THIS IS THE WAY OF PEACE: Overcome evil with good, falsehood withtruth, and hatred with love.
It is hard for people to understand that all war is bad and selfdefeating.
People in their immaturity attempt to overcome evil withmore evil, and that multiplies the evil. Only good can overcome evil.
My simple peace message is adequate—really just the messagethat the way of peace is the way of love. Love is the greatest poweron earth. It conquers all things. One in harmony with God’s law oflove has more strength than an army, for one need not subdue anadversary; an adversary can be transformed.
One day as I was walking along the highway I began to sing peacewords to a familiar tune which I believe sums up the present worldsituation in a nutshell:
The world is feverishly working to build the things of war,The world is preparing destruction of a kind unknown before.
I hear much cursing of enemies, and arguments increase,But, oh, the world is longing, is yearning,Is praying for peace—for peace!
The nuclear bomb says to us: “Make peace or perish!” We recognizethat we can no longer think in terms of military victory, that anuclear war would mean mutual annihilation. Many face this criticalsituation with apathy, some with frustration, but only a very few faceit constructively.
There is such a great need for constructive peace action.We liveat a crisis period in human affairs, and those of us who are livingtoday face a very momentous decision: A choice between nuclearwar of annihilation and a golden age of peace. All who are livingtoday will help to make this choice, for the tide of world affairs nowdrifts in the direction of war and destruction. So all who do nothingin this crisis situation are choosing to let it drift.Those who wish tochoose peace must act meaningfully for peace. And become a part ofthe stirring and awakening which has begun and is accelerating. Andhelp to accelerate it sufficiently to turn the tide. In this crisis situationpeace is certainly everybody’s business! The time to work forpeace is now.
Ultimate peace begins within; when we find peace within therewill be no more conflict, no more occasion for war. If this is thepeace you seek, purify your body by sensible living habits, purifyyour mind by expelling all negative thoughts, purify your motives bycasting out any ideas of greed or self-striving and by seeking to serveyour fellow human beings, purify your desires by eliminating allwishes for material possessions or self-glorification and by desiringto know and do God’s will for you. Inspire others to do likewise.
Some will prefer to work on an interim peace—a setting up ofmechanisms to resolve conflicts in a world where conflicts stillexist—so that although there may still be psychological violencethere will no longer be physical violence. If this is the peace youseek, work on a world scale for world disarmament and reconstruction,for a world government which will include all people, forworld thinking: placing the welfare of the human family above thewelfare of any nation.Work on a national scale for changing thefunction of the so-called Defense Department from destruction toconstruction. So much constructive work is needed among the lessfortunate peoples in the world, and for the adjustment of our economyto a peacetime situation. Lots of problems to solve here. Getothers to work with you.
We can work on inner peace and world peace at the same time.
On one hand, people have found inner peace by losing themselves ina cause larger than themselves, like the cause of world peace, becausefinding inner peace means coming from the self-centered life into thelife centered in the good of the whole. On the other hand, one of theways of working for world peace is to work for more inner peace,because world peace will never be stable until enough of us findinner peace to stabilize it.
My inner peace remains in spite of any outward thing. Only insofaras I remain in harmony can I draw others into harmony, and somuch more harmony is needed before the world can find peace.Thisdoesn’t mean that I am not concerned about world happenings. Atime like this calls for much peace prayer and peace effort. All rightwork and all right prayer has effect, all good effort bears good fruit,whether we see the results or not. In spite of the darkness in thepresent world situation I am not discouraged. I know that just ashuman life proceeds toward harmony through a series of hills andvalleys, so a society has its ups and downs in its search for peace.
There is within the hearts of people deep desire for peace onearth, and they would speak for peace if they were not bound byapathy, by ignorance, by fear. It is the job of the peacemakers to inspirethem from their apathy, to dispel their ignorance with truth, to allaytheir fear with faith that God’s laws work—and work for good.
Knowing that all things contrary to God’s laws are transient, letus avoid despair and radiate hope for a warless world. Peace is possible,for thoughts have tremendous power.
A few really dedicated people can offset the ill effects of massesof out-of-harmony people, so we who work for peace must notfalter.We must continue to pray for peace and to act for peace inwhatever way we can, we must continue to speak for peace and tolive the way of peace; to inspire others, we must continue to think ofpeace and to know that peace is possible. What we dwell upon wehelp to bring into manifestation. One little person, giving all of hertime to peace, makes news. Many people, giving some of their time,can make history.
One day a lady said to me, “Peace, I’m praying with you forpeace, but of course I don’t believe it’s possible.” I said, “Don’t youbelieve peace is God’s will?” “Oh, yes,” she said, “I know it is.” I said,“How can you tell me that which is God’s will is impossible? It’s notonly possible, it’s inevitable, but how soon is up to us.”
Never underestimate the power of a loosely knit group workingfor a good cause.All of us who work for peace together, all of us whopray for peace together, are a small minority, but a powerful spiritualfellowship. Our power is beyond our numbers.
Those who seem to fail pave the way and often contribute morethan those who finally succeed. I cannot help feeling grateful to thepeace pioneers, who worked for peace when the going was roughand there were no apparent results.
One of the most common questions asked of me is: “Have youseen any results from your pilgrimage?” The answer is that I’ve neverasked to see results—I leave the results in God’s hands.They may noteven be manifest in my lifetime, but eventually they will becomemanifest. And, believe it or not, I have seen results: Lots of lettersfrom people indicating they have been inspired to do something forpeace in their own way—anything from writing letters to Congressto making peace with some friend or relation. And it all adds up.
