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cost ten or fifteen lives. Once this stage is reached, the sensible course is to have the building demolished and a new house built on the site. When we buy a new cloth, or put up a new building, then we face a new atmosphere, a new appearance and new circumstances. This is what we call a root & branch change.
The same arguments apply to issues regarding family, society, nation and religion. So long as reform or repair is possible, let it continue; but when things come to such a pass that institutions and traditions are mere ruins of their former selves, then it is better to demolish them and build new ones. This we call a revolution, a new creation, or a root and branch change. If we don't learn to discriminate between the limits of both reform and revolution then it is possible we will be in conflict with the coming age.
• When I see the throng of devotees in temples and places of pilgrimage, all oblivious to the climate or the jostling of the crowd, immersed in the intensity of
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their prayer or their chanting, I am led to believe these people must be the great heroes of our religion. However, when I see these same people being deceitful and cruel at home and in the workplace, then I just shudder. I believe that these are the people who have brought about the world's apathy towards religion and spread hatred and contempt for it throughout society. It is as clear as daylight that as long as religion is not practised as part of everyday life, then all this worship in temples and mosques and pilgrimage sites will remain an empty ritual. Only when religion is established as an active force in daily life is God truly worshipped.
• Life's development is in ebb and flow. You may have seen how a village pond collects waters from here and there and then remains stagnant. There is no movement and no flow. What is the future of a pond like this? To be fouled up, stagnant, breed countless flies, become the home for all sorts of filth, spread diseases and, ultimately, to be depleted of everything and eventually vanish - such is its destiny. The same applies
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