Fear, pleasure, sorrow, thought and violence are all interrelated. Most of us take pleasure in violence, in disliking somebody hating a particular race or group of people, having antagonistic feelings towards others.
But in a state of mind in which all violence has come to an end there is a joy that is very different from the 'pleasure' of violence.
We could go to the very root of violence and be free from it. Otherwise we might live forever in battle with each other. If that is the way you want to live ^ and apparently most people do ^ then carry on; if you say, "Well, i'm sorry, violence can never end", then you and i have no means of communication, you have blocked yourself; but if you say there might be a different way of living, then we shall be able to communicate with each other.
So let us consider together, those of us who can communicate, whether it is at all possible totally to end every form of violence in ourselves and still live in this brutal world. I think it is possible. I don't want to have a breath of hate, jealousy, anxiety or fear in me...
If we know how to look at violence, not only outwardly in society ^ the wars, the riots, the national antagonisms and class conflicts - but also in ourselves, then perhaps we shall be able to go beyond it.
Is this problem of violence out there or in here? Do you want to solve the problem in the outside world or are you questioning violence itself as it is in you? If you are free of violence in yourself the question is, "How to live in a world full of violence, acquisitiveness, greed, envy, brutality? Will i not be destroyed?" When you ask such a question it seems to me you are not actually living peacefully.
If you live peacefully you will have no problem at all. You may be imprisoned because you refuse to join the army or shot because you refuse to fight ^ but that is not a problem; you will be shot. It is important to understand this.
We are trying to understand violence not as an idea, but as a fact which exists in the human being, in myself. And to go into the problem i must be completely vulnerable, open, to it. I must expose myself to myself ^ not necessarily expose myself to you because you may not be interested ^ but i must be in a state of mind that demands to see this thing right to the end.
I am a violent human being. This is obvious i have experienced violence in anger, violence in my sexual demands, violence in hatred, creating enmity and violence in jealousy. Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organised butchery in the name of God, society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence.
When you call yourself an Indian, Muslim, Christian, European or anything else, you are being violent. Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, nationality or tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, religion, political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
(Excerpted from the writer's book Total Freedom.)