Brookings pastor Carl Kline on the lesson of Gandhi: Non-violence and the search for truth must be a way of life
We had a couple of friends with us earlier this month. They were with us for three days and four nights. They had been in Brazil doing some nonviolence trainings and decided to come visit us before returning to their homes.
Mathai comes from India and Fernando lives in Mexico. They have been companions of mine, in our mutual attempt to understand and implement the nonviolence of Gandhi (seen above in a 1941 public domain photo posted on wikimedia commons) into our own lives, and share our understanding with others.
I first met Mathai on a trip to India. I recall sitting in his living room as he spoke with our group about his understanding of an alternative to violence; Gandhi’s way of satyagraha, or the “Force of Truth.”
That was the beginning of a long friendship that has brought us together in both our countries on numerous occasions. Mathai is a scholar and teacher. His book, “Gandhi’s Worldview,” is a complete and comprehensive review of all of Gandhi’s writings. He has taught at different universities in India and is a regular sought after speaker for events across India. He has been on at least two speaking trips, taking him to several colleges and universities in the United States.
Fernando is a businessman. His father was a well-known and respected industrialist in Mexico and he was born into a family of wealth. He discovered Gandhi on a trip to India, where he traveled to different Gandhian centers and in that process, met Mathai. His experiences in India and with Gandhi have changed his understanding of business and capitalism.
He has recently written a book titled “Sarvodaya Capitals,” in which he applies the Gandhian idea of “universal progress” or the “uplift of all” to the capitalism of his experience.
One simple idea Fernando shares would make a world of difference in this country. The salary of the corporate CEO shouldn’t be more than 15 times higher than the lowest paid worker in the corporation. If you raise the CEO salary, you must also raise the others.
If only we could implement an idea of “mutual uplift” into the runaway capitalism of our country today, where the top 1% now own more wealth than the entire middle class. Now we even have one of those runaway capitalists paying people to vote.
While Mathai and Fernando were here they spoke with friends and neighbors at an open house and there was a speaking engagement one evening at SDSU. They had an opportunity to meet some Brookings folks and share some ideas and experiences with them.
At the same time, bombs were falling in Gaza and Ukraine, and the structures of organized violence continued to function. Sometimes it does seem as if speaking and working for nonviolence is a hopeless endeavor. One looks at Israel, a Jewish state. It is their Holy Land, their inheritance, that they trace back to Biblical times.
At the same time, the same God who gave them the land in Biblical times also gave them some rules that included “thou shalt not kill.” How does the genocide we witness today square with the Ten Commandments?
Or consider the same history in our own country, the idea of “manifest destiny” that wiped out Indian nations on our way to the Pacific? Don’t Christians affirm those same commandments?
We are a people who always seem to find a way to make exceptions. We lack self-discipline. We can say one thing today and do something different tomorrow.
Commitments to something like nonviolence, in thought, word and deed, can be difficult. Our training is modest. Our inclination is modest. Our commitment is modest. Anger wins! Resentment wins! Violence wins!
Still, we know it is possible, as we have seen others live a life of nonviolence, and countries with capable leadership implement it. Confession could be a first step in change. When watching the news begins to raise the blood pressure and the anger, one can breathe deep and recognize the violence rising in the body; then give thought to an alternative way of reacting, that is more in tune with the truth.
Nonviolence is a way of life. It is internal and external. It is about a search for truth in each and every situation. It is Truth with a capital T. It is God’s Truth. It’s not hopeless, just humanly difficult. It takes effort, patience, practice, persistence, belief. It starts within one person.
It spreads. We can do it!
Carl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.
