essay on Satya ahinsa
Answers
1. Satya/Truth:
Satyagraha as stated before literally means truth force. Truth isrelative. Man is not capable of knowing the absolute truth. Satyagraha impliesworking steadily towards a discovery of the absolute truth and converting theopponent into a trend in the working process. What a person sees as truth may just as clearly be untrue for another. Gandhi made his life a numerousexperiments with truth. In holding to the truth, he claims to be making aceaseless effort to find it.Gandhi’s conception of truth is deeply rooted in Hinduism. The emphasis of Satya-truth is paramount in the writings of the Indian philosophers. “
Satyannasti Parodharmati (Satyan Nasti Paro Dharma Ti)
– there is no religion or duty greaterthan truth”, holds a prominent place in Hinduism. Reaching pure and absolutetruth is attaining moksha. Gandhi holds that truth is God, and maintains that it isan integral part of Satyagraha. He explains it thus:The world rests upon the bedrock of satya or truth; asatya meaning untruth alsomeans “nonexistent” and satya or truth, means that which is of untruth does notso much exist. Its victory is out of the question. And truth being “that which is” can never be destroyed. This is the doctrine of Satyagraha in a nutshell.
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2. Ahimsa:
In Gandhi’s Satyagraha, truth is inseparable from Ahimsa. Ahimsaexpresses as ancient Hindu, Jain and Buddhist ethical precept. The negative prefix ‘a’ plus himsa meaning injury make up the world normally translated ‘nonviolence’. The term Ahimsa appears in Hindu teachings as early as theChandoya Upanishad. The Jain Religion constitutes Ahimsa as the first vow. It is acardinal virtue in Buddhism. Despite its being rooted in these Religions, the specialcontribution of Gandhi was:To make the concept of Ahimsa meaningful in the social and politicalspheres by moulding tools for nonviolent action to use as a positiveforce in the search for social and political truths. Gandhi formed Ahimsainto the active social technique, which was to challenge politicalauthorities and religious orthodoxy.
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It is worth noting that this ‘active social technique which was to challenge politicalauthorities’, used by Gandhi is none other than Satyagraha. Truly enough, theIndian milieu was already infused with notions of Ahimsa. Nevertheless, Gandhiacknowledged that it was an essential part of his experiments with the truthwhose technique of action he called Satyagraha.At the root of Satya and Ahimsa is love. While making discourses on theBhagavad-Gita, an author says:Truth, peace, righteousness and nonviolence,
Satya, Shanti,Dharma
and
Ahimsa,
do not exist separately. They are all essentiallydependent on love. When love enters the thoughts it becomes truth.When it manifests itself in the form of action it becomes truth. WhenLove manifests itself in the form of action it becomes
Dharma
orrighteousness. When your feelings become saturated with love youbecome peace itself. The very meaning of the word peace is love. Whenyou fill your understanding with love it is
Ahimsa
Answer:
we should follow the both