“Then you believe that the language of our culture prevents us from knowing our Divine Energy more intimately?

Oh yes, definitely. I think our language makes it really hard, especially the language given to us by the cultural training most of us seem to have gone through, and the associations “God” brings up for people. Judgmental, or right/wrong thinking is one of the hardest things I’ve found to overcome in teaching Nonviolent Communication over the years. The people that I work with have all gone to schools and churches and it’s very easy for them, if they like Nonviolent Communication, to say it’s the “right way” to communicate. It’s very easy to think that Nonviolent Communication is the goal.

I’ve altered a Buddhist parable that relates to this question. Imagine a beautiful, whole, and sacred place. And imagine that you could really know God when you are in that place. But let’s say that there is a river between you and that place and you’d like to get to that place but you’ve got to get over this river to do it. So you get a raft, and this raft is a real handy tool to get you over the river. Once you’re across the river you can walk the rest of the several miles to this beautiful place. But the Buddhist parable ends by saying that, “One is a fool who continues on to the sacred place carrying the raft on their back.”

Nonviolent Communication is a tool to get me over my cultural training so I can get to the place. It’s not the place. If we get addicted to the raft, attached to the raft, it makes it harder to get to the place. People just learning the process of Nonviolent Communication can forget all about the place. If they get too locked into the raft, the process becomes mechanical.

Nonviolent Communication is one of the most powerful tools that I’ve found for connecting with people in a way that helps me get to the place where we are connected to the Divine, where what we do toward one another comes out of Divine Energy. That’s the place I want to get to.”

http://www.cnvc.org/en/what-nvc/spiritual-basis/spiritual-basis-nonviolent-communication

But as Marshall would say, “I’m not in agreement” with most of the rest of your assessment.

It’s interesting to note that the values of public morality in Nazi Germany were not that far from the middle-class bohemian values of Rosenberg’s programme: solidarity, simplicity, honesty, etc. Of course, these same values existed alongside their negation: the pursuit of self-interest. It’s much the same within Rosenberg’s target consumers and in Rosenberg’s facile book.

I don’t get it, though. Why and how? Maybe the mystery is part of the enjoyment, maybe not. At any rate, good luck!

Life,

/Mattias