April 25, 2018 | Jon Mostad
Freedom from violence, is that an option?
In the coming week no 16-2018, my Instagram posts will reflect on «Freedom from violence» . I do the reflections through quotes and captions, linked to illustrative images. Feel free to follow me on https://www.instagram.com/mostadjon/.
Man can achieve freedom from violence. The road seems to be long, but it should be short. In this text, I make reflections on humans ability to achieve freedom from violence. Let me start with some thoughts about the short and the long way.
Whether a road is short or long, depends on our approach when we measure. In a physical world, we need to divide, compare, weigh and objectify. When something is short is something else long, when something is light else is heavy and when something is ugly else is pretty. So it is to live in a sense shaped world of three dimensions. We share, compare, measur and evaluate. Some lose and other wins. That does not have to be. I understand this thinking as limited and it intersects us from an extended and dynamic understanding of time and space. Take for example time. We have learned to share time into past, present and future. Does this makes sense? In some ways, such an idea makes sense. We humans are equipped to master a three-dimensional imagination world. In fact, we have a mathematics that masters such a reality. By the expansion of our physical world into the subatomic quantum physics of the world, we should learn to understand the space as time. The universe expands and therefore the time extends. We can understand time as a place in the room. Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of my text to explain time as a term. Phenomenon time is very complicated. I only point to time as a mirroring of the words I'm introducing - short and long way.
Is there a path to freedom from violence accessible to us? Is it «short or long»?
There is no «time» as a line that stretches backwards through «now» and «forward», in my understanding. Time exists only as a «place in space». Therefore, man should not «wait» to move from being violent to being non-violent. We can immediately leave the violence as a side by ourselves. A reflection should be required. The moment of movement from being a violent to a non-violent being happens through the recognition that «I am violent» and the violence is dissolved by this recognition. How beautiful could not such a reality be? Philosophically it should be possible. In a rational and analytical world of imagination, no use of violence as a tool is present. There will appear a stifting pint in evolution, where humans will think with their harts and feel with their heads, accordingly to Rudolf Steiner, the late great anthroposophist. Until then, we will still be characterized as beings constructed by sensible experiences and feelings. Sensations and emotions create limited mental performances, and among them are the notions of violence as a tool. Is it possible to understand violence such as we humans can avoid the use of violence? I think so.
Violence is all about separation.
Separation follows «you» and «me». With you and me follows measurement and control; measurement and control are graded. All grades are variants of violence. When I'm measuring, I'm separating. When I separate, I stimulate the difference, when I stimulate the difference, I increase my pain, when I increase my pain I stimulate the violence.
As long as we separate, we practice violence.
We are violent beings until all separation in our hearts has forever ceased. Competition, jealousy, desire, discrimination, oppression - is violence. Shocking, yelling and stress are violence. Violence exists in us humans, constructed by social learning. We can hardly not escape from it, but we can acknowledge it, minimize it and dissolve it. We can start the process of attracting acceptance by ourselves. You and I are good as we are and we can practice ourselves better than we are. We contribute to peace by recognizing ourselves - even as the violent people we are. From the moment we have accepted that we ourselves are human beings in a line of violence, we can choose to dissolve the violence in ourselves by acknowledging ourselves and then recognizing each other as equal.
My responsibility is to choose to communicate with you and my environments through non violent means. I can ask, listen and be present. I can develop my language where you and I are ONE and NOT TWO.
Nirvana?
May be, but I can not accept that we are beings of violence. We are not born violent. To the extent that we develop violence as a skill, it is a result of constructions. I could as well be constructed for a world in freedom from violence. I can start by transforming violence in myself into love. I can choose peace. When instincts enter, emotion swirls and social experiences wish to trigger action patterns that use violence as tool, I have the responsibility to make a choice in the direction of freedom from violence. Everything is about who I want to appear as. Who will I be in action? If I feel hurt by you, I can choose to recognize you as a teacher and learn from you. What is it your action trigger in me? What do I need to learn from it? This is the way I can choose to unite with you. I turn away from being hurted by you to be thought by you. This is freedom from violence.
Freedom from violence is a choice. There is no road to walk. The road does not exist. It is all about recognition and will. Therefore, a state of freedom from violence should not take any time. You light a table lamp and the light floods.
Jon
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