" For me the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a child. I would be reluctant to kill a lamb for supporting the human body. I find more helpless a creature is, the more it the right to protection by man from the cruelty of other men. "
MK Gandhi
These days, as every year, thousands and thousands of lambs were slaughtered to provide the roast on Easter ... I think the quote is just one of the best written to commemorate Gandhi, exactly sixty years after his murder. not know how to speak much of its strictly political role, which also was important and led India to independence. I like to remember Gandhi for his spiritual message, because I believe that this is the most important legacy that made the whole world. And besides, he considered all his political and social activities as a tool for the dissemination of truth and justice between all living beings.
Towards the end of his life a Western journalist asked hastily what was his message to the world. Gandhi was shocked by the question and his style, so brutally direct and simplistic. He stood in silence for a few seconds and then replied to head china, humbly and candidly: " My life is my message to the world ... Tiziano Terzani was wondering how
commenting on this fact, how many politicians today could answer that?
What was then this man's life, a life so exemplary that it is in itself a message? I think that the life of Mahatma ("great soul" as he designated the Indian Bengali poet Tagore, after their meeting) was that of a man who chose to embody the ideal of non-violence . In fact, a closer look, there's nothing else in his life. There is that non-violence.
But if you really want to understand Gandhi and his "message to the world", you say and think "non-violence" just like he did. He was the first man to have found a way to express a positive semantic negative concept. Non-violence, the glorious ideal of the whole spiritual tradition "heretical" in India, the Buddha and Mahavira on, namely the ' ahimsa "(" a "is equal to the negative particle" not "," himsa "means" violence "in Sanskrit), he becomes" satyagraha, "or" the power of truth, "something positive to say with force in the world. Something to live for.
Gandhi therefore believed that there was any truth. He believed that this truth was the law of brotherhood and love towards all beings . And that the way in which this truth is manifest in the world was justice. And was convinced that every man ought to behave according to this truth, and fight because this same truth prevail in the world. Everywhere and by all sentient beings, including animals. Nothing but this should be tried, I think, if you want to understand the "message" of Gandhi to the world. Nothing but the "power of truth."
The political battles were only the primary way that he had chosen to pursue his personal struggle for the "truth" is manifested in the world. In one of his writings confessed to consider his whole life as "an experiment with Truth", in a similar way, perhaps, that on which Leonardo da Vinci devoted his life to the experiments on the nature and its laws.
But his being a vegetarian was satyagraha, was to behave so as to uphold the truth, from her breakthrough in the world. His fasts to protest violence were satyagraha. Her dress of white cotton wool was satyagraha, because cotton had spun himself, and this was a symbol of self-government in India and the boycott of foreign colonialism and forced to imports. And of rural simplicity. His days of silence was mandatory satyagraha, for boycotting the noise giving peace to his mind and allowing the truth to possess fully.
One thing I rarely hear mention, is that Gandhi actually aspired to independence for India that went far beyond the politics of Britain. He wanted his country to find their own spiritual roots, practicing satyagraha, who returns to self-agricultural rural villages boycotting industrial development. He wanted to reach India's independence not only from Western colonialism, but also by way of Western thinking and living.
the end of his life before he was killed by a Hindu fanatic, Gandhi suffered a lot to see his country smembrarsi violentemente in 2 stati, e per motivi religiosi oltretutto. Era la fine del suo sogno di armonia e fratellanza tra musulmani e indù in un'unica patria. Forse fu un bene che la morte gli risparmiò almeno l'altra grande delusione: quella di assistere allo spettacolo di un paese portato a tutta velocità sulla stessa strada che i colonialisti appena vinti avevano tentato per 3 secoli di fargli prendere, cioè lo sviluppo industriale. Nehru, il suo figlioccio prediletto, e gli altri suoi collaboratori, avrebbero presto tentato - e sarebbero in parte riusciti nell'intento - di trasformare l'India in una Europa equatoriale.
La sera prima di quella in cui fu ucciso, disse ai suoi che se fosse morto per causa di una pallottola esplosa by one of his "brothers" and yet he had forgiven at that moment, clasping her hands to the Indian way and saying the name of God, then and only then could consider himself a person of integrity and consistent. The next day, the evening of January 30, 1948, to receive the crowd of his admirers after the evening prayer, Gandhi fell to the ground under the blows of Beretta (few people know that the weapon was a pistol of Italian make and ... Beretta Lombardia closed in mourning for a few days after the death of Mahatma) the Hindu fanatic Nathuram Godse, clasping her hands, and invoking his god: "He Ram" were his last words. "Oh God."
(by Francis)
