Arun Gandhi Speaks on Passive Acts of Violence

On last night’s panel discussion, To Accept or to Change: The Wisdom to Know the Difference, I mentioned a talk by Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. This video is from the Festival of Faiths conference, which I was blessed to attend 2 months ago. This was one of my favorite presentations.

In this video, Arun Gandhi tells the story of when he was 13 years old living with his grandfather. He received a powerful teaching from his grandfather about passive acts of violence and physical acts of violence.

Each of us, by nature of being human, commits passive acts of violence every day. The passive acts of violence provide fuel for the physical acts of violence that are so apparent – those we see as obvious crimes against humanity, animals and the planet.

As Mahatma Gandhi explained to his young grandson Arun, if we want to cut out the physical acts of violence, we must cut off the fuel supply. In other words, we must cut out the passive acts of violence each of us commits every day.

In order to cut off this fuel supply, we must first become aware of our passive acts that become a part of the fuel source. Awareness is the first step in any healing process, whether healing the individual or the planet. Of course, as this teaching so eloquently demonstrates, healing for humanity and for the planet must begin with each of us individually.

This teaching, followed by the recent series of events of terrorism, racism, bigotry, hate crimes and other physical acts of violence, have moved us – colleague Shams Tara Wesley and myself – to issue a challenge and facilitate a group healing program.

The challenge is to go through the process of assessing the passive and physical acts of violence you see each day as described in the video. You’re invited to examine your own conscious and subconscious passive acts of violence that occur on the day-to-day, share your introspection, and apply Sufi healing practices (or your practice of choice) for purification of the heart. If you don’t have a heart-cleansing practice, we’ll teach you the ones we use.

Our prayer is that we support each other to heighten awareness of the ways which we each as individuals contribute to the pain in the world, and to purify our hearts in order to eradicate the fuel that sources physical violence in our world.

This is not meant to take on self-blame, self-judgment or shame. We move through this process with intention and commitment to bring healing and peace to a world that is sorely fragmented and out of balance.

You are invited to join us for this free program. If you’d like to participate, send me an email through the comment form below, and let me know you’re in. We’ll be starting in the last week of July. As soon as we’re set up and ready to go, we’ll send you an email.

Please invite your friends to join us, too. The more who join in this movement, the better chance we have to affect real change in the world.

We hope you’ll join us. In any case, thank you for playing a part in creating a world of peace, love and freedom for all. It’s up to each of us to “be the change we want to see in the world.”

Blessings & Gratitude

Mastura