I have a story about the power of the human heart and how we can use it in relationship with others,
But also in relationship with ourselves.
You know,
The English had been in India for 300 years when a man called Gandhi comes along and he uses the principle of non-violence in such a way,
Such a powerful way,
That the British leave India.
Now the way it works is,
You know,
Faced with the English desire to hold on to power and their aggression,
The Indians did nothing.
So there would be these battles and confrontations and often many times the Indians would get bludgeoned or shot and Gandhi was saying,
Don't do anything,
Don't fight back.
So a lot of times that happened.
And so what happens is the principle is the aggressor is forced to gag on their own brutality.
So as this happened over and over again,
Basically the Brits saw clearly their brutality and lost the will to keep doing it and left India.
Now this same principle can happen in our relationships with others.
You know,
Now it has to be used carefully because I'm not suggesting that one allows somebody to beat you.
But you know,
If somebody is rude,
You know,
If you're in a work situation and somebody's rude with you,
You can use the invisible power of the heart,
Which is not responding to the action,
But quietly sending love and compassion to the person and maybe love and compassion to yourself as well.
And sort of keeping a stillness and peace as you do this.
And it changes things.
You could experiment with it.
It's actually a very feminine approach.
It is how women have handled life is from this more invisible,
Deeper secret inner way.
And our culture right now is so young and so male that we're losing touch with this power that we have to change things.
Now I'll give you a very small example.
So I lived in a shared garbage with some other tenants.
And you know,
Every garbage day I would bring back all the cans and the recycling things.
But they never would put my recycling out in the morning with theirs.
But I always brought theirs back.
Well I just kept doing this just because it's my way.
And indeed they started taking my recycling out in the morning too.
So I didn't have to worry.
It's just small things.
But it has a lot of power.
The other thing I want to talk about is,
And it's almost more important,
It's about how to use this principle of nonviolence with yourself.
So you know,
Supposing you do something that you regret or that you're grossed out by.
You know,
Rather than beating yourself up,
If you can witness it and feel it and you know,
Feel how terrible you feel about it.
Don't run from that.
And then take it to God.
Yeah,
I mean if you really do this sincerely,
You will change deeply inside yourself.
You know,
If somebody does something to us,
You know,
Obviously the tendency is to,
You know,
Blame them.
But again,
As I've talked about,
If we can avoid that and just try and stay neutral and be loving and compassionate with them and see if the behavior changes.
But when we do it,
There's nowhere to run.
So if we really face it and embrace it and take it to God,
We will transform.
And it's far better than,
You know,
Beating yourself up or you know,
Deciding that you're just worthless.
Because no matter what you've done,
You're a divine being in human form and you're just learning.
You know,
So if you can just be gentle and nonviolent with yourself,
You will grow faster and become happier and you'll be more loving with all the people around you.
Because if you're not giving yourself a bad time,
You will have more vision and ability to love others,
To see the God in them.
If you can see your own beauty,
You can see the beauty in others.
Yeah,
Okay.
It's a ride.
Bless your hearts.
