Training in Nonviolence

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Anuvrat Global Organization

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Training in Nonviolence
out of a college or university will remain unemployed. Education will not be without a guarantee of employment. This pledge will give a solution and the violence caused by hunger will decrease. This will be the second solution.
Today more than four million graduates, post-graduates and Ph.D. holders are deprived of employment and these now are the ones who are mainly responsible for the increase in violence. Nothing will accrue unless we attend to the basic problem. An uneducated person cannot match an educated person indulging in serious crimes if it comes to cleverly staging a bank robbery or robbering individual people with utmost efficacy.
Let all those who participate in the present conference put their effort towards starting trainings in nonviolence in their educational institutions. Your task comprises two things, first, how to bring about a transformation of consciousness, and second, how to train a student in skills ensuring employment. Let new dimensions of employment open out. We will perhaps come close to a solution if both of the above things are done.
There is an international university in Miami - Florida in the U.S.A. Two of our samanis are visiting professors there. After the students had completed lessons on nonviolence training and Preksha Meditation, they wrote to us that every student should undertake this training so that America may get rid of the problem of violence.
A large number of people have been sitting here listening to me for a long time. I shall finish the discourse with an interesting story. It will apply to us also who talk too much and hold conferences. It was the birthday of a wealthy merchant and everyone came to congratulate him. In Rajasthan there is a well-known caste, the members of which are in the forefront when it comes to reciting poems and lavishing praise over people. One Barhatji (member of the clan) also came to congratulate the wealthy merchant. Hearing his praise the merchant became very happy. He told the Barhath that it was a very good compliment and that he should come again the next day so that the merchant could reward him with forty kilos of grain. Next morning at sunbreak Barhatji came and saluted the merchant. The latter asked him how he came there. The former reminded him that he had asked him to come the following day so that he could reward him with forty kilos of grain. The merchant retorted by saying, “You pleased me by your words and I have pleased you by my words. So neither of us owes anything to the other."
I want that the present conference on training in nonviolence should not end up merely as the transaction of discussions. We should do some experimenting, we should do some practice. And if we suggest a way of how we can benefit a whole generation by combining the practice with education, probably our dialogue would rise above being a mere transaction and become a positive method. It will be a practical way that will enable us to march forward.
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