Non-Violence Among the Powerful.

Part One: Thomas Mertons Reading of Gandhis Ahimsa and the Culture of America

The way of peace is the way of truth. Truthfulness is even more important that peacefulness.
Indeed, lying is the mother of violence. A truthful man cannot long remain violent. MK Gandhi

It is the refusal of alternativesa compulsive state of mind which one might call the ultimate complexwhich makes wars in order to force the unconditional acceptance of one oversimplified interpretation of reality. Thomas Mertoni

The American, Trappist monk, Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a keen interpreter of Gandhi, reflecting on him continually for many years from the late fifties up until his death in 1968. ii Merton wrote several essays on Gandhi, edited a collection of his writings on non-violence and, most importantly, thought deeply about how Gandhis concept of non-violence could be understoodand acted uponin the North American culture of his time. I want to begin a discussion of Mertons reflection on Gandhi here by focusing primarily on two short essays: Gandhi: The Gentle Revolutionary (1965) and Blessed are the Meek: The Christian Roots of Nonviolence (1966) By doing so, I mean to identify the key insight in Mertons reading of Gandhi, (the intrinsic connection between truthfulness and ahimsa) and also to show how Merton used it to illuminate the ultimate complex of American culture, its mythology of dominance.iii Mertons interpretation of nonviolence in American culture is, I would argue, a faithful and creative adaptation of Gandhis thought. At the same time, the profound questions it addresses to this culture of pragmatism and technology are, if anything, more urgent today than during his lifetime. It is my hope that this discussion will suggest a broader understanding of how current first world culture remains addicted to systemic and now primarily, economic--violence and closed to the alternatives of non-violence. In the second part of this essay, I intend to examine Mertons spirituality of the true self as a model for nonviolence in the age of technology and global capitalism. ____________________________ Although Merton was writing to a small audience of Catholic thinkers and activists in America (as well as some more prominent theologians involved in the second Vatican Council), it is important to recall that the question of violence and non-violence was very much part of the political debate in America at the time. Dr. Martin Luther King was, of course, the most prominent disciple of Gandhian nonviolence in America. King both linked Gandhis non-violence to the Christian Gospel and created a non-violent movement among American blacks that brought about a broad social and legal transformation. In doing so, he planted the claims of nonviolence into the very heart of American history. Yet despite the success and importance of Kings political and theological interpretation of non-violence, the dominant American culture, ironically, remained frozen in the violence of the Cold War and later, the Viet Nam conflict. Though the debate about violence continued 1

throughout this period, there seemed to be an increasing social and political blindness to the very possibility of nonviolent solutions. Indeed, as Merton intuited, the massive growth of American military might during the Cold War reflected something sinister about the essential choices that were being made at a deeper, psychological level of American society.iv Writing from the seclusion of his hermitage in the Kentucky hills, Merton was a prominent and controversial advocate for peace and non-violence throughout this period, arguing forcefully against the Cold War and the Vietnam war. v Through these writings on peace, Merton was led to reflect deeply upon the systemic violence of North American culture and its drift toward a technological and political totalitarianism.vi It was in this reflection on the post-Christian culture of alienation from spiritual values that he found Gandhi to be so important a guide. Indeed, from this perspective, Merton recognized that the commitment to Truth (thus truthfulness with oneself) was the key to Gandhis understanding of Ahimsa and, at the same time, the point at which American culture was ensnared by violence: But because we are so little capable of understanding Gandhian nonviolence, our lives have become a moral debacle, an enslavement to half truths, in which we are the passive prey of totalitarian forces. We are ruled, and let ourselves be ruled, by our own weakness and by the prejudices of those who, more guilty and more frustrated than ourselves, need to exercise great power. We let them. And we excuse our cowardice by letting ourselves be driven to violence under obedience to tyrants. Thus we think ourselves noble, dutiful, and brave. There is no truth in this. This passage from Mertons journal in 1961 (later published in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander) is part of a rich vein of socio-cultural analysis in which he brought to bear--in critical new ways--many of his insights from the Christian tradition of spirituality and mysticism. As he began to see clearly the intrinsic connection between spirituality and political justice, moreover, Merton found Gandhi to be both a mentor and guide. Reflecting on Gandhis statement that the business of every God-fearing manis to follow the truth though following the truth may endanger his very life, Merton writes: This is precisely the attitude that we have lost in the West, because we have lost our fundamentally religious view of reality, of being and of truth. And that is what Gandhi retained. We have sacrificed the power to apprehend and respect what man (sic) is, what truth is, what love is, and have replaced them with a vague confusion of pragmatic notions about what can be done with this or that, what is permissible, what is feasible, how things can be used, irrespective of any definitive meaning or finality contained in their very nature, expressing the truth and value of that nature. (CGB, 117) The inability to see and act on the objective norms of good amidst the purely pragmatic norms current in society (CGB, 119) was what closed the culture to the true claim of nonviolence as Merton saw it. Moreover, Merton recognized that 2

