Our Working Definition: “Nonviolence is a powerful method to harmonize relationships among people (and all living things) for the establishment of justice and the ultimate well-being of all parties. It draws its power from awareness of the profound truth to which the wisdom traditions of all cultures, science, and common experience bear witness: that all life is one.”

Five Principles of Nonviolence

1. Respect everyone – including yourself. It is a cardinal principle in nonviolence not to confuse people with the things they are doing. In fact, the more you can respect a person the more effectively you can persuade her or him to change attitudes or behavior. Never use humiliation as a tool — or accept humiliation from others — as that degrades everyone. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (MLK, Jr.)

2. “Means are ends in the making” – Nonviolent means always lead to positive, constructive results – though not always the ones we intended. Violent means never lead to constructive ends. We do not have, nor are we expected to have control over the final results of our actions. We have and must take responsibility for the means we use, including even our feelings and the state of our mind as we use them. It will be found that violence sometimes “works” (i.e., accomplishes an immediate, short-term goal) but it never works (i.e., makes things better or adds constructive energy to the system). By contrast, nonviolence sometimes “works” and always works. It will always produce a good result at some point down the road, even though we may not quite see the connection.

3. Seek win/win solutions – Give priority to building relationships over short-term “victories.” Conflict makes us feel that in order for me to “win,” you have to lose. That is a delusion. In nonviolence we do not seek to be winners, or rise over others; we seek to learn and to make things better for all (see below).

4. Persuade, don’t coerce – Be prepared to take on suffering if there is no other way to awaken another’s conscience. It is good to petition for grievances, but nonviolence really does its work when our petitions have been ignored and it is necessary, as Gandhi said, to “not only speak to the head but move the heart.” And we can do this by accepting rather than inflicting the suffering inherent in the system. In the real world there is not always time to, for example, persuade a dictator to step down: coercion may be required by the simple economy of suffering. Nonetheless, we aim for persuasion whenever possible because those changes are permanent (and more respectful of the person).

5. Use discrimination – Never sacrifice your principles, but be ready to change tactics or compromise on details. Don’t cling to symbols. Be constructive wherever possible and obstructive when necessary. Gandhi’s greatest discovery was the power of ‘constructive programme’ by which the Indians took charge of their own society and showed themselves and the British that the latter were not needed. Episodes of Satyagraha (in this case, active resistance), though much more dramatic, actually only punctuated the long, slow process of self-regeneration he lead. Moreover, all of constructive programme and Satyagraha dealt with concrete realities (real salt, for example) and only incidentally with signs and symbols.

As you can see, these principles arise from — and help to sustain — a belief that all life is an interconnected whole and that any problem can be solved once its real nature is understood. In other words, once we understand our real needs we will find that they are not in competition with any others’. In fact, as Martin Luther King said, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

Also see our Frequently Asked Questions about Nonviolence.