October 13

State administration—whichever form it takes—is so contrary to the fundamental conditions of Christianity that it suffices to say that people live a public life to mean that they live a life wholly contrary to the teachings of Christ.

1

Where great sages reign, their subjects do not notice their existence. Where lesser sages reign, the people are attached to them and praise them. Where even lesser sages reign, the people fear them, and, where sages are lesser still, the people despise them.

— Laozi

2

An unawakened person thinks about the state as a collection of sacred institutions akin to the organs of a living body, a necessary condition for human life. An awakened person sees it composed of people who are very lost, who assign themselves fanciful importance without any reasonable justification and resort to violence to carry out their wishes. For someone who has been awakened, all these people are lost and, for the most part, corrupt, employing violence against others in the same way that brigands assault and kidnap people on the roads. The antiquity of the violence, its scale, its organization—none of it changes the essence of the matter. For an awakened person there is no such thing as a state; and therefore there is no justification for all the violence carried out in the name of a state; and therefore it is impossible for him to participate in it. State violence cannot be destroyed by external means, it can only be destroyed by the awakening of people’s consciousness to the truth.

3

Strength lies in reciprocal love, weakness in mutual conflict. United by love we stand firm, divided by strife we fall.

— Lucy Mallory

4

Perhaps state violence was necessitated by people’s former condition, perhaps it is necessary even now, but people cannot fail to see, cannot fail to envisage the condition under which violence can only interfere with people’s peaceful lives. And, seeing and envisaging this, people cannot but strive towards making that order a reality. The means of realizing this order is your inner self-perfection and non-participation in violence.

Try to live in a way that makes violence unnecessary.