WORDS & MUSIC

ahimsa

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ahimsa (uh-HIM-sah) noun

The principle of noninjury to living beings.

[Sanskrit ahimsa : a-, not + himsa, injury (from himsati, he injures).]

"As my conception of Ahimsa went on maturing, I became more vigilant about my thought and speech. The lines in the Anthem:
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their policies,
Frustrate their knavish tricks.
particularly jarred upon my sentiments of Ahimsa."
M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, 1927.

Today is October 2, the day Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in the year 1869. A man born some two centuries ago may appear irrelevant to our age, but in reality his life and message are still applicable to our lives today. As opposed to being a tale of great achievements, as most autobiographies are, his `Story of My Experiments With Truth' is a collection of introspections and experiences in his search for truth. "Let us not reduce the standards of truth even by a hair's breadth for judging erring mortals like myself," he writes in the introduction.

In a world where success is measured by what kind of car one drives, how lavish a house one lives in, can we learn something from a man who got by with just a loincloth?

This week's AWAD picks a few words from his autobiography, translated from the original in Gujarati by Mahadev Desai. Visit your local library or click http://www.mahatma.org.in to learn more about Mahatma, literally, great soul. -Anu

X-Bonus
What is to give light must endure burning. -Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)