I And Mine: [01.15] - I And My Mind - The Starting Point Of Non-Violence

Published: 29.10.2005
Updated: 02.07.2015

I consider myself imperfect. Despite that, I strongly feel like being perfect if someone points at my imperfection. For a moment, the thought of imperfection vanishes. Why does it happen so? Perhaps because one who points at my perfection does so, while keeping in mind my perfection. He has a certain mental image of my perfection, and so he points at my imperfection. If he had in his mind my imperfection and pointed at it, I would not forget that I am imperfect.

I believe in non-violence. Occasionally I practise it also, but it would be sheer vanity if I were to think that I have ever imbibed non-violence having completely vanquished the long-inhered instinct for violence. All that I can claim is that I am following the path of non-violence. I would have answered the question - when and where will I reach? - if I had been connected only with the present. It is connected with my past and therefore the utmost I can say is that I am going along the way to non-violence.

My dear critic, the only thing I can tell you is that I am not rigidly traditional. I consider only those waters pure, which are not still, and I concede that water held still in a pit loses its purity.

I do not subscribe to the mentality of remaining as I am or unchanged, for the simple reason that in it I see the germs of violence.

‘I am imperfect and want to be perfect' this alone is the starting point of my non-violence. The imperfect will turn perfect, when what is, ceases to be, and what is not, comes into being. This is my self-criticism born of my own writing.

Sources
  • I And Mine by Acharya Mahaprajna
  • Edited by Muni Dulahraj ji
  • Translated by R.P. Bhatnagar, formerly Prof. Dept. of English at Jaipur University
  • Published by Jain Vishva Bharati Institute, Ladnun, India, 1st Edition, 1995

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  1. Non-violence
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