|
|||
Page 1/2 |
|||
Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.
Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism
or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Fear is not a disease of the body; fear kills the soul. The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems. An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind. Weeding is as necessary to agriculture as sowing. Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e., the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being. The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that too, unconditional assistance. Co-operation which needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship. Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement which does not bind. Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses, to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only be done by enabling them to realize that they need not fear brute force, if they would but know the soul within. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.
Democracy is an impossible thing until the power is shared by all, but
let not democracy degenerate into mobocracy.
Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest of us being happy. I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the Potter's divine hands so that my service may become more certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me. An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will see it. Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.
| |||