Training in Nonviolence

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Anuvrat Global Organization

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Training in Nonviolence
balanced development in which man can live happily and peacefully. Where there is only economic development, intellectual development and moral development are neglected. If the development of spiritual values is lost sight of, man lives incomplete life. Then we will discover an unprecedented spurt in our ambitions, cravings, competition and rivalry. Today we see competition and rivalry galore. Distinction between what is essential and what is inessential
We have before us two words on the basis of which we want to pattern our life. It has both essential and inessential ingredients. We do not know what is essential and what is inessential in our life - there are many things that have no meaning. On the one hand a person can live in a modest flat having three-four rooms or in a large bungalow, on the other hand there is one who has an inflated ambition, wants to exhibit himself as a big man and who craves for a house worth five thousand million rupees, a house worth ten thousand million rupees. Let us consider both types of man. How much space does a man need to live? Obviously, he needs a very limited space. He needs a single cot to lie on. He does not use the entire space of his room for sleeping. A room of the size of ten feet or twenty feet is enough for him. He can't spread his legs all over the room. Only gossipers can say that they need a very wide room to sleep in.
Once two gossipers met. One of them said, "My grandfather was a wonderful person. He had such a large bed roll that it could be spread from one end of the village to the other. The other gossiper said, "The legs of my grandfather were so large that he needed a very large area." The first gossiper asked him, "If your grandfather had such large legs, where did he sleep?" The other gossiper replied, "He slept on the bed roll of your grandfather." This story illustrates that exaggerated statements are made only in gossips but the fact is that a human being needs only a limited space of five to six feet.
Ambition and human greed
There is an ancient Chinese story. It is said that once the emperor of China said to a man, "You have done a good job and as a reward I want to give you a large piece of land. I will give you the entire land, which you are able to measure walking from this place in the morning and returning to it in the evening. I will give as much as you are able to cover it with your legs." The man was very ambitious. He was also very greedy. He went on running. As he wanted to grab the maximum land, he continued running and running till evening. He was about to return to the point from where he started and was thinking that he would get a lot of land but as soon as he arrived, he dropped dead.
The ambition is driving society to death today. We see that many of the presentday diseases have been caused by man's ambition. Out of five or six dreadful diseases that grip human society today, heart disease tops the list. As a matter of fact the root cause of the heart problem is unrestrained human ambition, which is devastating his life. It is estimated that more than five hundred million people would die of the heart disease in the next ten years. A person nurses an ambition
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