|
Quotes of Gandhi
Hatred ever kills, love never dies such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred. Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith. 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. Insistence on truth can come into play when one party practises untruth or injustice. Only then can love be tested. True friendship is put to the test only when one party disregards the obligation of friendship. 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. It may be long before the law of
love will be recognised in international affairs. The machineries
of government stand between and hide the A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness. Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend. The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted. Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages. 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. Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy. As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance,cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side. 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. Non-cooperation is directed not
against men but against measures. 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. To forgive is not to forget. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lie not in hatred but in justice, if not in love. I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people's houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave. Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment. I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust. The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence means reliance on God, the rock of ages. If we would seek his aid, we must approach Him with a humble and contrite heart. Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it. There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts. Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It has found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers like me will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation will remain. Intolerance is itself a form of
violence and an obstacle to the growth This campaign of non-cooperation has no reference to diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits of is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost. God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained. I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another. The only virtue I want to claim is truth and non-violence. I lay no claim to superhuman powers. I want none. I wear the same corruptible flesh that the weakest of my fellow beings wears, and am therefore as liable to err as any. My services have many limitations, but God has upto now blessed them in spite of the imperfections. The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause. When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator. Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself. Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison. In nature there is fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity. However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes. Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state. There is as little reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the other. For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion. Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth & violence. Even if my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating delusion. I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following. Indeed one's faith in one's plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest. It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh. My trust is solely in god. And I trust men only because I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like Timon, a hater of my species. One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's. My religion is based on truth and
It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head. Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle. Imitation is the sincerest flattery. Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be dignified into a principle. Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point. Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment. I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but the pain of it is a positive pleasure to me. Each step upward makes me feel stronger and fit for the next. Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort. Self-respect knows no considerations. Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion. There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good. No sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy. Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is `making sacred'. He must be a poor specimen of humanity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice. That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake. Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent. God tries his votaries through and through but never beyond endurance. He gives them strength enough to go through the ordeal he prescribes for them. Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself. I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps. Truth is by nature self-evident, as soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear. Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation. Man has reason, discrimination and free will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself lower then the brute. Anger is the enemy of Ahimsa(Non-violence) and pride is a monster that swallows it up. A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice. It is easy enough to say, `I do not believe in God.' For God permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. He looks at our acts. And any breach of His Law carries with it not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment. He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa. He who is angry is guilty of Himsa. Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality. If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm. Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all. I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but, at the same time, where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man's plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often better then anticipated. A `no' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a `yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. Back
to Article Page | Back
to Archives Page
|
|
Woman
is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. She
has the right to participate in the minutest details in the
activities of man, and she has an equal right of freedom and
liberty with him.