Chapter 7, part 1

Talk To Students. Chapter 7: On Violence

There is a great deal of violence in the world. There is physical violence and also inward violence. Physical violence is to kill another, to hurt other people consciously, deliberately, or without thought, to say cruel things, full of antagonism and hate; and inwardly, inside the skin, to dislike people, to hate people, to criticize people.

Inwardly, we are always quarrelling, battling, not only with others, but with ourselves. We want people to change, we want to force them to our way of thinking.

In the world, as we grow up, we see a great deal of violence, at all levels of human existence. The ultimate violence is war - the killing for ideas, for so called religious principles, for nationalities, the killing to preserve a little piece of land. To do that, man will kill, destroy, maim and also be killed himself. There is enormous violence in the world; the rich wanting to keep people poor and the poor wanting to get rich and in the process hating the rich. And you, being caught in society, are also going to contribute to this.

There is violence between husband, wife and children. There is violence, antagonism, hate, cruelty, ugly criticism, anger - all this is inherent in man, inherent in each human being. It is inherent in you.