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CHAPTER 1
Nonviolence
9 November 1970 am in
Violence is a disease of human beings, but it is not so for beasts. For beasts, it is their nature. There is no possibility of nonviolence at the level of beasts. That is why they haven't got any idea of violence. Violence is the disease which man bas inherited from beasts, and it is a disease obstructing his evolving consciousness. It can be said that one who is not willing to wipe out one's past, is refusing his evolution. If I continue to remain what I was yesterday, it means, my 'today' is wasted. If I wish to make progress, there is no other way for me but to go beyond my yesterday. The past must be transcended. The 'past' of man is his beasthood, and the 'future' leads him to god-hood. But one who does not transcend beasthood, cannot enter the temple of God. But one who desires to achieve the 'future' - to attain God - has to die everyday towards the past, become diseased. That disease is like this: suppose a child who has put on his clothes, refuses to cast them away even when he grows up. Change in clothes is quite necessary along with the growth of body. A child s clothes are all right for a child but they would be quite ill-suited, pain-giving and would be like a prison for a young person.
Beasthood is the 'past' of man. We all have travelled through that stage. This fact is confirmed by the scientists as well as the spiritualists. Darwin declared a few years ago that man has descended from beast. But thousands of years before Darwin, here in India, Mahavira, Buddha and Krishna have announced to the world that man's soul has evolved from beasts The last link of man was beast. Man-hood is a state of transit, he is like a bridge from where the beast passes and is transformed into godhood.
As we shall go deeper and deeper within, we shall experience that the past is very heavy because it is a known thing. It is not easy to be free from it, to get rid of it is not so easy. We begin to feel that we
