AHIMSA: Love & Nonviolence
"My religion is based on truth (satyagraha) and non-violence (ahimsa). Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him." Gandhi
Gandhi and King taught six ways to promote nonviolence in personal, political, and global relationships. Nonviolent love is active, not passive; does not sink to the level of the hater; restores community and resists injustice; recognizes that all life is interrelated.
Nonviolence . . .
1. is a way of life for courageous people, an active, nonviolent resistance to evil.
2. seeks to win friendship and understanding, ending in redemption and reconciliation.
3. seeks to defeat injustice, not people, recognizing that evildoers are also victims.
4. holds that suffering can educate and transform, accepting the consequences of our acts.
5. chooses love instead of hate, resisting violence to the spirit as well as the body.
6. believes that the universe is on the side of justice; justice will eventually win.
I married my high school “sweetheart” six months after graduation. My intuition told me more than once that Mark and his tough family were not for me. His parents often drank too much and encouraged literal fist fights to settle disagreements between their three sons. Red flags flew vigorously: holes in the walls of his home, a kicked in car door after Mark lost his temper when we were arguing, and the ultimate event where his parents forced him to fight his dad in front of me, ending in an emergency room visit for his father and a couple dozen stitches.
After our marriage, I became trapped in a cycle of emotional abuse and threats of future violence when he bashed holes in doors and walls, broke glass objects, and screamed curse words in my face. He would follow these outbursts with red roses, sweet kisses, and words that I craved like “I love you” and “I’ll never do it again.” I had become the target and my sweetheart was the abuser. We were caught in the cycle of tension building, explosion, and honeymoon period. I left that violent relationship in 1978 when I was twenty-three years old.
Why did I allow violence to enter my life? I grew up with loving parents who didn’t raise their voices, but still I chose a boyfriend who raised his voice. My self-esteem was intact. I had never felt peer pressure to take drugs, drink, or party, and yet I allowed my boyfriend to pressure me into having unprotected sex when I was sixteen.
I wrote in Things My Mama Never Told Me (Chapter 16), “I wish my mama would have told me about the stages of abuse and that sometimes they’re difficult to recognize. I wish she would have talked to me about warning signs and how family, friends, and adults we trust can help keep us safe. Even if I wasn’t recognizing abuse in my relationship with Mark, general conversations about signs that a relationship is not healthy or that teen dating abuse is a real thing could have influenced my trajectory. I would have liked to know that it wasn’t my fault, and that I could take care of myself first. I wish my mama would have told me, ‘Run, my love, run.’”
But would all of these imagined conversations have been enough?
It would be another thirty years before I attended the Ahimsa Summer Institute at Cal Poly Pomona for K-12 Educators: Nonviolence and Social Change. Dr. Tara Sethia guided us on a journey of nonviolence through the words and actions of Mahatma Gandhi. I learned a different kind of fighting . . . for the rights and welfare of others, while still maintaining compassion for the humanity of those making unjust decisions. I learned that I had an inner strength and responsibility to protect myself and others against violent acts, while always striving for satyagraha (truth). I learned that change will come if we start with our children and teens. They will lead the way.