Now, as I look back at the overall efforts of all the peacemakers,I can see the results.When I began my pilgrimage, people acceptedwar as a necessary part of life. Now, the peacemakers are on the popularside! When I started out, there was very little interest in theinner search. I could actually make an inquiry at a state college anddiscover that two-thirds to three-quarters of the students at that timeconsidered themselves agnostic if not atheist. Now, I can hardly finda student or a person who isn’t interested in the deepest kind ofsearching.To me that is the most hopeful sign of all.
On the one hand it can be said: How tragic that our materialadvancement has gotten so far ahead of our spiritual advancement that westand on the brink of destroying all life on earth. On the other hand it canbe said: How good that we finally realize that military victory is impossible,so that immature people and even not-good people now have an incentive tolay down their arms. Both statements are true.
There is no greater block to world peace, or inner peace, thanfear. It has led us to manufacture implements of mass destruction.
What we fear we tend to develop an unreasonable hatred for—so wecome to hate and fear. This not only injures us psychologically andaggravates world tensions, but through such negative concentrationwe tend to attract the things which we fear. If we fear nothing andradiate love, we can expect good things to come. How much thisworld needs the message and the example of love and faith!
Peace and freedom! These things shall be! How soon these thingsshall be—whether now or whether after great destruction and newbeginnings and eons of time—is up to us!
Much research and experimentation needs to be done on peacefulways of resolving conflicts.We can work as groups, or as an individualright where we are, undertaking specific peace projects,commending and strengthening the good wherever we find it.
You can only expect to change one nation—your own.After yournation has changed itself, the example may inspire other nations tochange themselves. If any influential nation had the great spiritualstrength to lay down its arms and appear with clean hands before theworld, the world would be changed. I see no evidence that any influentialnation has such great spiritual strength and courage.Thereforedisarmament will be a slow process, motivated by the wish to survive.
The darkness that we see in our world today is due to the disintegrationof things out of harmony with God’s laws. The basic conflictis not between nations, it is between two opposing beliefs.
The first is that evil can be overcome by more evil, that the endjustifies the means.This belief is very prevalent in our world today. Itis the war way. It is the official position of every major nation.
Then there is the way that was taught two thousand years ago—of overcoming evil with good, which is my way, the way Jesustaught. Never lose faith: God’s way is bound to prevail in the end.
In order for the world to become peaceful, people must becomemore peaceful. Among mature people war would not be aproblem—it would be impossible. In their immaturity people want,at the same time, peace and the things which make war. However,people can mature just as children grow up.Yes, our institutions andour leaders reflect our immaturity, but as we mature we will electbetter leaders and set up better institutions. It always comes back tothe thing so many of us wish to avoid: working to improve ourselves.
The sanctuary of peace dwells within. Seek it out and all thingswill be added to you.We’re coming closer and closer to the timewhen enough of us will have found inner peace to affect our institutionsfor the better. And as soon as this happens the institutions willin turn, through example, affect for the better those who are stillimmature.
Peace will probably come to the world in the same way as it hascome to our land. Out of the chaos of civil war, Indian wars and theduels of hundreds of years ago, has come order. Mechanisms have beenset up to avoid physical violence, while psychological violence stillendures.The smaller units, the states, have given up to the larger unit,the United States, the right to make war. Yes, I think the time willcome when the smaller units, the nations, will give up to the largerunit, the United Nations, one single right: the right to make war.
I don’t believe the nations would or should give up other rights.
People have the most control over their affairs at a grass-roots level.
Anything that can be fairly and efficiently handled at a grass-rootslevel should be thus handled, and only delegated to a higher authoritywhen necessary.
The United Nations would have as its job maintaining a peacefulsituation in the world. As long as we remain immature the UNwould have a police force to deal with individual offenders againstthe peace of the world—by removing them, I would hope, for theirrehabilitation. Also it should have an unarmed peace force to dealwith war prevention. While our nation can deal with problems likean inadequate food supply, the UN would have to deal with problemslike a country striving for freedom—and freedom is now thedesire of all human hearts.
I once said to a woman who believed in war and Christian values:
“On the one hand you talk about Christian values, on the other handyou say, ‘Isn’t force the only deterrent they respect?’ This has beenour trouble down through the ages—we have given only lip serviceto Christian values, and lived by the jungle law of tooth and claw.Wehave quoted ‘Be not overcome of evil, overcome evil with good’ and thenattempted to overcome evil with more evil, thereby multiplying theevil.We worship God, but have no faith in the working of God’s lawsof love. The world awaits the living of the law of love, which willreach the divine within all human beings and transform them.”
The pastor of a large Canadian church, who had recentlyreturned from a visit to the Orient, told me that the Buddhists aresending two thousand missionaries to convert the Christians to theway of non-violence!
During World War II, an American Sunday School teacher whowas in the Pacific had captured a Japanese soldier. In marching thesoldier to camp, the American discovered that his prisoner spokeEnglish. “You know what,” said the Japanese soldier. “I was once aChristian.” The American deliberated a moment and then said,“Whydid you give up Christianity?” A look of surprise came upon theJapanese soldier, and he answered with a puzzled expression, “Howcan I be a soldier and still be a Christian?”
What people do not realize is that nonviolence can be applied inall situations, including World War II. I met four of the Danish peoplewho used the way of nonviolence and love in World War II, and it wasa wonderful story.
Now, when the Germans occupied France, the French wouldoften kill the German soldier who was patrolling, and then theGermans would wipe out the whole block in retaliation. When theGermans marched into Denmark, the Danish people began aprogram of non-cooperation.You know, they say the way to a man’sheart is through his stomach—many Danish people actually usedthat way.They w............