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understand why we should wear khadi and am in love with fine muslin; but, then, it happens that in the society in which I live all wear khadi, and we commit no wrong in wearing it. I should, then, follow society. Raychandbhai taught me this simple rule.
Once, in Bombay, we were discussing the path of compassion. The point was whether one may use leather. In the end, we both agreed that we cannot do without leather. Professions like agriculture must go on. However, if we cannot do without it altogether, we should certainly refrain from wearing on the head anything containing leather. I have always been a man who would not miss a chance for a jest. I asked him to examine the cap on his head. He was a man ever wrapped in contemplation and never thought about what he wore and how he covered himself. The fact that there was a leather-strip in his cap had entirely escaped him. But as soon as I pointed it out, he tore the piece off. I don't suppose that my argument was so cogent that it convinced him instantly. He did not argue at all. He simply thought that my motive was good and that I held him in reverence. So why should he enter into an argument with me? All he did was quietly to pull out the leather-strip and I am sure he never again thereafter wore any headdress containing leather. - - - In this lies the greatness of great souls. Such behaviour shows that they are free from egotism. They are ready to learn even from children. It is the characteristic of great men not to mind difference of views in small matters. To those who, in the name of the religion of compassion, always differ with others in every small matter and claim to be guided the voice of conscience, I would say that they hear no such voice, or that, as in animals, the atman in them is not yet awake.
This is so with most of us. The difference between man and the brute is that in the former, the atman can wake up to the full. If we follow the world in ninety-nine things, in regard to the hundredth thing we may tell it that its way is not right. But how can a man who is at daggers drawn with the world from his birth can act with love for the world?
In most cases, we should behave as though we were inert things. The difference between wholly inert matter and living matter as practically nil. The entire world seems to be inert matter, the atman shines but
Gandhi & Jainism | Pg.301
