Seeing the similarity to oneself, one should not use violence or have it used.
The five yamas are: non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, brahmacharya and non-attachment. The five niyamas are: purity, contentment, study of the self, tapas (austerity) and surrender to God. The yamas and niyamas are the first two components of yoga’s eight integral components which are: yamas, niyamas, asanas, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi. Yoga sadhana can only be performed within the protective fortress of the yamas and niyamas. Without this foundation, the seeker is condemned to endless disturbances.
I believe that the very effort to convert anybody is violence, it is interfering in his individuality, in his uniqueness, into his freedom.
Terrorism thrives on administrative violence and injustice; that is the only atmosphere in which it can thrive and grow. It sometimes follows the example of indiscriminate violence from above; it sometimes, though very rarely, sets it from below. But the power above which follows the example from below is on the way to committing suicide.
In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.
It is impossible to pursue happiness. Nobody has ever pursued it. One has to wait for it. And it is not a right at all. No law court can force you to be happy or force happiness to be with you. No government violence is capable of making you happy. No power can make you happy.
Violence is a crime against humanity, for it destroys the very fabric of society.
Faced with today's problems and disappointments, many people will try to escape from their responsibility. Escape in selfishness, escape in sexual pleasure, escape in drugs, escape in violence, escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape.
Of these five vital principles, Love is the foremost. It is Love that flows as the under-current for the other four values. How does it flow this way? When Love is associated with our thoughts, it manifests itself as Truth. When Love is associated with feelings, it produces Peace. When Love animates actions, it results in Right Action. When Love is combined with understanding it becomes Non-violence. Therefore whenever you feel angry, think of love, develop thoughts of love in your heart. You will have peace.
Humanity happy, I get benefit. Humanity in state of trouble, or violence, I cannot escape from that.
The greatest weapon against violence is love and compassion.
One only needs to read twentieth-century history to see that it has been the climax of human madness, if it's measured in terms of human violence inflicted on other humans.
All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away.
My opposition to the socialist and the other consists in attacking violence as a means of effecting any lasting reform.
The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.
An unjust law in itself is an act of violence.
Meditation is not doing anything directly to your violence, not doing anything to your jealousy, to your hate. It is simply bringing light into your house, and the darkness disappears.
Violence begins with the fork.
By far the greater part of violence that humans inflicted on each other is not the work of criminals or mentally deranged, but of normal, respectable citizens in service of the collective ego. One can go so far as to say that on this planet "normal" equals insane. What is it that lies at the root of this insanity? Complete identification with thought and emotion, that is to say, ego.
Nowadays, we are confronted by a huge gap between rich and poor. This is not only morally wrong, but practically a mistake. It leads to the rich living in anxiety and the poor living in frustration, which has the potential to lead to more violence. We have to work to reduce this gap. It's truly unfair that some people should have so much while others go hungry.
Violence, even in thought, leads to fear and weakness.
Violence in any form is evil and to kill innocent animals is tantamount to blatant savagery.
Opting for peace does not mean a passive acquiescence to evil or compromise of principle. It demands an active struggle against hatred, oppression and disunity, but not by using methods of violence. Building peace requires creative and courageous action.
Anyone can practice some nonviolence, even soldiers. Some army generals, for example, conduct their operations in ways that avoid killing innocent people; this is a kind of nonviolence. To help soldiers move in the nonviolent direction, we have to be in touch with them. If we divide reality into two camps - the violent and the nonviolent - and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact.
The seeker who wants to peacefully pursue the course of sadhana should give up violence, non-truthfulness, stealing, promiscuity, hoarding, jealousy, impatience, cruelty, overeating and other impurities. All these must be avoided and abandoned or there will always be distractions and disturbances in performing sadhana.