Where the true self is confident, suffering can become conscious; you can become conscious of the suffering that you are receiving and understand it and endure it. And the whole self then, the whole person that you are, mysteriously can do two things. It can at the same time hold firm and resist or speak out against evil, tyranny, rejection, and at the same time, expand in love – again, the narrative of the gospel. These three great human beings that I mentioned, Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Mandela are illustrations, and there are many others, many of which names are not known. They were all advocates of nonviolence or became advocates of nonviolence, ahimsa, and each of them recognised that the practice of nonviolence is a practice that requires the power of the true self, the power of God, the power of the Spirit, in order to be sustained.
( The Brick Wall of the Ego 2 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
