A BASIC PHILOSOPHY
King opens the article stating: “From the beginning a basic philosophy guided the movement.”{1} One of the powerful qualities of Nonviolence is its simplicity: presenting an approach that can be embraced by kids to adults, persons of varying levels of education, and people with different temperaments. King states plainly what this basic guiding force is:
the phrase most often heard was “Christian love.”
It was the Sermon on the Mount, rather than a
doctrine of passive resistance, that initially inspired
the Negroes of Montgomery to dignified social
action. It was Jesus of Nazareth that stirred the
Negroes to protest with the creative weapon of
love.{2} (emphasis mine)
Later in the article, King goes into depth by what he means by love. But even if people have differing concepts of love, King acknowledges this is the starting point for Nonviolence. This can be a challenge given our culturally-learned inclination to respond to wrongs with anger, force, or even political calculation and mental might. This is often magnified with situations of extreme injustice. Responding in ways other than love may produce certain desired outcomes, but these usually recede and are often wrought with great dangers. Love lays the path to lasting change and transformation -- which is ultimately what is more beneficial. Those truly devoted to Nonviolence are not content to merely change components of an overall situation that continues to fuel and create oppression and injustice. Instead, Nonviolence looks to have the overall situation be transformed to one that establishes and fosters justice and true community, a transformation that begins with one’s self. Few things are more powerful in facilitating such transformation than love.
The mention of “Christian love” has further relevance. Two things are of note: Montgomery, as well as much of the American South at the time, had a strong Christian presence. This clearly places love in a spiritual context -- as opposed to a worldly one. And, secondly, “Christian love” is tapping into a virtue already present in the community. Both factors are important.
One aspect of “Christian love” is that it provides clear guidance to Christians, not leaving them to devise something new and apply it as they wish. Jesus gives a clear orientation for love: one that moves beyond selfishness, self-centeredness, and worldly pleasures toward peaceful relations that benefit one’s self and others. Note these words from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:
43You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be children of your Parent* in heaven. It causes Its sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Parent is perfect.{3} (**The translation states “Father” but I change it to “Parent” since traditional Judaism and Christianity say the Absolute is beyond gender.)
First, if one is not loving (or engaged in the journey of discovering love for) one’s self, family, and friends, it will be extremely difficult (and possibly hypocritical) to love one’s neighbor. Without this baseline of existing love we are unlikely to strive toward loving our “enemies:” those in opposition to us, those who do things that harm us. The deepening transformation of Nonviolence happens within the space of love, building on the love we are encouraged to nurture prior to engaging in social action.
Many Blacks in Montgomery were already living or aspiring to live this love prior to the arrest of Rosa Parks which sparked the year- long boycott. In this regard, Nonviolence looks to build on something already present in our lives. If we wait until an unfortunate event to attempt infusing love into our lives, we will find it extremely challenging to do so -- especially if anger is part of our reaction to the incident.
For those who are Christian, King points out pillars of guidance in the Sermon on the Mount regarding love. Those of other spiritual paths can look to their tradition of scriptures and teachings and I trust you will find guiding pillars similar to what the Sermon on the Mount offers. The language, how things are said and conveyed, may vary but the orientation of love looks to move beyond selfishness and self-centeredness toward peaceful relations that benefit one’s self and others. And Jesus states the ideal: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Parent is perfect.”{4} That the scope of our love, or whatever else we may call it, expands to send “rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”{5} Every spiritual tradition I have studied acknowledges such an ideal.
For those without a spiritual tradition, I encourage you to find guiding pillars for yourself that direct and orient you toward cultivating love. The risk in formulating one’s own guiding pillars is that we pick things that cater to our self-centeredness, and we may do so unaware of this tendency. But if we are sincere, we will find and surrender to clear guiding pillars that move us beyond our own self-centeredness in the direction of universal beneficence. What this means in a practical sense will be addressed later in examining King’s definition of love. King continues the article stating:
As the days [of the boycott] unfolded, however, the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi began to exert its influence. I had come to see early that the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom.{6}
The orientation of love is the starting point. But as the momentum of this love in (social) action evolved, the boycotters looked to the work of Gandhi to apply proven lessons to their approach. This brings us to the three pillars of Satyagraha, which is what Gandhi called his work. These pillars are: Ahimsa, Satya, and Brahmacarya.
Satyagraha, a Sanskrit term, literally means “grasping to Truth” -- we will explore what Gandhi means by Truth below. Conceding to how people used language in his time, he often translated this term into English as “Nonviolence” or sometimes “Nonviolent Resistance.” But Satyagraha is an explicit description of his approach: grasping to Truth and, in this way, being moved (led by Truth) to deal with unjust situations. He looked to Indian spirituality for guidance on how to identify Truth as well as cultivate the means to grasp and live Truth. Within the vastness of ancient Indian spirituality, Traditional Yoga plays a major role in his approach. With this in mind, consider the following words of Gandhi:
Quite selfishly, as I wish to live in peace in the midst of a bellowing storm howling round me, I have been experimenting with myself and my friends by introducing religion into politics. Let me explain what I mean by religion. It is not the Hindu religion,{7} which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies.{8} (emphasis mine)
Traditional Yoga is explicit about this changing of “ones’s very nature:” that the caterpillar that enters the cocoon of sincere and diligent spiritual practice emerges as a transformed being -- a butterfly. It is not enough to paste wings on the back of the caterpillar and reform how it crawls through the world. The butterfly does not crawl, it flies: a complete transformation of being and how it moves through life.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is one of the major scriptures of Traditional Yoga. It presents eight “limbs” of spiritual practice. The first limb is the Yamas, which are moral abstentions. Patanjali states five moral abstentions, three which are the pillars of Satyagraha. So even with Gandhi there is a pre-existing spiritual context being applied to the efforts to address British oppression (via colonization) and liberate India.
The first pillar is ahimsa, which is often translated as non-violence but a better translation is “no harm.” It is a sacred vow to, from this point