From Gandhi and the One-Eyed Giant
Introduction by Thomas Merton
Tyranny, which makes a sagacious use of every human need and indeed artificially creates more of them in order to exploit them all to the limit, recognizes the importance of guilt. And modern tyrannies have all implicitly in one way or another emphasized the irreversibility of evil in order to build their power upon it.
Hitler’s world was built on the central dogma of the irreversibility of evil. Just as there could be no quarter for the Jews, so the acts that eliminated them were equally irreversible and there could really be no excuse for the Nazi’s themselves…
It is no accident that Hitler believed firmly in the unforgivableness of sin…”
In St. Thomas Aquinas, we find a totally different view of evil. Evil is not only reversible but it is the proper motive of that mercy by which it is overcome and changed into good. Replying to the objection that moral evil is not the motive for mercy since the evil of sin deserves indignation and punishment rather than mercy and forgiveness, St. Thomas says that on the contrary sin itself is already a punishment “and in this respect we feel sorrow and compassion for sinners.” (Summa Theologica) In order to do this we have to be able to experience this sin as if it were our own. (Original italics) But those who consider themselves happy and whose sense of power depends on the idea that they are beyond suffering any evil are not able to have mercy on others” by experiencing the evil of others as their own. Ibid.
Have I been a tyrant? Expecting inhuman perfection from myself, being so violent towards me, having spotted an unforgivableness of my being. I noticed my frigidity towards others, sometimes… holding them responsible to a stoic point of callousedness.
My turning point is compassion towards myself. Transformation. An inner peace exuding non-violence, not to myself, nor to anyone. Liberating the oppressed and the oppressor.
Gandhian non-violence-not the means and the ends, but a means to an end…
N. Lois Turtledove is a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver obtaining a Master's Degree in Humanities. She teaches yoga inside and outside the home, and is an apprentice in the ancient therapeutic art of shamanic practice. She understands that the only real enemy is the self, and the Self is the deepest source of nurture. She wishes freedom from suffering for herself and for all sentient beings.