the cultures turn to the pragmatic was not a simple choice but rather was embodied at a deep, psychological level where a demonic activism in social, political and military life was combined with a moral passivity and irresponsibility.vii This in turn fed in to the myth of dominance by which American culture faced both the Soviet Union and the third world: American had everything to give and nothing to learn. Mertons initial reflections on Gandhi highlighted the seemingly insurmountable gap between nonviolence as a total commitment to truthfulness and a post-religious culture of America where, in the absence of a moral and spiritual underpinning, the drive of technology and the dictates of power had collapsed in on themselves and become totalitarian. As illuminating as Gandhi was for Merton the outsider, it must also have been clear to him that this culture would have difficulty hearing him at all. Thus, the two essays that Merton wrote directly about Gandhi primarily take up this contrast and try to present Gandhian nonviolence as a kind of synthesis of the East and the West achieved through his life. _______________________________________________________________ Merton wrote these two very distinctive essays on Gandhi in the winter of 1964-65. The first, lengthy essay was called Gandhi and the One-Eyed Giant.viii It was later used as the introduction to Mertons collection of Gandhis writings on Nonviolence. This essay begins by identifying the one-eyed giant of the Western man with his self-isolatedmind and his control over matter (science without wisdom) who stands in conflict the various wisdom traditions of the east (1). The essay goes on to portray Gandhis life as a discovery of the East through the West: he recognized that the West had something good about it not because it was Western but because it was also Eastern; that is to say universal. Gandhi discovered India and discovered himself, Merton argues, after his contact with a universally valid spiritual tradition which he saw to be common to both East and West (3-4) In this sense, Gandhis life is a lesson in fidelity to his own tradition and spiritual sanity. The spiritual consciousness of a people were awakened in the spirit of this one person and, Merton argues, it represented the awakening of a new world, a world that was inclusive and based on love. (5-6) The essay goes on to speak of Gandhis nonviolence as a true confrontation with the reality of evil and an attempt to use the force and presence of evil as a fulcrum for good and for liberation (11). In contrast to the claims of fascism, this nonviolence shows that evil is reversible precisely because it is able to liberate both the oppressed and the oppressor from the process of violence. (14) In summary, Merton is identifying for the West a crucial alternative in social and political development that is embodied in Gandhis breakthrough. Moreover, what Gandhi discovered is not truly foreign to Western cultures but rather hidden in its own spiritual past. Mertons second essay, Gandhi: The Gentle Revolutionary, takes a quite different approach, focusing more forcefully on Gandhis claims as a radical challenge to western culture. It begins with a description of Gandhis trip to England

