"HOW ARE we to train individuals or communities in this difficult art?"
There is no royal road, except through living the creed in your life which must be a living sermon. Of course, the expression in one's own life presupposes great study, tremendous perseverance, and thorough cleansing of one's self of all the impurities. If for mastering of the physical sciences you have to devote a whole life-time, how many life-times may be needed for mastering the greatest spiritual force that mankind has known? But why worry even if it means several life-times? For, if this is the only permanent thing in life, if this is the only thing that counts, then whatever effort you bestow on mastering it is well spent. Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and everything else shall be added unto you. The Kingdom of Heaven is ahimsa. (H, 14-3-1936, p39)
Arms are surely unnecessary for a training in ahimsa. In fact the
arms, if any, have to be thrown away, as the Khansaheb did in the Frontier
Province. Those who hold that it is essential to learn violence before we can
learn non-violence, would hold that only sinners can be saints.
Fearlessness the Pre-requisite
Just as one must learn the art of killing in the training for
violence, so one must learn the art of dying in the training for non-violence.
Violence does not mean emancipation from fear, but discovering the means of
combating the cause of fear. Non-violence, on the other hand, has no cause for
fear. The votary of non-violence has to cultivate the capacity for sacrifice of
the highest type in order to be free from fear. He racks not if he should lose
his land, his wealth, his life. He who has not overcome all fear cannot
practice ahimsa to perfection. The votary of ahimsa has only one fear, that is
of God. He who seeks refuge in God ought to have a glimpse of the Atman that
transcends the body; and the moment one has a glimpse of the Imperishable Atman,
one sheds the love of the perishable body. Training in non-violence is thus
diametrically opposed to training in violence. Violence is needed for the
protection of things external, non-violence is needed for the protection of the
Atman, for the protection of one's honour.
This non-violence cannot be learnt by staying at home. It needs
enterprise. In order to test ourselves we should learn to dare danger and
death, mortify the flesh, and acquire the capacity to endure all manner of
hardships. He who trembles or take to his heels the moment he sees two people
fighting is not non-violent, but a coward. A non-violent person will lay down
his life in preventing such quarrels. The bravery of the non-violent is vastly
superior to that of the violent. The badge of the violent is his weapon-spear,
or sword, or rifle. God is the shield of the non-violent.
This is not course of training for one intending to learn
non-violence. But it is easy to evolve one from the principles I have laid
down. (H, 1-9-1940, p268)
Non-violence of the Brave
Non-violence does not require any outside or outward training. It
simply requires the will not to kill even in retaliation and the courage to
face death without revenge. This is no sermon on ahimsa but cold reason and the
statement of a universal law. Given the unquenchable faith in the law, no
provocation should prove too great for the exercise of forbearance. This I have
described as the non-violence of the brave. (H, 8-9-1946, p296)
That non-violence which only an individual can use is not of much use
in terms of society. Man is a social being. His accomplishments to be of use
must be such as any person with sufficient diligence can attain. That which can
be exercised only among friends is of value only as a spark of non-violence. It
cannot merit the appellation of ahimsa. 'Enmity vanishes before ahimsa' is a
great aphorism. It means that the greatest enmity requires an equal measure of
ahimsa for its abatement.
Cultivation of this virtue may need long practice, ever extending to
several births. It does not become useless on that account. Traveling along the
route, the pilgrim will meet richer experiences from day to day, so that he may
have a glimpse of the beauty he is destined to see at the top. This will add to
his zest. No one is entitled to infer from this that the path will be a
continuous carpet of roses without thorns. A poet has sung that the way to
reach God accrues only to the very brave, never to the faint-hearted. The
atmosphere today is so much saturated with poison that one refuses to recollect
the wisdom of the ancients and to perceive the varied little experience of
ahimsa in action. 'A bad turn is neutralized by a good' ,is a wise saying of
daily experience in practice. Why can we not see that if the sum total of the
world's activities was destructive, it would have come to an end long ago?
Love, otherwise, ahimsa, sustains this planet of ours. This much must be
admitted. The precious grace of life has to be strenuously cultivated,
naturally so because it is uplifting. Descent is easy, not so ascent. A large
majority of us being undisciplined, our daily experience is that of fighting or
swearing at one another on the slightest pretext.
This, the richest grace of ahimsa, will descend easily upon the owner
of hard discipline. (H, 14-12-1947, p468)