Acharya Prashant explains that nonviolence is not the absence of conflict, but the realization that the 'other' is not separate from oneself. He clarifies that nonviolence means fighting falseness wherever it is found, whether within one's own mind as lust, greed, and fear, or externally in the world. He emphasizes that if one can fight their own internal tendencies, they are equally justified in fighting external enemies of religion, as the same standard must be applied to both. Using the examples of the Sikh Gurus and Mahavir, he illustrates that both were nonviolent because they fought against that which eclipses godliness. While Mahavir fought the internal enemies of the body and mind, the Sikh Gurus fought external enemies and even their own relatives when they were disloyal to the sacred word. He further asserts that nonviolence is the refusal to patronize otherness and the commitment to punish oneself and others by the same yardstick. He defines violence as forgetting the truth or God, and nonviolence as the act of fighting whatever causes one to forget that truth. Therefore, true nonviolence requires one to be a fighter against falseness. He concludes that religious terms like nonviolence must be constantly reinterpreted to move beyond naive and childish interpretations, emphasizing that the only real enemy is the falseness that resides both within and without.
