In this episode I share my personal journey to pacifism and from pacifism. I explore the teaching of nonviolent resistance and how it differs from nonresistance. I look specifically at Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and how it is an expression of nondual nonresistance to evil.
In this episode I share my personal journey to pacifism and from pacifism. I explore the teaching of nonviolent resistance and how it differs from nonresistance. I look specifically at Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and how it is an expression of nondual nonresistance to evil.
Nondual Nonresistance
I became a pacifist in 1968 as a result of reading the Sermon on the Mount. It seemed clear to me that Jesus advocated an ethic of nonviolence. The people I was reading at the time – Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and a few years later John Howard Yoder– agreed with my interpretation. I did not understand why all Christians who professed to follow Jesus were not pacifists. My ethical stance was documented well enough to earn me Conscientious Objector status in 1971 during the Vietnam War.
I remained a pacifist for twenty-seven years. Until I came face to face with the toll of gun violence. In November 1995 three children who were part of my church and Sunday school in Massachusetts were murdered by the mother’s ex-boyfriend. They were executed with shots to the head. They were ages 15, 12, and 9. A fourth child 13 years old somehow survived a head wound and escaped by jumping out a window.
While preparing the triple funeral for those children in my church, I knew that if I had been present at time of the shooting I would have done anything to stop the murder, including taking the life of the shooter if necessary or die trying. I knew that love demanded that I protect these children. I realized then that I was not the pacifist I thought I was.
More recently the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress has made me look at the subject yet again. When I watched that attack happen on TV, I realized that my country had changed. Further actions since January in various states reveal that the values that this country was founded upon are under attack from within. The country is in danger from authoritarians who care more about winning at any cost than they do about democracy.
I began to ponder how far I would go to protect our freedoms. Even though I am far beyond the age to be a solider, it made me look again at the issues I faced when I was a young man. The difference is that now I am looking at the issue from Christ’s teaching of nondual Reality, which he called the Kingdom of God. I am coming back to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Let me read them for you:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”
Now I think that Jesus was not advocating the type of nonviolent resistance that Gandhi and King made famous in their campaigns for national independence in India and civil rights in America. Jesus was not instructing his followers to use nonviolence as an alternative strategy to resist evil. Listen to him and you see he is saying not to resist evil! “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you that ye resist not evil.”
From a dualistic perspective – good versus evil - that makes no sense, but within nonduality that makes perfect sense. Jesus is not talking about nonviolent resistance. He is talking about nonresistance. That is seen in the examples he gives. He uses the example of a person slapping you on the cheek. This is not a violent attack. He is not describing a boxing match, but a personal insult. If he wanted to address violence he would have used an example like being struck with a knife or sword or spear or club or some other weapon. Jesus was talking about being slapped in the face, which was an insult in that culture. This is an insult to the ego, not injury to the body.
The same with the other examples he uses. He talks about someone suing you in a court of law to take away a tunic as payment for a debt. He is addressing one’s attitude toward money and possessions. That is emphasized by then saying, “Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”
Then he gives the example of a Roman soldier who compels a person in an occupied territory like Judea to carry his pack one mile. He instructs his followers to carry it two miles instead. Once again, this is very different than Gandhi’s or King’s approach of noncooperation. The Sermon on the Mount is not a handbook for nonviolent resistance. It is teaching how we express nondual reality in our lives.
Jesus is describing how a person responds to difficult circumstances as an expression of nondual awareness. First he is saying that we do not respond as egos. We respond as egolessness. The proverbial slap on the cheek was an insult in that culture. It demanded a defense of one’s honor. Jesus says that the person who is awake to the Kingdom of God does not care about insults to ego. Let it go. Let it come and let it go. It doesn’t matter.
Recently we were entertaining some people in our home. I can’t identify who more than that. One of the people insulted me twice during the visit. Once again I won’t say how. My psychological defenses went up. I felt angry and wanted to defend my honor and my self-respect. I had an urge to retaliate. I did not, but I was thinking about it for hours after they left, and I spoke to my wife about my feelings. I found myself thinking about it later in bed as I was trying to go to sleep that night. So I decided I would meditate upon it the next morning. Then I fell asleep.
The next day I meditated upon it. It became clear that my ego was bruised. It was feeling threatened and wanted to threaten in return or at least protect myself and prevent further injury to my pride in the future. As I meditated upon the incidents, it became clear that the insults were a good thing, spiritually speaking. They exposed the strength and deceitfulness of the ego so that it could be dealt with. Something bad was turned to good.
Jesus’ advice to turn the other cheek is a way to turn something bad to good. When one turns the other cheek, it allows the ego to be crucified and thereby lose its hold over behavior. Jesus’ examples are ways that can be used to be detached from ego. They help us be unattached to possessions as well.
Jesus calls it nonresistance. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person.” In nonresistance we see evil for what it is. Evil feeds on resistance. That is the only way it can maintain its existence. Evil prompts evil in us in the form of revenge and retaliation. If it does that, then it wins. It has seeded itself in our souls. Turning the other cheek breaks the cycle and deprives evil of its hold in our lives.
The Yin-Yang symbol represents this. Good and evil are present. We can see good and evil either as in a battle or a dance. Good and evil ebb and flow in a sort of cosmic dance of opposites. We can get caught up and sucked into that whirlpool of duality. Nondual awareness sees that good and evil are part of a greater whole doing a dance called history. The only way to be one with the whole is to let it flow.
The opening scene of the Bhagavad Gita comes to mind and addresses the issue of nonviolence. Arjuna, the main character, is lined up on a battlefield and about to go into battle. Then he sees members of his extended family among the enemy army lined up against him. For that reason he is hesitant to fight. He enters into a conversation with his charioteer to resolve this moral dilemma. His chariot driver is actually the god Krishna in disguise. In the rest of the Gita Krishna shows him the bigger picture and convinces him to fulfil his duty as a member of the warrior caste. The battle is all part of a greater story.
I see the nondual One as the bigger picture. This is the teaching of both the Bible and the Gita. The pacifism of my youth was about taking sides. I saw myself on the side of good fighting against evil. I still see good and evil in the world, but now I also see the bigger picture. We play our roles in the world, siding with good against evil, but in a selfless and egoless manner. For in fact we are the whole. The whole drama of human history is taking place within this space which is Nondual Reality, which is our true nature. That is Christian nonduality.