in 1931. The image of Gandhi walking in his Indian peasant attire in the London fogs captures, for Merton, something iconic about the contrast between east and west: The English smiled at his bald head, his naked brown legs, the thin underpinnings of an old man who ate very little, who prayed. This was Asia, wise, disconcerting, in many ways unlovely, but determined upon some inscrutable project and probably very holy. Yet was it practical for statesmen to have conferences with a man reputed to be holy? . . . How could Gandhi be right when he was odd?(73-4) The contrast is superficial, of course, but it highlights the myopia of the practical rationality of the West for Gandhi both as an extraordinary leader of men and as someone whose life was marked by a wholeness and a wisdom, an integrity and a spiritual consistency that the others lacked. (75-76) Moreover, this integrity had been able to achieve national liberation by peaceful means, in contrast to all of the statesmen of the time who in the name of peace, [had] wrought enormous violence and destruction throughout the West. (76) Precisely in these practical terms, the pragmatic rationality of the west had shown itself to be woefully inadequate to prevent a parade of cataclysms. Moreover, its representatives had been revealed as the pawns of a perverse power they could not control: In the name of liberty they exploited and enslaved. In the name of man they engaged in genocide or tolerated it. In the name of truth they systematically falsified and perverted truth. (76) At this point, for Merton, the real nature of the contrast becomes clear. It is between the mere use of power for practical ends and the commitment to nonviolence as a true, inner value of the person: [Gandhi] believed in serving the truth by nonviolence, and his nonviolence was effective insofar as it began first within himself, as obedience to the deepest truth in himself. (76) Merton goes on in the essay to explain how unique and important was Gandhis linking of spiritual force to political action. Because they were inseparable, politics could be redeemed from the cycle of violence, indeed, it could become a witnessing to the truthby making ones own proper contribution. (79) Moreover, Gandhis was a genuine union of spiritual fervor and social action, because he was concerned with truth and with service, svadharma. (80-1) In the final pages of the essay, Merton develops the contrast between Gandhis unconditional devotion to truth (through the vow of Satyagraha) and the modern worlds crisis of truth (with its proliferation of competing claims to meaning).ix Gandhis devotion to truth was articulated through his whole life and its integrity: For Gandhi, a whole lifetime of sacrifice was barely enough to demonstrate the sincerity with which he made a few simple claims: that he was not lying, 4

that he did not intend to use violence or deceit against the English, that he did not think that peace and justice could be attained through violent or selfish means, that he did genuinely believe they could be assured by nonviolence and self-sacrifice. (83) For this reason, the claim of nonviolencearticulated by his life--becomes a claim about the nature reality itself: If love is not the law of our being the whole of my argument falls to pieces. (85) While Mertons essays on Gandhi presented him as a model of integrity whom we cannot afford to ignore (86), they also heightened the contrast between his rigorous commitment to truth and the practical rationality of the West. Clearly there were many points of possible misunderstanding for the dialogue was being conducted in the languages of very different cultures. Moreover, why would the culture of the West not simply continue to ignore the wisdom of Gandhi and nonviolence as odd and impractical? Later in the winter of 1965 Merton received a request from Hildegaard GossMyer, a prominent Catholic nonviolent activist in Europe to write an article on humility. Clearly, it gave Merton the opportunity to try to articulate again the claim of nonviolence, now more directly in a western, Christian context and linked to the spiritual traditions of Christianity itself. What resulted was an essay on the Beatitudes, Blessed are the Meek. The Christian Roots of Nonviolence. This essay is interesting for several reasons. It is Mertons attempt: 1) to articulate Gandhis nonviolence as something that can be rooted essentially in Christianity, as Christian non-violence; 2) to explain how Christian nonviolence, as a nonviolence of those within the powerful status quo of Western culture, can be honest and 3) to suggest how nonviolence can break through the shell of western cultural indifference and address the myth of dominance. Although these arguments overlap, it may be useful to try to separate them in outline. Merton begins by stressing that Christian nonviolence is not and cannot be a technique to serve self-interest or to establish the moral superiority of an individual or group. By its very nature, nonviolence is built not on a proposed division but on the basic unity of [the human being]. It is not out for the conversion of the wicked to the ideas of the good, but for the healing and reconciliation of [the human being] with [themselves], the [human being] as person and as the human family. (89) Indeed, Merton insists, the strength and weakness of nonviolence rests on the fact that it is a commitment not to ones own truth or conscience but rather to the truth common to [the person] and to the adversary, the right which is objective and universal[it is] for everybody.(90) This emphasis on the universal is no doubt very important given both the character of North American culture (with its celebration of self-interest) and of the polarized political debates of the time. Nonviolence cannot be simply 5

