My Poetry, Philosophy, Thoughts and Ideas.

12/28/2003

Is Non Violence a form of Violence? - Osho on Gandhiji

This is continum to the topic of Non violence and i would like to show some different opinions on the same topic , for example by Osho in his book Krishna : The Man and His Philosophy. Osho has met gandhi only twice, and that too when he was as young as ten, its upto the readers discretion.

"Life does not consist of two disctinct colors, white and black. life is just gray, always a mixture of white and black varying. In this context men like Gandhi are just utopians, dreamers, idealists who are completely divorced from reality. Krishna is in direct contact with life and he is not utopian. For him life's work begins by accepting as it is.

what gandhi calls "pure means" are not really pure and cannot be. Maybe pure ends and pure means are available in what the hindus call Moksha, or space or freedom. But in mundane world everything is alloyed with dirt. Not even gold is unalloyed.

For example Gandhi thinks fasting is a kind of right means to a right end. And like his last fast he resorts to fast unto death., every now and then. If a threat to kill another person is wrong , how can the threat to kill oneself be right? If it is wrong for me to make you accept what i say by pointing gun at you, how can it be right if i make you accept the same thing by pointing gun at myself?. It would be a greater wrong on my part if i ask you to accept my views with the threat if you dont , iam going to kill myself. If i threaten to kill you, you have an option, a moral opputunity to die and refuse to yield to my pressure. But if i threaten to kill myself , i make you very helpless, because you may not like to take the responsibility of my death on yourself.

gandhi once undertook such a fast unto death to put pressure on Ambedkar , Ambedkar had to finally yield to gandhi pressures, but said later Gandhi would be wrong to think he had changed his heart and still believed he was right and Gandhi was wrong but in order not take the moral repsonsibility of the consquence he had to yield.

It makes no difference whether i threaten to kill you or to kill myself to make you accept my view. In either case iam using pressure and violence. Infact when i threaten to kill you, i give you a choice to die with dignity, to tell me you would rather die than yield to my view which is wrong. But when i threaten you with my own death , then i deprive you of the option to die with dignity. I put you in real dilemma . Either you have to yield and accept you are wrong or you take the responsibility of my death onto you. You are going to suffer guilt in every way and there is no choice."

But all said "Satyameva Jayate" (Truth Alone wins), without Gandhi ways and means i feel still independence or India unique approach to independence would not have been heard , so far to inspire leaders like Martin Luther.

1 Comments:

Blogger Sachin said...

Osho's views on Gandhiji are highly loaded with prejudice. With his ability to defent 'anything', Osho had defended 'voilence' here. He has condemned Ganghiji evrywhere. Objectively taken his acts and condemneded them. Sometimes citing Ambedekar or Gandhiji's own son. I am not sure of the reason of this prejudice, may be to gain popularity by condemnening someone so great and someone everybody loves. All this has put me off Osho and revealed his prejudice nature. Now I think that all his liteature is also loaded and nothing but impressing people with phony logic.

2:49 AM

 

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