true sense of morality in favor of what is popular or what
is held to be commonly acceptable. What is a true perception of the
suffering of others can only arise when those others are perceived as
deeply real, and not as cartoon characters, or figures in a news
broadcast, or as 'other' from oneself.
Resolution through the capacity to feel pain
and to hold the suffering of all:
The capacity to feel pain and to hold the suffering of all comes from
the possibility of holding these within the consciousness of God's love
toward all beings - toward oneself, and toward others who suffer
greatly.
The direct perception of God's heart surrounding situations that are
the source of great suffering, allows pain, both within and outside the
self, to be held with a sense of peace rather than with a sense of
protest. Without the perception of God's love tenderly holding all
suffering with the individual
who is feeling it, there is the need to either turn away from pain or to
feel that something has to be done about it. With
the perception of God's love, pain, helplessness, and the causes of
suffering that turn into violence can be held within the self without
having to be converted into external action of any kind.