As someone who finds Ahimsa the most natural way of being and who resonates strongly with the NAP while also acknowledging that it is difficult to imagine myself using force against anyone or any being even if I was attacked, I enjoyed this piece. I have thought quite a bit about where I stand on using violence in response to violence, and it is so unnatural to me to think of causing harm and SO unpleasant, that while I agree that defending oneself against unprovoked aggression is a valuable course of action, I don’t know that I am capable of it, and I would venture to say that using violence goes against any human’s natural tendencies.

As such, I wholly disagree with the stance in one of the above comments that humans are inherently selfish and envious. These states of being are learned—or to be more accurate: taught. Selfishness, greed, aggression, and the like are rooted in fear and lack. When people grow up in a society based on fear surrounded by people who’ve grown up in a society based on fear, it tends to drown out the voice of the true self, which is based in love for self and others.

Watch the news for 2 minutes; the content and delivery of the stories feeds the fear narrative telling us we need to watch out, be wary of trusting people, that there’s an impending lack of all of the resources we “need” to survive as a species. Pushing the “reality” of danger and lack creates division, which allows the current system to continue working the way those in charge want it to work. Just because many people are driven by selfishness or envy does not mean that those are natural states of being; conditioned states of being, yes, but natural?

When determining the natural state of humans and whether we are “good” or “bad,” I think it’s useful to acknowledge that it just DOES NOT feel good to cause harm to or take advantage of another being. Compare the feeling you’d get from punching someone in the face and taking their money to the feeling you’d get from buying a homeless person lunch. What would feel better? What would feel more natural? The Share Experiment is one example that indicates human nature is to share rather than hoard.

As @floweroflife wrote, “When we have achieved peace in every one of our hearts, we will achieve peace in our collective reality.”

Every person can achieve peace in his or her heart—peace was there in the beginning and it remains even if we lose sight of it for a moment or for years. It’s always there; it’s just a matter of choosing to experience it. It’s being aware of how we are feeling and choosing love instead of fear—choosing what feels good and light and free over what doesn’t. We all have that capability.

Thanks for this post!