At the recently held interfaith panel discussion on Religion and Non-violence, hosted by the Hindu Students Council, the Baha'i speaker made what I thought was a pretty remarkable point about the source of the concept of non-violence in the Baha'i faith.
Most religious philosophies typically make a distinction between good and evil. This is particularly true of Judeo-Christian traditions, but to some extent also exists in other schools of thought. Essentially there exists a dualistic concept of good and evil - an independent existence is accorded to each (often personified by God and Satan, or angels and demons, or devtas and asuras), and there is the idea of an eternal battle between good and evil. It is really the existence of an independent concept of evil that causes many people to ultimately resort to violence in certain situations - for if you truly believed that certain things in this world are evil, then it would make sense to adopt violence to combat them, once other options are exhausted. And of course, once one in principle says that certain things in this world could be evil, where the line is drawn becomes a subjective judgment. For I could justify my actions on the basis that I believed some thing or some person to be evil. And the combination of my judgment, and the idea that it is acceptable to use violence to combat what is evil would sanction an attitude of violence.
However, the Baha'i faith clearly talks about the non-existence of evil. There is no dual nature to Good and Bad - all of creation is essentially Good. More details on this can be found in a previous post here, but to summarize, Abdu'l Baha talks about how the perception of evil/bad comes about either from the absence of goodness, or from the incompatibility between two good things.
Once one adopts this perspective, believing that there is really no evil in this world, that all that is created is truly good, one loses a firm basis for violence. If one believed there were nothing in the world truly evil, that everyone had some good in them, one would not have to be violent.
Note that by violence I mean an attitude of violence - not necessarily a violent action. At no point should one ignore the value of justice - and therefore it might be necessary to have a police force, take action against criminals, etc. But these are to be purely social actions - and from the point of the view of the individual, the right thing to do is to always be forgiving and merciful - in one's heart. Holding on to the belief that everyone's soul has its own spiritual equation with God, and that we are all somewhere along the path of progress towards God, will enable one to achieve that state.
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First, good point about the belief in the existence of evil as the basis for violence. Agreed to whole and sole and also the fact that once we destroy this basis, the concept of violence becomes redundant (whether in thought or in action).
However, since you talked about social institutions, there is one point that I would like to make. The fact is the minute you create a social institution such as a Police Force or an Army, what you are saying in effect is that certain things are unacceptable (normatively ONLY from the social point of view). Taking it further, one is then saying that it is ok to take action (which involves violence) against things that are socially unacceptable. Also, the minute you say something is unacceptable, there enters the concept of wrong doing or "BAD".
While all this is introduced at a social level to create a certain amount of order (which I admit is necessary), what I think happens is that when an individual is socialised and is exposed to the concept of "unacceptable" or "wrong", then these definitions enter the private, personal and individual realm as well. Which is where the problem begins of violence (in thought or action) in the individual and private space.
Good point - but I think the way of getting around this is for people to be able to sufficiently compartmentalize their thought processes (of course, easier said than done, but we're anyway talking about idealities here, so why not..). Take for example, a judge. Now as part of the larger social institution of the judicial system, he has certain responsibilities, and will often act condemning someone to imprisonment, or even death - for committing acts that are unacceptable, as you say. However, from his own personal standpoint, the right thing to do (spiritually) is to ALWAYS be forgiving (in his heart) towards the criminal, and not hold anything against him. This ideal of compartmentalization therefore allows for social institutions to take actions against individuals who violate certain inalienable rights of other people, but no individual, even when part of that social system, ever takes things on personally.
All this might of course seem very utopian, but it at least tells us what we should do in our lives - and to that extent, we can at least change things. As long as we try to be as forgiving as possible (even if justice does have to be meted out), and don't intrinsically assign a quality of evil/badness to people, we're well on the path to true nonviolence.
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