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creation we would naturally hesitate to do any harm to anyone or anything. Practicing love and making all the positive attitudes that accompany love a part of our nature we automatically practice nonviolence in thought, word and deed.
Keep you thought positive Because your thoughts become your words; Keep your words positive Because your words become your habit; Keep your habits positive Because your habits become your behavior; Keep your behavior positive Because your behavior becomes your habit; Keep your habits positive
Because your habits become your DESTINY.
--Gandhiji
The message is clearly that we have to ask ourselves at all times: Is the action I contemplate to take likely to hurt anyone? If it does then we are being violent even if we may profess to be nonviolent. Our actions and existence on earth must at all times be conducive to what is good for humanity and not simply what is good for ourselves. It is only when we become the change that we wish to see in the world that we will be able to transform the world.
When Gandhiji interpreted ahimsa to mean love he recognized the fact that sometimes out of love one is required to commit an act of violence. The question that he put to Shrimad Raichandji was: What should one do if a snake threatens to bite you or someone you love? The Jain concept is that one must allow the snake to bite and sacrifice your life but not take the life of the snake. This Gandhiji said I may accept as my own personal philosophy but I cannot recommend this to lay people. So the question implied in Gandhiji's statement is: who do you love more -- the snake or the beloved child?
Taking this argument a step further - and this relates to the recent case of Terri Schiavo - if someone you love desires to die rather than suffer an incurable and agonizing disease, which should prevail: your love for the person or your love for a principle that is going to "benefit" only you. I place benefit within quotation marks because I am not sure such dogma brings salvation.
If we value the Right to Life we must also accept the natural corollary the Right to Die. One has no meaning without the other just as the freedom of speech must also ensure the freedom not to speak (silence). In Gandhi's belief of nonviolence the passengers of the ill-fated airplane that crashed near Pittsburgh on 9th September
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If we value the
Right to Life we
must also accept
the natural corollary the Right to Die
Extending Jain Heritage in Western Environment
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