FULFILLING GANDHIJI’S UNFULFILLED MISSION

awakening is the only way to produce a nonviolent world. This is, without doubt, a long and laborious struggle. But we have no other alternative. In the last 50 years I have re-engineered the minds of individuals on peaceful, nonviolent lines. Many of them have left violence and started working in the fields of education and social construction. Two principles we use at the Centre for Peace and Spirituality to address the minds of individuals to initiate an intellectual awakening in them are, tolerance and avoidance. Tolerance is indeed the need of the hour in the world today. This is because divergence of views and differences do exist between people at the level of a family or a society, a community or a country. Now the question is how best unity can be forged or harmony brought about in the face of the human tendency to differ. Some people hold that the removal of all differences is the sine qua non for bringing about unity. But, this view is untenable, as it is not practicable. You may not like the thorns that essentially accompany roses, but it is not possible for you to pluck out all the thorns and destroy them completely. For, if you pluck out one, another will grow in its place. Even if you run a bulldozer over all the rosebushes, new plants will grow in their place that will bear roses ineluctably accompanied by thorns. In the present scheme of things, roses can be had only by tolerating the existence of thorns. Similarly, a peaceful society can be created only by creating and fostering the spirit of tolerance towards diversities in its individuals. In this world, unity is achievable only by learning to unite in spite of differences, rather than insisting on unity without differences. For their total eradication is an impossibility. The secret of attaining peace in life is the tolerance of the disturbance of the peace. Closely attached to tolerance is avoidance. In social life, everyone experiences the disagreeable situations, arising from such differences. It is but natural that unpleasantness should occur from time to time. This is unavoidable. Whenever any negative situation arises, one way of dealing with it is a head-on clash, i.e. an attempt to solve the problem by direct confrontation. Such attempts are abortive as they only aggravate the problem. In no way do they improve matters. The better way to solve the issue is through tolerance and avoidance. According to this Tolerance is indeed the need of the hour in the world today. This is because divergence of views and differences do exist between people at the level of a family or a society, a community or a country.