Violence is, to put it differently, laying the blame for
one’s own mistakes at the door of another. But this
world is based on the principle of cause and effect,
and when anyone suffers from some affliction, he
should try to find the cause within himself, rather
than attempt to find it elsewhere. As you sow, so
shall you reap.
When this reality of life takes root in the mind of a
human being, he will never hold anyone else
responsible for his own afflictions, and take to
violence against them. No, indeed, he will analyse
his own actions objectively to discover his own
shortcomings and rectify his mistakes in order that
he may be saved from being the victim of
unnecessary suffering.
Engaging in subversive activities against others,
using one’s own woes as a pretext, is like a patient
holding his neighbour responsible for his illness
and starting a fight with him. In a city where the
traffic has to keep to the right, anyone who thinks
he can flout the rule of law by driving his car on the
left will certainly have an accident.
This accident would apparently have occurred due
to the collision of another’s car with him, but he
would have no justification in saying that another
motorist had injured him by hitting his car. On the
contrary, he should have to admit that his car had
collided with another, because he had been driving
on the wrong side of the street, while the other
motorist was on the right side.
The same is true of all other aspects of human
existence. Whenever you have to face any loss
in life, you must consider that whatever
happened was due to your own shortcomings.
This is the way of peaceful thinking—the
correct way of thinking in the af fairs of this
life. If you can think along the right lines, you
wi ll be able to set yourself rectifying you r
mistakes, which wi ll save your future. If you
take the opposite cou rse, you will put all the
blame for your feelings of distress on others,
and then, by taking a violent option, you will
destroy your future, having already destroyed
your past and present because of choosing the
same violent course.
Ref -The Ideology of Peace
- by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
