The Origins of Violence

How do we understand the violence that is part of our human condition.  There are not "kinds" or "types" of violence.  There is no such thing as "justifiable" violence.  Psychological and physical violence are the same.  There is truly only "one" violence.  The true reality of violence can only be observed in ourselves individually in the moment of its psychological and emotional fruition.  That is, we cannot fully understand violence in the abstract.  How it controls and motivates us.  We must go beyond the emotional, into a state of existence that is without the mind that wants to reconcile, justify or avoid in any manner.  To avoid means to in anyway approve or disapprove.  When we approve or disapprove we move away from the fact of our own violent nature.  We create a conceptual model which removes us psychologically from the reality of what is. Violence creates violence, it is self perpetuating.  This is so because we are constantly escaping into the mind that wants to reconcile and justify.  If we stay with the moment of violence inwardly and outwardly then it is possible for us to realize, to see for the first time that we are the makers (individually and collectively) of all the violence that we abhor. 

What is the beginning of violence? How does it well up from within us?  All of us are seeking security in life.  We want to be protected and "know" that tomorrow we will be alright. That we will be relatively safe from the fears that we all have.  But the reality is that their is no such thing as security.  But we create in our minds the illusion of security through the government, the church, and any number of other escapes that can help us deal with our insecurity.  We write laws so as to predict behavior.  Laws which can uplift or suppress.   Laws or rules which give us this false sense of security.  When our security or the illusion of our security becomes threatened then we may become psychologically or physically violent.

We do not see the subtle violence, even brutality that our wealth, indifference and callousness heaps on the less fortunate.  We do not see that the violence of the human condition starts deep inside each one of us in our search for security, certainty and knowing.  We want to acquire, to own things, more property more money but none of it is enough, we are still insecure.  And we are willing to kill each other in order to get and keep what we desire.  The very structure of an acquisitive society is essentially violent.

To end violence you must see in the moment that you are the violence, it is not a separate concept to be pondered over...to be analyzed, dissected and "ruled" on.  IT IS YOU.  Anything else that you do to try and understand violence only moves you away from the fact of it.  When you see this in the absolute moment then there is the possibility of resolving it totally.