Violence Versus Hate And Violence

There is a subtle difference between violence and “hate and violence”.

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We regularly employ police to enact violence on others. This violence by authority is meant to be impartial and without emotion (though in reality police are human). Each event is a finite game with a beginning and an end (perpetrator is punished) inside an infinite game (this cycle happens over and over).

Hate plus violence on the other hand is an infinite game in and of itself because it is self fueling. The hate leads to violence and the violence to hate. A chain reaction. And when does that chain reaction end? Some might say it is when the “other”, the “bad people” are “good” or at least punished enough. But the reality is it only ends when the “other” becomes extinct. The Jewish people have had many people try to bring them to extinction yet they continue perhaps more successfully than ever. Gang vs gang violence is another example. Many warring tribes around the world have tried to make the opposing tribes extinct. But that rarely happens, so the hate and the violence continue, back and forth.

For the cycle of hate to stop something else has to change. It has to change within each of the participants. Each participant cannot make the “other” hate them less and the other cannot each participant. The answer is to work within. If it’s a human, then within the human. If it’s a tribe then within the tribe. If it’s a nation then within the nation. If it’s a race then within the race.

This is why I teach Vedic Meditation. Because this is an effective way to quell the anger and hate within so that the enmity can stop.

Samurai have an interesting way of dealing with this cycle. If an opposing group of Samurai do something to them, they will avenge that opposing group but when done they will themselves commit suicide to end the cycle of violence.

Or ... they could just meditate! :)