In the final chapter of his famous book, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Gandhiji ends with a moving and thought-provoking farewell indeed.
"Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self- purification; without self- purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's surroundings.
But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experience of the dormant passions lying hidden with in me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility."
Makes me wonder : We call him the Father of the Nation, but how much of Gandhiji's precepts do we actually even think about putting into practice? Do we ever even make the slightest effort towards trying to reach "the farthest limit of humility"?
Based on my experiences, specially for the last seven years or so, I would say that we do not. We pay lip service to the Father of our nation, and are possibly committing a far greater mistake than those who do not agree with his teachings, or are ignorant of them.
2 comments:
"To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion."
Would you really want to be passion free? Its like being a zombie. living-dead, IMO.
"Do we ever even make the slightest effort towards trying to reach "the farthest limit of humility"? "
Do you really want to reach there? Pride is the opposite of humility. Would you really want to be
humiliated' ??
Explain!
Firstly, I'm not saying I personally agree with any of these sayings. The point was that India as a whole almost deifies Gandhiji, but then pays little attention to his teachings, which seems kind of contradictory.
As regards the furthest limit of humility, honestly, I don't know, for instance, whether it is better to feel pride at being good at something, and try to attain the best, or to work with a detached mind and become so good at it that you unemotionally know that you are the best. All I'm saying is that people (you, for instance :p) these days simply refuse to countenance the idea that there might be some sense to his teachings.
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