countercultural, or political, Merton insists, precisely because it flows from a truth dimension in which the interests of all are rooted, a dimension that is therefore, religious in nature. This is what Gandhi saw, Merton stresses, and this is also what the Christian must see: For the Christian, the basis for nonviolence is the Gospel message of salvation for all and of the Kingdom of God to which all are summoned. (90) Merton goes on to argue that the Christian roots of nonviolence are this universality of divine love as well as the humility of the meek (identified in the Beatitudes). This humility, properly understood, accepts being without strength not out of masochism, quietism, defeatism, or false passivity, but trusting in the strength of the Lord of truth. (93) In explaining this second aspect of Christian nonviolence namely, humility, Merton develops a further and very important theological claim: Christian nonviolence and humility are based, not on faith in a technique or an abstract idea, but rather on the belief in the truth that is incarnate in a concrete human situation, involving human persons whose rights are denied or whose lives are threatened. (94) In other words, Merton is claiming that we take up nonviolence because we see the other in their truth as a person. Moreover, he argues, the Christian can renounce the protection of violence and risk being humble, therefore vulnerable because the hidden power [of truth and] the Gospel is demanding to be manifested in and through his own poor person. (94) By explaining humility through the notion of the person, Merton has moved nonviolence to deeper theological level: it is not simply a good act, it is essential to Christian life. This personalism is crucial to Mertons understanding both of Christianity and of nonviolence. It is rooted in his spirituality of the true self which stands in a solitude of unity with the divine and all other human beingsand, stands in distinction to the false self of individualism with its divisive, competitive relationship of self-interest and conflict with all others.x We shall return to the importance of this notion of personalism for Merton below and explore it in detail in part two of this essay. Having established this basic notion of Christian nonviolence, Merton turns to the second aspect of his argument, the problem of legitimacy: Christians belong for the most part to the rich and powerful of the earthThey share the power and privilege of the most wealthy and mighty society the world has ever known. Even with the best subjective intentions in the world, how can they avoid a certain ambiguity in preaching nonviolence? Is it not a mystification? We must frankly face the possibility that the nonviolence of the European or American may be adulterated by an unconscious desire to preserve the status quo against violent upheaval. (9596) The real answer to this objection, lies in the true practice of nonviolence, Merton argues, for true nonviolence is not an evasion but a power [that] remains the only really effective way of transforming [the human being] and human society 6

(96). Merton goes on, however, to enumerate seven conditions for relative honesty in the practice of Christian nonviolence: 1. It must be aimed at the transformation of the present state of the world; 2. The non-violent resistance of the Christianwill have to be clearly not for [themself] but for others; 3. In resistance to the threat of nuclear war, nonviolence must avoid a facile and fanatical self-righteousness; 4. It must be realistic and concrete by focusing on the possibility of a desirable alternative to the politics of force; 5. It must absolutely refuse evil or suspect meansin the witness of nonviolence; 6. As a witness to truth and not to self-righteousness it must be willing to learn something from the adversary; and 7. It must have a true hope in the world, and that the human being has a potentiality for peace and order provided that the right conditions are there. (97-104) Merton concludes the essay with an important reflection on the true nature of hope. Before turning to that, however, it is worth reflecting on two critical insights he has developed in the points above. The first is about the possibility of showing a desirable alternative to force (point 4) and the second, about an openness to the adversary/other in search for the truth (point 6). We are now identifying the third part of his argument mentioned above, namely, how nonviolence can break through the shell of cultural indifference and address the Wests myth of dominance. When Merton argues that non-violence in the West must be realistic and concrete, he is well aware of the temptation within a pragmatic culture to measure truth by immediate visible results. (98) Indeed, in the view of such short term thinking, the only realistic possibility seems to be political technique backed by force. (98) In the long term, of course, this is not realism at all, for force doesnt solve problems, it only defers or displaces them. Mertons insight, therefore, is that nonviolence in the west must adopt a longer term and deeper strategy addressed at this cultural expectation: nonviolent action must establish itself in the minds and memories of modern [human beings] not only as conceivable and possible but as a desirable alternative(98). But this means to educate, against the grain of cultural prejudices, in the superior efficacy of love, openness, peaceful negotiation, and above all of truth (99) The whole point of this education would be to show the limited and ultimately inadequate nature of what is taken by the culture to be effective as a political technique, namely, power as coercive force:

