To put an end to outward war, you must put an end to war in yourself

Without love, you are trying to find out what is the right thing to do, and your action only leads to greater harm and misery; it is the action of politicians and reformers. Without love, you cannot comprehend cruelty; a peace of sorts may be established through the reign of terror; but war, killing, will continue at another level of our existence. We will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives.


To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states - greed, envy, ill will and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.
“To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself. Some of you will nod your heads and say, "I agree", and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world's miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent. They will be stopped only when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you realize the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself; peace will come only when you yourself are peaceful, when you yourself are at peace with your neighbour.”
Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom

Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love

This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love… One in harmony with God’s law of love has more strength than an army, for one need not subdue an adversary; an adversary can be transformed.

When enough of us find inner peace, our institutions will become more peaceful and there will be no more occasion for war… No one walks so safely as one who walks humbly and harmlessly with great love and faith. For such a person gets through to the good in others (and there is good in everyone), and therefore cannot be harmed. This works between individuals, it works between groups and it would work between nations if nations had the courage to try it.

Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words

Without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace

People in the peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not so skilled at writing love letters...Can the peace movement talk in loving speech, showing the way for peace? I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can “be peace.” Because without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace.


Bring your mind to the distant future
"When you are angry with someone you love, breathe mindfully with your eyes closed, and bring your mind to the distant future. Your body and the body of the person with whom you are angry will have dissolved into dust. When we see our lives are so ephemeral, we don’t want to waste time being angry with each other."
Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Smile

The roots of war are in the way we live our daily lives
“The roots of war are in the way we live our daily lives – the way we develop our industries, build up our society, and consume goods. We have to look deeply into the situation, and we will see the roots of war.
Peace is Every Step, 115. See final part of book.

Talk in loving speech, showing the way for peace.
Without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement…

In the peace movement, there is a lot of anger, frustration, and misunderstanding. People in the peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not so skilled at writing love letters. We need to learn to write letters to the Congress and the President that they will want to read, and not just throw away. The way we speak, the kind of understanding, the kind of language we use should not turn people off. The President is a person like any of us.
Can the peace movement talk in loving speech, showing the way for peace? I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can “be peace.” Because without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement.
I hope we can offer a new dimension to the peace movement. The peace movement often is filled with anger and hatred and does not fulfill the role we expect of it. A fresh way of being peace, of making peace is needed. That is why it is so important for us to practice mindfulness, to acquire the capacity to look, to see, and to understand. It would be wonderful if we could bring to the peace movement our non-dualistic way of looking at things. That alone would diminish hatred and aggression. Peace work means, first of all, being peace. We rely on each other. Our children are relying on us in order for them to have a future.
Peace is Every Step, pages 110-111

Understanding the suffering of all sides
“At the end of a retreat in California, a friend wrote this poem:
‘I have lost my smile,
but don’t worry.
The dandelion has it.’
If you have lost your smile and yet are still capable of seeing that a dandelion is keeping it for you, the situation is not too bad. You still have enough mindfulness to see that the smile is there. You only need to breathe consciously one or two times and you will recover your smile. The dandelion is one member of your community of friends. It is there, quite faithful, keeping your smile for you.”
Peace is Every Step, 7

Understand the suffering of all sides
"We cannot just blame one side or the other. We have to transcend the tendency to take sides. During any conflict, we need people who can understand the suffering of all sides. For example, if a number of people in South Africa could go to each side and understand their suffering, and communicate that to the other sides, that would be very helpful. We need links. We need communication…
Practicing nonviolence is first of all to become nonviolence. Then when a difficult situation presents itself, we will react in a way that will help the situation. This applies to problems of the family as well as to problems of society.”
Peace is Every Step, 115.

Recommended reading: Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step

Look at evil with the eyes of a mother

God is a word for that mystery with which we are constantly confronted…And we have the choice to either trust it or distrust it. That is what faith is called.

Non-violence means that you may not offend anybody

“You may not offend anybody; you may not harbor an uncharitable thought, even in connection with one who may consider himself to be your enemy… A man who believes in the efficacy of this doctrine finds in the ultimate stage, when he is about to reach the goal, the whole world at his feet. If you express your love - Ahimsa - in such a manner that it impresses itself indelibly upon your so-called enemy, he must return that love.”


This messenger of peace must have equal regard for all the principal religions of the earth. Thus, if he is a Hindu, he will respect the other faiths current in India. He must, therefore, possess a knowledge of the general principles of the different faiths professed in the country.

Qualifications for a Peace Brigade
(1) He or she must have a living faith in nonviolence. This is impossible without a living faith in God. With- out it he won’t have the courage to die without anger, without fear and without retaliation.
(2) This messenger of peace must have equal regard for all the principal religions of the earth.
(3) Generally speaking, this work of peace can only be done by local men in their own localities.
(4) The work can be done singly or in groups.
(6) Needless to say, a peace bringer must have a charac- ter beyond reproach and must be known for his strict impartiality.
(7) The peace brigade will not wait till the conflagration breaks out but will try to handle the situation in antici- pation.
(8) The idea is to have as many good and true men and women as possible.
‘And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more.’ Isaiah 2:2-4

Peace depends on individual responsibility, by people who think of thems

If men are responsible, as individuals, we are responsible as individuals. This means we must stop talking about what is right or wrong for “nations” to do, and start acting upon what we think is right or wrong for individuals, ourselves, to do.
Every project for world peace that has public attention today involves getting millions of other men to behave in a desirable way. Most of these proposals are wasted words. Peace is not obtained by trying to get other men to change; it is obtained by becoming peaceful.



Where shall we begin? First of all, we have to determine the moral unit. Is it a man or a nation? Who is morally responsible, men or “nations”? If we are Nazi mystics, we shall say that nations are responsible. If we are liberals and democrats, we shall say that men are responsible.

Peace can be created by men who believe themselves to be moral units. Or, put in other terms, by men who think of themselves as souls. A human soul is a moral intelligence. It lives according to principle. It finds its “security” in allegiance to principle. Socrates was a man who lived and died according to soul-conviction. Jesus was another. And, from all reports, so was Eugene V. Debs. A world populated by men like that would be a world fit to live in. Can you imagine Jesus dropping an atom bomb somewhere in Russia to put the fear of God in the Communists? Can you imagine Socrates campaigning for peacetime conscription because the Russians may have atom bombs, too? Can you imagine a society of men like them whipping themselves into a frenzy of fear and militarism, creating by their insane dread the very destruction they would avoid?
There is only one resolution of the dilemma of the atomic bomb. It is to start building the kind of a society in which men like Socrates, Jesus and Debs would be at home – instead of being poisoned, crucified and imprisoned. We can begin by finding out what men like Socrates, Jesus and Debs did, and why they did it. Of course, we may be poisoned, crucified and imprisoned ourselves, if we follow their example. But that’s not much worse than what happened to Hiroshima. And we will have tried.
Manas, January 14, 1948

Compassion is a primal sin.

“Compassion for the weak is a betrayal of nature. Be ruthless. Life never forgives weakness. This so-called humanity... is just priests' drivel. Compassion is a primal sin. Compassion for the weak is a betrayal of nature. I have always obeyed this law of nature by never permitting myself to feel compassion. I have ruthlessly suppressed domestic opposition and brutally crushed the resistance of alien races. It's the only way to deal with it. Apes, for example, trample every outsider to death. What goes for apes goes even more for human beings.”