Intertwined with Truth is the principle of Ahimsa, Love, Non-violence. As Truth is the end, ahimsa is the means. “By concentration an acrobat can walk on a rope,” says Mr. Gandhi, “but the concentration required to tread the path of Truth and ahimsa is far greater. The slightest inattention brings one tumbling to the ground. One can realize Truth and ahimsa only by ceaseless striving.”[1]
The principle of ahimsa is often distorted in the West by overemphasis of the unwillingness of Hindus to take animal life. Buddha preached the sacredness of all created life and that nothing blessed with the breath of life should be killed by the hand of man. We hear stories about the Jains, who refuse to kill even a worm or an ant. But Gandhiji has emphasized the positive side of ahimsa. “Not to hurt any living thing is no doubt a part of ahimsa,” he says. “But it is its least expression. The principle of ahimsa is hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill to anybody.”[2]
Mr. Gandhi’s life was organized around the principle of love. It is easy to love within narrow limits, but Gandhiji’s love was all-inclusive. It took in the outcaste at the bottom of the Hindu social scale and it transcended religious lines to include Muslims. Even in the fiercest days of the national struggle, Mr. Gandhi refused to bear ill-will for the British. Time and again he told his followers that Indians were not fighting Englishmen, but that their struggle was against imperialism. At an age when he could have been enjoying a well-earned retirement, Mr. Gandhi risked his life daily, as he tramped the riot-torn areas of Bengal, Bihar and the Punjab in the interest of Hindu Muslim unity. It was his love for others—his inclusiveness—that brought about his death at the hand of a Hindu bigot, who could visualize India simply as Hindustan—a place for the Hindus alone.
Although technically Mr. Gandhi’s life was ended by an assassin’s bullet, Gandhiji had faced and conquered death when he abandoned all thoughts of self to follow the way of love. He had made the words of the hymn of Pritamdas his own:
The pathway of love is the ordeal of fire. The shrinker turns away from it…
