I also found The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, where you can find MLK's sermons, speeches, and papers.
Could the violence we see and experience outside of ourselves (the kind MLK seems to be speaking about below) be symbolic and reflective of an inner violence that we wage within and against ourselves?
THE WEAKNESS OF VIOLENCE
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
A Major lesson for humanity to learn collectively.
ReplyDeleteA corollary expression is that "In the presence of one who has developed harmlessness all enmity ceases". (Patanjali)
What if the US lead by example of Peace and spent as much on promoting Peace as it does on agression and war? The US doesn't even have a Department of Peace!
Perhaps as the collective consciousness shifts people will vote in leaders who have Wisdom and are immune to the corrupting elixir of Power.
True "harmlessness" is an inside job. Physical harmlessness is easy compared to emotional harmlessness or mental harmlessness. Yet these two inner forms I believe are the causative agents in what happens on the physical plane or in 'outer life'.
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