For power can guarantee the interests of somebut it can never foster the good of [all]. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. (99) This critique of power as a means immediately opens up the question of the greater good of a social order and of the world, the good of all. In other words, the claim of power to solve problems or attain the good is always based on the exclusion of the many (others), their good, and their point of view. This denial of the views of others shows itself most clearly on the international stage in the obsessive fixation on the adversary through that ultimate complex which, Merton argues, makes wars in order to force the unconditional acceptance of one oversimplified view of reality (102) (Something that applied to the cold war as well as to the war on terror). But the denial of alternative points of view (and alternative approaches) within a country (say, on the distribution of wealth) also works coercively to force the many to serve the interests of some. Think, for example, of how, the market economy continues to be championed as the only possible, realistic solution to the prosperity of some even as we recognize that it is devouring the very limited and irreplaceable resources (of earth, air, and water) which we all need to survive. In this sense, the mythology of dominance (which insists on the realism of on a single, dominant point of view) is a deeply embedded cultural prejudice that is based on a denial of the greater reality-- which is the good of all (sarvodaya). It is here that there emerges the second insight into Christian nonviolence, namely, as a witness to truth that is willing to learn something from the adversary. Merton has recognized that being in power (and the myth of dominance) is a complex in psychological terms.xi That is, it is an obsessive belief in ones own unique rightness. The views of others must be dismissed and rejected as wrong. Because we dread being open to the ideas of others and fear being convertedor pervertedby a pernicious doctrine, we insist onby coercive force-- the unconditional acceptance of one oversimplified interpretation of reality. (102) The remedy to this, from the point of view of nonviolence, is a principled practice of being willing to learn something from the adversary (100) and to keep minds open to many alternatives (102). This, Merton implies, is the first step in moving from coercion and force to a nonviolent dialogue: Our willingness to take an alternative approach to a problem will perhaps relax the obsessive fixation of the adversary on his view, which he believes is the only reasonable possibility and which he is determined to impose on everyone else by coercion. (102) In this sense, both of Mertons insights try to point the way beyond the shortterm, pragmatic use of power as coercion to the long-term problem of attaining the good of all. In view of that reality, the superior efficacy of love, openness, peaceful negotiation, and above all of truth will become evident as we take up the humble practice of being willing to learn something from the adversary. Merton is not nave about the difficulty of this or about the deeply embedded denial on which the myth of dominance is based. Ultimately, he argues, breaking through the 8

indifference of the myth of dominance, has to mean nothing less than rising to the level of authentic interpersonal relationships and developing an openness of free exchange in which reason and love have freedom of action (108) This must be the real hope of Christian nonviolence and, Merton insists finally, it is based not on craft and calculation but rather on a total availability to the brother [and sister], to the world, in the present (105). It is based, in other words, on the freedom of the person and their commitment to truth. Indeed, Merton identifies this as the chief difference between nonviolence and violence [that] the latter depends entirely on its own calculations.(105) Thus, as he explains, the violent or coercive approach to the solution of human problems considers [the human being] in general, in the abstractas subject to necessity and it seeks out the points at which [their] nature is consistently vulnerable in order to coerce [them] physically or psychologically. (106) Those calculations, in turn, embody a very limited and limiting view of the human being that has risen to the fore in Western culture. It is a view that is based on nature and necessity and it treats other human beings as objects to be manipulated in order to control the course of events and make the future for the whole human species conform to certain rather rigidly determined expectations. (107-8) By contrast, Merton argues, nonviolence is based onrespect for the human personand with an appeal to the liberty and intelligence of the person insofar as [they] are able to transcend nature and natural necessity. (106) This concluding reflection on the hope that is the basis for Christian nonviolence makes clear a final element in Mertons understanding of Western culture: its adherence to an abstract, nature-oriented picture of human possibilities which limits in advance the possibilities to freedom and personal transformation. This social determinism determines what is real and realistic for the society and it underlies all the Western cultural talk of freedom (thus dismissing the kind of real transformation that is possible at the level of the person). As Merton believed, this view is a kind of cynical fiction about the human being repeated throughout the culture and embodied in its institutions, until it becomes internalized as a nebulous and all-pervading 'state of mind' [that] will take over the role of morality and conscience, and will rationalize its prejudices with convenient religious or ethical formulas. The result will be a fatal turning away from truth and from justiceIn such a mood, it becomes difficult to see any other solution than violence. (CGB, 92).

