Peace and non-violence are integral for obtaining spiritual growth and benifits from Creator

I've been confronted many times over the years by those who disagree with my peaceful, non-violent position in life.  The scenario that most people come up with to argue against non-violence is by posing a question like this:

A bad guy is pointing a gun to your head, what do you do?  See, non-violence does not work.  The only way to deal with the bad guy is to shoot him before he shoots me.  Violence must be met head on with violence.  The difference being evil intent vs righteousness.

The problem with their argument is that self-defense and peace has many layers and protocols that needs to be addressed LONG before you even get to this point.  How many people have been killed in history in the name of righteousness?  Rather than being reactionary, self-defense and peace requires being proactive, vigilant and persistent in life.

We cannot discuss self-defense and non-violence without covering the entire protocol. That would take up a whole entire book and Leo Tolstoy attempted that very thing with his book 'The Kingdom of God is within you', written in 1894.  This book influenced the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.  It is a tough read and challenged a lot of my own preconceptions.  There are still segments of his writing that I struggle or disagree with, but it is important to be challenged in this way so that we can start breaking down our militaristic upbringing, preconceived notions of how life works and learn how to live a spirit centric peaceful life instead.  We all desire peace but have no idea what peace looks like, how to get there or how much work is involved.

As a reformed emotional and mental abuser, I know first hand what it is like to engage in violence and not even be consciously aware of it.  I was a big time bully and clueless to the fact.  No amount of therapy was going to convince me otherwise.  What was required was a catastrophic failure in my life where I hit rock bottom, lost everything and faced a choice:  change or die.  At that point I surrendered my old ways and willingly learned a new way of living.  It is those principles that I share on this blog and in my books.  No amount of violence against me would force me to change.  I had many people confront me only to have the message go in one ear and out the other.  

When I surrendered and chose a new path, I finally recognized the violence I was engaged in and had to come to terms with it all.  It was a free will choice that I had to make alone, nobody could do it for me.  This is where many people get caught up thinking that they can change others and they are even willing to engage in violence to make their point.  This does not work.  We cannot change other people because we cannot impact free will.  Violence only injures people and programs the vessel, it does not effect positive change within our spirit.  Forgiving myself and walking a path of peace was the choice I had to take and I did it with my own spiritual free will.  Over the last 17 years, I have explored what that looks like.  Here is what I have found that works for me.

In my 10+ years of training in the martial arts, the self-defense components of our training was focused on teaching the student self confidence and how to portray that confidence in their body language, movement and eye contact.  The reality about bullies:  they instinctively sense weakness in others and engage in covert or even overt violence to intimidate and manipulate other people.  It was my job as an instructor to teach people how to not look 'weak' even though their insides may be quaking.  We communicate a lot through our own body language.  By walking with confidence, straight back, shoulders back and with eye contact, scanning our environment, we portray confidence and strength.  The martial arts taught me how to be in command of my vessel, how it moves, what it is capable of doing and I busted through many self-limiting beliefs.  It was a powerful experience and it helped me build an amazing confidence in myself and my vessel.  That was passed on to my students as well.  It also taught me how to peacefully confront violence rather than running away, fighting or freezing up.

The biggest misconception of non-violence is that people view it as being passive.  Not at all.  Peace and non-violence requires one to be active, vocal and confrontational, in non-violent ways.  Silence is acquiescence and by remaining silent I participate in violence.  So non-violence demands active protocols to confront the violence we oppose, which takes strength, courage, fortitude and huge commitment to peace and love.  Silence is violence!

This experience reinforced the lessons that I learned through my recovery from depression and suicide attempts.  As a result, I learned to love myself, my vessel, forgive my past ways and how to have a healthy relationship with me which I could then reflect outwards into my relationships with others.  As a result, I did not have to resort to violence any longer as I can now provide for myself and articulate my needs peacefully so that they are met.  My dependency on others disappeared and I became independent, so there was no longer any need to engage in violence to acquire that what I needed.  I speak about this at great length in my first book 'Graduating Life with Honours'.

When I realized that I AM a spiritual being in command of my vessel, the rules changed yet again.  Fear of death diminished greatly once I realized that my life is no longer finite and limited to this physical realm.  Now I engage in my spiritual power using peace and I've witnessed a level of protection and prosperity that I have never witnessed before in my life.  My wife and I did another surrender in 2007 when we quit our jobs, sold everything and move onto the land.  We put our trust and faith in our selves, each other, Mother Earth and Creator instead of the fictional constructs.  We have always had our needs provided even though we live well below the poverty guidelines established by the state.  We have had violent altercations here, but with our non-violence stance, the violent offenders leave without us resorting to violence ourselves.  Even the state is showing signs of withdraw as well and they are some of the most violent offenders on the planet.  The state has left us alone for well over 10 years despite my own activism to convince others to walk away and no longer support them.  I think our position in life has resulted in a healthy respect as spirit moves those who interact with us, whether they are aware of it or not.

We have come to the point in our lives where we realize that Spirit has a tremendous influence on the physical realm and when we start to live within spirit, peace and prosperity follow.  But it requires that we declare peace and engage in the fruits of the spirit in order to call upon these spiritual benefits from Creator.  People who are not spiritual will have a hard time relating to this powerful form of protection, especially if they are still focusing on the fictional constructs to provide protection against bullies, thieves and murderers.  

I have faith that I am now protected and that nobody can take the life of my vessel without Creators consent.  That frees me to do my work and no worry about how or when I AM going to lose my vessel.  That fear is significantly diminished and it allows me to confront others who engage in violence, even the state who has guns.  The trap is that if we engage in violence, then we miss out on Spiritual protections.  The only way to enjoy the benefits of spiritual protections is to declare peace and be peaceful.  This is a spiritual journey and when we resort to violence we surrender our spiritual growth for physical conquest.  The price is much to high to do that.

This requires a leap of faith and is not an intellectual exercise.  It requires physical, emotional, mental and spiritual commitments and faith in oneself, others, Mother Earth and Creator.  So when things or opportunities are taken away, we don't stress about it as we know our needs will always be met.  This leap of faith is a very uncomfortable and foreign feeling and it took 10+ years to learn to trust it.  

 "When  I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth  and love have  always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.  Think of it--always." - Mahatma Gandhi

So to answer the hypothetical question that I opened up this blog with:  I don't know what I would do, but I have plenty of protocols implemented to significantly reduce or even eliminate the risk of such an event from occurring.  So I'm not going to lose sleep over it.  

I choose the path less traveled.  Peace and non-violence and I dedicate my life to exploring what that means ... to me!  As a result, my community is stronger and the bullies are defenseless against it.

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