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Chapter 17
PROGRAMME FOR THE SEEKER
97. Purity In Food
18. We have achieved this much; we have reached this point through the collective quest for making our diet pure and sattvik. We should not lose what our ancestors attained through untold sacrifices. We should not let go this achievement of Indian culture. It is not enough that we somehow manage to exist? That is easy; even animals live likewise. Are we like them? No, there is a difference. Cultural development lies in increasing this difference. Our country carried out the great experiment of abjuring meat. Let us continue it. At least we should not slip below what has already been achieved. Such exhortation has become necessary as some of us have now begun to think that meat-eating is desirable. Today, the cultures of the East and the West are impinging on each other and affecting each other. I am confident that good will come out of it in the end. Our superstitious beliefs are crumbling under the impact of Western culture. There is no harm in it. What is good will endure, what is bad will disappear. But superstitious beliefs should not be replaced by an unbelief which is held equally blindly and uncritically. Just as we should not believe in anything blindly, we should not disbelieve in something blindly. It is not that only belief can be blind; unbelief too can be blind. People have begun to think again about meat-eating. Whatever may be the reason, the appearance of a new idea delights me. It shows that the people are waking up. Indications of their wakefulness are reassuring. But if we begin to walk without being fully awake, we are likely to stumble and fall. We must not, therefore, hasten to change our habits in a hurry. We may go on thinking furiously from all the possible angles. Do subject dharma to the test of reason. If it does not stand the test, it is good for nothing. Whatever part of dharma fails to stand the test of reason should be discarded. The dharma which is so robust that the tools of reason themselves break down while dealing with it is the true dharma. In fact, a criterion for judging what is true dharma is that the tools of reason fail to cut it up. Dharma is not afraid of reason. One must never restrain thought; but one must not rush into action. Nothing should be done impatiently and impulsively until one is fully convinced of its rightness. One must have patience and restraint while acting. We should not give up the gains which are hard won. |
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