| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| A SUPPLEMENT - THE CONFLICT BETWEEN DIVINE AND DEMONIC TENDENCIES |
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is not possible to remove violence when one is himself full of
violence. On the contrary, one only adds to the number of the
violent. But this was not realized at the time. The great men of
those days, men of non-violence, acted according to their lights.
Parashurama was a great exponent of non-violence, for that age. He
did not practice violence for the sake of violence. He did violence
in order to establish non-violence.
10. But that experiment failed. Then came the age of Rama. Then the brahmins began to think about it again. They had already given up violence; they had resolved never to commit violence themselves. How then to escape the attacks of rakshasas? They thought, "Here are these kshatriyas who practice violence anyhow; why should not the rakshasas be destroyed through them? One uses a thorn to remove a thorn. We shall stand aside." That is why, to protect his yajna, sacrifice, Vishvamitra took Rama and Lakshmana and had the rakshasas destroyed by them. Now we think, "The ahimsa that cannot protect itself, that cannot stand to its own legs, this lame ahimsa, how can it sustain itself?" But men like Vashishtha and Vishvamitra saw nothing wrong in finding protection in the strength of the kshatriyas. But what if there was no kshatriya like Rama? |
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