Positive Non Violence

Author(s): Kanhaiyalal Lodha, Dalpatsingh Baya
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 80

and its positive form is telling the truth. If we forbid the positive form of truth by forbidding 'telling of the truth', we will be left with only one alternative and that would be ‘not to tell anything'. It is so because telling can take only two forms - 'telling the truth' or 'telling the lies'. In the negative form the vow of truth means 'not telling the lies' and its positive form of telling the truth we do not want to accept. Therefore, we are left with no alternative but not to tell anything. If we accept this meaning of the great vow of truth then anybody who does not tell anything at all or is not telling anything at the time, would be endowed with the great vow of truth. Thus all creatures with no faculty of speech like plants and even the speech handicapped would be considered as being endowed with the great vow of truth. Not only that but lies of omission would not be lies at all. However, doing so would be clearly foolish and ridiculous. Leave aside the learned and the scholarly, even the ordinary or little educated or even the uneducated masses would also not accept this ridiculous meaning of the great vow of truth that anybody who is not speaking is observing the vow of truth. If we consider the whole issue dispassionately, we would find that this is quite appropriate, too. Thus, it becomes quite clear that in the quality of truth, telling the truth is also there along with not telling the lies. Similarly, the quality of non-violence also has these two forms. The negative form of non-violence is not to indulge in violence, not to kill, not to hurt, etc., while its positive form is to engage oneself in the activities of kindness, protecting, mitigating others' pain and misery, etc.,
What is meant here is that every quality is not only in the form of absence of its opposite, but it is also in the form of the presence of its desirable aspects. This is possible only through the acceptance of its positive form. The qualities of compassion, friendship, mercy, etc., manifest themselves in the acts of kindness, charity, etc., and not merely in not killing and hurting the creatures. Actually, the meaning of mercy, kindness and compassion is not limited to the negative form of nonviolence in the form of not killing or hurting the creatures, but also extends to its positive form of charity, service, cooperation, the feeling
Positive Non-Violence