Walking from Gandhi's grave to Kennedy's grave
How can you justify pacifism, while living in a 3000 sqft house and 2 cars etc and letting someone else fight to support the lifestyle? It has to be part of a whole system of beliefs. Here is one example of a synthesis.
Walking the world for peace - an interview with Satish Kumar from incontext
context.org
excerpts:
personal background ....
The Jains are particularly keen on nonviolence at all levels, nonviolence meaning not only not to harm any other individual person or society, which is of course included, but not to harm any animal, even a fly or an ant, not to harm any plants or trees or water. So it is a tremendously ecological religion. For the Jains, the world outside us is not for the convenience and benefit of human beings; the world exists in its own right, and our responsibility is to respect the whole existence as deeply as we possibly can and not to take anything more than we really, really need.
...Action - harmony - outside world
There were two influences, similar in nature. One was a book I read by Mahatma Gandhi. In it was a passage where he said that religion, the pursuing of the inner journey, should not be separated from the pursuing of the outer and social journey, because we are not isolated beings. If we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.
..summary
That's what I experienced, because I went through so many different cultures - Muslim religion, Jewish religion, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Russians, Americans, Europeans, Asians, Blacks, Whites, Browns, Socialists, Communists - you name them and I met them. And when you dig down, dig deep, and touch the humanity, they are the same everywhere. But before you can discover that unity, you have to be free of your own prejudices. Because if I went as an Indian waving the flag of India, I would meet a Pakistani. If I went as a Hindu, saying that Hinduism is the most supreme religion in the world, I would meet a Christian or a Muslim saying, "No, no, no! You've got it wrong. We have got the best religion." If I go as a Socialist I'll meet a Capitalist. If I go as a brown man I'll meet a black man or white man. But if I go as a human being I'll meet only human beings |
