Ahimsa the Ultimate Winner

Author(s): N P Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 42

so. Ahimsa is their duty and not a gesture of generosity. If you are being kind to others, you are benefiting yourself first by purifying your soul.
The legacy of the 20th century has been two world wars, any number of local conflicts, bloodshed, armed clashes, torture and terrorism, which have taken a heavy toll of innocent lives. Ahimsa has unfortunately been relegated to the background and damned as a weapon of the coward. Inequality and injustice has been the staple diet of imperialism and dictatorships. Communism has also belied hopes of true socialism and has had its own share of injustices and atrocities against non-conformists.
While materialism has brought unparalleled prosperity, 25% of world's population has appropriated to itself 83% of world's income leaving teeming millions all over the world under poverty, deprivation, mal-nutrition and hunger.
Fear, terror and agony have increased the depth of universal suffering. Man's insensitiveness is reflected in the horrifying spectacle of Taliban army destroying in a violent orgy the towering Bamyan Buddha statues.
"They tire their bones,
Crushing statues and stones.
But their bluster and din. Amuses the God within".
Cruel, merciless and uninhabited slaughter of animals in slaughterhouses all over the world makes nonsense of the concept of prevention of cruelty to animals. The mentality, which can kill thousands of non-human lives in a day, what is to prevent it from taking the next step from killing thousands of human lives? If we can kill the most helpless, voiceless, the most defenseless for our profit, for satisfying our taste buds, what is that will stop us from sending our sons and daughters to war, rendering, ourselves helpless before the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner
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