What are we trying to accomplish?
How much time do we have in which to accomplish it?
If these two questions were asked at the beginning of every meeting, we’d save ourselves gazillions of hours of frustration, disappointment, and unproductive meeting time.
The first two letters of NVC refer to the words Non-Violence. Non-violence is a tlnrsaation of Ahimsa which mean love . Ahimsa along with Satyagraha (Non-Violent Resistance) or Soul-Force or Truth-Force Gandhi claimed was infinitely more powerful than military or brute force. But it required even greater discipline than the discipline needed to engage in military combat. This is the reason it so far has not been completely successful (it requires considerable training). But Gandhi was successful in leading India to independence using this strategy for 30 years. The reason it was powerful was that it was not based on words alone. It was based mostly on action. Gandhi taught that you should love your enemy. But you should at the same time bring your enemy to its knees so that it could learn how to love you back. The way to do this is to have the courage to stand for justice no matter what the price, and be willing to pay that price- even if it meant that the government would take away all possessions, throw you in prison, and even murder you. Still, you would continue to stand fearlessly for justice. At the same time, when large numbers of people were trained to withdraw cooperation from the government, it must fall. This is what happened to the British in India. After the Salt March, Great Britain could no longer command the respect of the world. It’s ability to govern eventually collapsed and they were forced to withdraw. The same thing could happen in this country if we were able to train enough people to become Satyagrahas, if we were willing to sacrifice our possessions and our lives for justice and for the earth, and if we were imaginative enough to build the equivalent of an American Salt March, the respect for our government would also collapse. Gandhi showed how it all can be done. And it’s completely non-violent. But it requires its adherents to have the willingness to suffer greatly. And this requires practice. I believe we ought to build a school to train this kind of discipline. It’s the one thing I think that could work.
You make some excellent points! Thank you for taking the time to comment and share your thoughts. Your idea about a Satyagraha school gave me goosebumps!