It is a truly odd and ironic recognition that the culture of the powerful is based on a denying and refuting the power of the person. More ironic still is the fact that when the real power for transformation has been systematically taken away from the individual what remains is only violence. Such a culture is easily ruled from within by the totalitarian forces of nature and necessity whether they appear in the guise of the military, the market or technology. Such a culture can only dominate other cultures by following the single way of truth that it knows and ignoring whatever odd wisdom it may find lying about on the ground. To this almost closed circle, Merton, like Gandhi, could oppose only the claim of the person, a very humble reality, no doubt, whose real power lay in its total availability to the brother [and sister], to the world, in the present. The skill of nonviolence is to really to stay with that presence, and humblynot to seek to control [but] to respond and awaken response. (108) This always personal work is the true practice of nonviolence and, as Merton came to understand from Gandhi, it is a spiritual practice with the most profound political implications. Nonviolence among the powerful is about learning to work with power again in a new way, the way of the true self or person. It also will involve an enormous amount of unlearning, as Merton realized, for this true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent[it]must be saved from the conformist slave of fantasy, passion and convention and delivered from the wasteful, hedonistic and destructive ego that seeks only to cover itself with disguises. xii That spiritual unlearning is for a further reflection.

The passage from Gandhi is noted by Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, (Image: NY, 1989) 84 with the comment: Here is a statement of Gandhi that sums up clearly and concisely the whole doctrine of nonviolence. (Hereafter CGB) The passage from Merton is from the essay Blessed are the Meek, in Passion for Peace, Ed. W. Shannon (Crossroads: NY, 2006) 102.
i

Merton authored two essays on Gandhi: Gandhi and the One-Eyed Giant, published as the introduction to his collection of Gandhis writings on Nonviolence, and Gandhi: The Gentle Revolutionary, published in Passion for Peace. A good synopsis of these two articles can be found online by Rasoul Sorkhabi, http://gandhifoundation.org/2008/11/05/thomas-mertons-reflections-onmahatma-gandhi-by-rasoul-sorkhabi/. Reflections on Gandhi are found throughout his journals as well, especially in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.
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On this mythology compare this from CGB : Our submission to plausible and useful lies involves us in greater and more obvious contradictions, and to hide these from ourselves we need greater and ever less plausible lies. The basic falsehood is the lie that we are totally dedicated to truth and that we can remain dedicated to the truth in a manner that is at the same time honest and exclusive: That we have the monopoly of all truth, just as our adversary of the moment has the monopoly of all error."68
iii

Cf.,Merton, Peace in Post-Christian Era, (Orbis:NY, 2004)19: "The chief reason why we are drifting into nuclear war is that we are confused, empty and discontented. We have no spiritual and ethical center. We do not have the motives which would enable us to build a peaceful world, because we do not have a sufficient reason to restrain our violence".
iv

See the essays collected by Thomas Shannon in Passion for Peace. Reflections on War and Nonviolence, as well the recently published manuscript, Peace in the Post-Christian Era.
v

Merton used totalitarianism as a metaphor for the cultural situation he saw: Action is not governed by moral reason but by political expediency and the demands of technologytranslated into the simple abstract formulas of propagandaThere is no persuasion but that of power, of quantity, of pressure, of fear, of desire. CGB, 66.
vi vii viii ix

Peace in a Post-Christian Era, 104 Gandhi on Nonviolence, (New Directions: NY, 1965)

CGB 82,The tragedy of modern society lies partly in the fact that it is condemned to utter an infinite proliferation of statements when it has nothing to reveal except its own meaninglessness, its dishonesty, its moral indigence, its inner divisions, its abject spiritual void, its radical and self-destructive spirit of violence. Cf., Mertons chapter on this in New Seeds of Contemplation, Things in their Identity (New Directions: NY, 1962) Also:The shallow I of individualism can be possessed, developed, cultivated and pandered to, satisfied: it is the center of all our strivings for gain and for satisfactionBut the deep I of the spirit, of solitude and of love, cannot be hadThis inner I who is always alone, is always universal: for in this most inmost I my own solitude meets the solitude of every other man and the solitude of God. Hence it is beyond division, beyond limitation, beyond selfish affirmation from Disputed Questions, quoted in Seeds, ed. Robert Inchausti, (Shambhala: Boston, 2002), 10. xi Cf. From CGB, 219: The powerful do not rule by their power, it rules them. It rules us through them, it is not their power. Whose is it then? It is certainly not ours.
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xii

New Seeds of Contemplation, 38.

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