Imagine a scene from your favourite serial with the popular Hero, a dashing handsome young man, who faces dangers, villains, thugs, robbers. How does he do it? He does it with a dialogue in his mouth (very often profane, sometimes downright abusive) and some weapon in his hand; be it knife, gun, stick, whatever. And his response to the situation is one of REVENGE and tooth for a tooth. There are sometimes even heroines who have been wronged, who take up the sword or gun and go out and get their pound of flesh. Bloodshed, tears, revenge, hatred, death. And they save the city from hoodlums. And people heave a sigh of relief. There are tears of joy on seeing a wrong avenged. And people clap their hands when the hero kills the bad guys

This is also the menu that is fed to 'terrorists-in-training'. They are given to watch violent movies frequently from the time they wake (when they are in the alpha level of the mind) till the time they fall asleep. They are actually brainwashed. This is easy to understand.

But the subtle brainwashing in our day to day lives is more difficult to see. The daily menu that we ingest and digest is one of Violence. And our children watch these with us. Little wonder then, that our whole attitudes and daily responses are those of Violence. When a story is dramatised on a Multimedia it has huge impact on our minds. It leaves a very powerful impression that overrides our moral and religious thinking and beliefs.

This month we focus our attention on the violence in the world. Violence has become so much a part of our day to day living that even when we read our daily newspapers we do not cringe, we are not shocked, we do not cry. We read about the killings, the rapes, the untimely deaths and yet, we do not mourn or are concerned. We just take it in stride. We could easily be reading about some minister's speech or some event where some products are launched.

Perhaps the answer could be found in our daily diet of TV serials and movies we are addicted to where Violence is glamourised. Very often these very acts of fiction are translated in reality when some have-nots in our society who try to rob, steal and kill. What happens is a slow and steady dose of the violence we see becomes a part of us and we sub-consciously begin to believe that that is the right way, that that is THE WAY.

All Violence begins in the mind. No violence happens because it is an instinctive response of the body. Violence as a creed, a response, a culture is born in our minds. The impressions left from the serials, movies, books where Violence is glorified draw us subtly to imbibe that Value and before we even know (if we ever know) we have made it a part of our life.

I have some friends who often talk about the negative things in the world. I exhort them to dwell their minds more on the positive and good things. What we see, What we dwell, What we chat about, has the POWER to 'become' us; make us and break us.

Finally, one small exercise to help us transform our minds. Close your eyes, sit in a comfortable position and start breathing slowly and deeply. (Follow the exercises from the earlier writeups of Stop, Look, LIve) After about a minute, picture a TV screen in front of your eyes. Imagine a scene (which you have seen) where the response is Violence and which had left an impression on you. And say to the scene on your TV screen CANCEL, CANCEL. Then imagine a remote in your hands and turn down the Volume on your screen, repeat Cancel, Cancel. Reduce the colour on the screen. Repeat Cancel, cancel. Reduce the contrast on the screen and repeat Cancel, cancel. The image now fades away. And alongwith it the residual impression of Violence.

You can even do this exercise substituting something from your own life where you feel very inclined to respond in a negative, even violent way. This exercise, though seems very simple has a profound effect on cleaning our subconscious minds of violent ideologies and ideas. Try it and you will know the difference.

One man who grasped the message of Non-Violence is Mahatma Gandhi. He could have incited the entire nation to Violence but he stuck to his doctrine of Ahimsa. As a high school student, I always wondered how Gandhiji could say those immortal words, 'The British must leave….but they must leave as friends'. But he had grasped the power of non-violence, the power of love and forgiveness.

Pablo Casals once said, “The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” (a man made border at that !)

We honour this great man on his birthday, the 2nd of October and we wish that we may imbibe his greatly cherished goal of Non-violence.