We live in a culture of violence. We have been trained by a culture of violence and we are all agents of passive violence. This is because all of our relationships are based on self-interest, discrimination and a perverse need for gain. The need for gain, and advantage over others, is one of the chief driving forces behind all human misery. We are always being forced to achieve some gain from others in order to meet our basic needs, or to vampirically feed our lifestyle excesses and greed. [...]

Violence is that which causes harm or forces unnatural change upon its victims. We are all artificial and have been unnaturally changed by violence and unwholesome conditioning. We all know there is something wrong with our culture, the state of our world, and with ourselves. Humanity has been institutionalized and we are all the products of commercial and institutional life. We are now born in institutions called hospitals. We are raised in institutions called schools. We are trained for institutional corporate life in institutions called universities. We serve in institutions called corporations. We exist under the master institutions of military and government. We die in institutions called hospitals or nursing homes. From birth to the grave, mankind is an institutional creature. These institutions have processes favoring efficiency over loss, and process over people. As children of the institution, we have all learned various processes and ways of behaving, consuming and producing. We have been made in the image and likeness of that into which we were born and raised. We are violence. Our children are bullies in school, because they are our children. We cannot trust our own minds, traditions and beliefs. We must reevaluate our needs and addictions to see that we have been unnaturally developed in the likeness of our cultural creator, and are predators. We eat life. Drunken consumption of unnatural goods, whether it be food, media, the environment, or other people and companies through “deals and acquisitions,” accumulates within you, until you eventually become what you feed on. Rather than the limited concept of, “you are what you eat,” consider that you are what you consume, and as an organism and consciousness, you in fact become a commodity and predator yourself. We become prisoners through unnatural consumption, because we must continue to feed to live. In contrast to this, consuming what is natural, good and untainted frees you, protects you, and realigns you with what is natural, peaceful and safe. By consuming what is good and pure, and rejecting what is artificial, you free yourself from being a commodity, and you then transform from a predator, to a producer and creator.

We must all strive to self-reflect and to reject violence in all forms, from the subtle to the overt. We must all seek to unravel the deeply-rooted conditioning which has perverted us, and attempt to heal ourselves and set our inner-truth free. Love heals violence and all its sources. Love only serves and does not calculate. Love gives without expectation, while hate carries an endless tally of debts. Hate controls everything it touches, but love sets everything it touches free. To end violence we must only look within ourselves, understand ourselves and evolve ourselves. Innocence still lives within our hearts and the child within each of us knows right from wrong. All violence demands reform, and all violence desperately begs to be healed.

Read More in Bryant's Book or Collection:

• SOCIAL ISSUES
• Voice of Reason: Speaking to the Great and Good Spirit of Revolution of Mind