Hexagram 11, Peace, unchanging

[arabella]

Arabella, before you start talking about "guarantees of safety", perhaps you should ask your Master Clinical Psychologist friend whether the advice you gave offered any such thing.

Do you really think the Yi is never going to advise anyone to face their fears, or to follow a path that is truly challenging? Do you think that the Yi is never going to tell you you are wrong, change your path? Do you think somehow, by way of example, a God of love will not tell people who ask him for advice that he wishes them to be a force for peace in the world, even if that is the most difficult of paths to walk? Think of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela...

If truly difficult things which hurt like hell have been asked of you Arabella, things which still hurt, I would suggest it is perhaps because somebody loves and trusts you, as a leader figure, to do the right thing.

In fact, what has been done is exactly what you are suggesting.....Ghandi and Mandela ended their sufferings at the hand of those who used superior power to dominate, by means of passive resistance. Ghandi didn’t rush out to hug aggressors and make them feel better. He humiliated them. He sat still, said nothing, and resisted, to make clear that they needed him more than he needed them and that he would require respect and freedom from oppression if they wanted his participation as a leader. He didn’t respond to pressure and bullying. Bravo. This is precisely what was recommended in this case.

I don't know that anybody has ever accused Ghandi of failing to face his fears. To the contrary, he was simply smarter than a physically superior adversary.

As for me – Why do you think anything hurts? Nothing hurts; all of that is over. You are confusing "forgive" with "forget." The human animal is not extinct, is still here and runs the planet, because it has a conscious memory and actively utilises the benefits of experience.

 

[Lavalamp]

Ghandi didn’t rush out to hug aggressors and make them feel better. He humiliated them. He sat still, said nothing, and resisted, to make clear that they needed him more than he needed them and that he would require respect and freedom from oppression if they wanted his participation as a leader. He didn’t respond to pressure and bullying. Bravo. This is precisely what was recommended in this case.

I don't know that anybody has ever accused Ghandi of failing to face his fears. To the contrary, he was simply smarter than a physically superior adversary.

Well Arabella. I fail to see how humiliating the man, whom you had never met, who had really not committed any sins, is any kind of pathway to peace or overcoming one's fear. There are far worse things in this world Arabella, and you don't build a person who can take on the world with such advice, nor do you make them one bit safer really.

 

[arabella]

Well Arabella. I fail to see how humiliating the man, whom you had never met, who had really not committed any sins, is any kind of pathway to peace or overcoming one's fear. There are far worse things in this world Arabella, and you don't build a person who can take on the world with such advice, nor do you make them one bit safer really.

You have prescribed passisve resistance according to the philosophies of these two men whom you admire, and I am merely saying yes, that was the approach from the start. . So we are agreeing in principle.

And when you prescribe this, you must understand, as I do, that it can be upsetting to other people if you won't go along with the aggressive mode that they are in, although I agree with your good advice. I am pointing out to you that what Gandhi did was humiliating to the authorities. I'm not recommending it, I'm saying he wasn't some smarmy do-gooder -- his passivity hurt and offended other people. But it also changed their behaviour.

And now you say you can't build a better world with passive resistance, nor make it safer? Gandhi himself has proved you wrong here. What part of Gandhi's philosophy didn't you want to adopt? The part that might upset other people? It is inevitable unless you do absolutely everything that everyone else wants. That is called enslavement; and that is what Gandhi was resisting.

 

[pocossin]

Please continue this thread in Moderation.