The learning of the pacifism is a
long and difficult task. Every day we potentially expose ourselves to
disagreements and conflicts with our fellow men every time we have contact,
every time we interact or collaborate with other beings.
It would be easier to extract us
from this society and consequently not to expose us to differences which can
sometimes strike us and provoke in us fatal feelings for ourselves and others.
Now, isolate ourselves (spiritually,
socially or by taking detachment) and therefore do not feel the consequences of
these oppositions can give us the illusion that we finally know what pacifism
is because we are no longer in conflict with anyone ... So it is easy to speak
about peace and compassion, and believe that we feel them strongly inside if we
are not exposed to these social stimuli. Moreover, by isolating ourselves, can we
really claim to know what true compassion and pacifism is if we have never
experimented or if we stop experiencing these relations which finally return us
to our own inner storms. If we have an umbrella over our head, do we for all that
prevent the rain from falling? Did we eliminate for all that unpleasant
sensation of the cold and the wet clothes on our skin? I don’t think so, we are
not wet and that is all.
Not to live this experiment we
refrain to understand what we feel, to understand possibly why it seems to us
unpleasant and thus we forbid us to transcend it.
It is the same of the pacifism, we
have to experiment the interpersonal conflict to understand it and transcend
it. The isolation or the indifference prevents us from understanding all the
internal process which brings us to feel more or less hard a situation, to
grasp our internal and physical demonstrations, to understand our own entry to
the conflicting process and to become aware of the influence of the real world
on our own lives.
Rather than to flee, it is necessary
to embrace these painful situations and to consider them as so many
opportunities to go even farther to our learning of us and to go farther
to our inner rise.
As committed pacifist we owe in the
real world, to make every effort to calm and try to settle all the conflicts to
which we are exposed, "so insignificant" they can appear with regard
to the scale of the conflicts which strike the humanity, because it would be go
away from our way to ignore them.
Our capacity to continue in everyday
life, to keep our attention on our daily or unexpected relations, this
tough effort to pacify our lives will allow us in fact and eventually to understand, to appease and to eliminate the human conflicts in their global nature.
This perseverance in the everyday
life is the reflection of our spiritual commitment, of our benevolence towards
others and towards our deep will to allow all the people, all the human beings
to reach well-being and happiness wherever they are.
The aim, obviously, is not to
stop feeling emotions, but to understand why we feel them, to identify all the
forms of expression associated with these feelings, the potentially
excessive consequent reactions, their effects on ourselves, on our well-being and that of others. So, we shall understand the process of creation of all these emotions,
and all their forms, we shall find then the means to anticipate them, this
internal knowledge will free us to choose the most adapted reactions in
accordance with our spiritual and pacifist commitments.
It is useless to flog ourselves, to
feel guilty in front of our painful reactions, those which sometimes may escape
us, this would plunge us into grief, sorrow and paralysis. It is essential to
have compassion for ourselves, to accept that we are perfectly imperfect and
sometimes in contradiction with our deepest aspirations and what we thought to
be capable of being, just systematically make sure to always have (even a
posteriori) the presence of mind and objectivity to learn from our "faux
pas", to fix our mistakes and ensure not to reproduce them.
We learned a lot, we learn every day
and we never stop learning of ourselves and others on ourselves and on the
others.
Let us humble but confident. Accept
each day to be better than yesterday and that we approach at each time toward
what our heart and our inside call tend: Peace on earth, in this world, in this
life.
Always strive to do what looks like
us and what corresponds to our highest values.
