Baba
Here below Baba is warning us that those using fasting to appeal to capitalist exploiters are ignorant. This will never work because such heartless exploiters will not care about your fasting. Instead, Baba warns us that such exploiters need a "rude shock." For that, consciousness raising and making preparations for revolution are needed. Satyagraha fasting will do nothing. Rather it will create harm.
Some people are of the opinion that only humanistic appeals and no other approach can effect a change of heart. Although the principles of such people may be high, in reality the soil of the earth is extremely hard. Their appeals to do good cannot easily gain support.
What are humanistic appeals, or satyágraha? They are simply a special means of using violence to create circumstantial pressure. We can, in fact, call them the intellectual’s method of using violence. They are a way to make people eager to move along the path of human welfare without resorting to actual violence, relying on legal enforcement, or becoming angry and adopting the path of bloodshed. Or, in simpler language, they are a way to compel people to move.
What is circumstantial pressure? Does it not aim to vibrate the individual or collective mind with the wave of collective welfare through the application of force? In fact, this approach is an attempt to touch the aspect of the human mind which is very tender and capable of responding to humanistic appeals. Thus, those who have finer sensibilities and rational judgement readily respond to humanistic appeals, or satyágraha.
This sort of appeal does not hold much value for those with crude minds. To vibrate the minds of such people it is, and will forever remain, necessary to influence their minds by giving them a rude shock. Otherwise one will have to wait indefinitely for the sensitive violin strings of some secret recess in their hard minds to be similarly vibrated by high-minded appeals to do good. And meanwhile the existence of the helpless, exploited people, on whose behalf these appeals are being made, will have been reduced to dust.
That is why no matter how much importance was given to the benevolence of the human mind by the Gandhian and Bhudan movements, or how saintly their propounders may have been, selfish and mean-minded people will never accept their principles. The bleeding sores on the feet of marching protesters will never be able to soften the minds of ruthless exploiters. Gandhism may be an excellent utopian model, but in the harsh reality of the world it is absurd and self-righteous.
Yes, the human mind must be vibrated, and for this one cannot wait for the application of the sentient force or humanistic appeals. Rather, all necessary steps must be taken to create circumstantial pressure. I do not consider it at all improper if exploiters are forced to follow the right path by circumstantial pressure in a totalitarian state or by legal compulsion in a democratic one. However, the primary objective is not simply to use any means available to create a vibration in the minds of exploiters. Proper moral training must also be imparted to keep the waves of that vibration alive, and there must be a ceaseless endeavour in individual and collective life to perpetuate the waves of that vibration. One must maintain one’s zeal so that, with the passage of time, the momentum of the vibration does not slow down. Its vigour and vitality should not turn into stagnation. Staticity should not creep into the hidden corners of the human mind.
Those who depend solely on magnanimity of mind or on humanistic appeals are bound to fail. And those who aspire to establish communistic systems either through legal methods or at bayonet point without changing the hearts of the people, without implementing development programmes and without introducing moral and ideological education to reform people’s bad habits, are also bound to fail.
MUST TAKE FIRM STAND AGAINST SUCH EXPLOITERS
Here below Baba is warning us that those using fasting to appeal to capitalist exploiters are ignorant. This will never work because such heartless exploiters will not care about your fasting. Instead, Baba warns us that such exploiters need a "rude shock." For that, consciousness raising and making preparations for revolution are needed. Satyagraha fasting will do nothing. Rather it will create harm.
Some people are of the opinion that only humanistic appeals and no other approach can effect a change of heart. Although the principles of such people may be high, in reality the soil of the earth is extremely hard. Their appeals to do good cannot easily gain support.
What are humanistic appeals, or satyágraha? They are simply a special means of using violence to create circumstantial pressure. We can, in fact, call them the intellectual’s method of using violence. They are a way to make people eager to move along the path of human welfare without resorting to actual violence, relying on legal enforcement, or becoming angry and adopting the path of bloodshed. Or, in simpler language, they are a way to compel people to move.
What is circumstantial pressure? Does it not aim to vibrate the individual or collective mind with the wave of collective welfare through the application of force? In fact, this approach is an attempt to touch the aspect of the human mind which is very tender and capable of responding to humanistic appeals. Thus, those who have finer sensibilities and rational judgement readily respond to humanistic appeals, or satyágraha.
This sort of appeal does not hold much value for those with crude minds. To vibrate the minds of such people it is, and will forever remain, necessary to influence their minds by giving them a rude shock. Otherwise one will have to wait indefinitely for the sensitive violin strings of some secret recess in their hard minds to be similarly vibrated by high-minded appeals to do good. And meanwhile the existence of the helpless, exploited people, on whose behalf these appeals are being made, will have been reduced to dust.
That is why no matter how much importance was given to the benevolence of the human mind by the Gandhian and Bhudan movements, or how saintly their propounders may have been, selfish and mean-minded people will never accept their principles. The bleeding sores on the feet of marching protesters will never be able to soften the minds of ruthless exploiters. Gandhism may be an excellent utopian model, but in the harsh reality of the world it is absurd and self-righteous.
Yes, the human mind must be vibrated, and for this one cannot wait for the application of the sentient force or humanistic appeals. Rather, all necessary steps must be taken to create circumstantial pressure. I do not consider it at all improper if exploiters are forced to follow the right path by circumstantial pressure in a totalitarian state or by legal compulsion in a democratic one. However, the primary objective is not simply to use any means available to create a vibration in the minds of exploiters. Proper moral training must also be imparted to keep the waves of that vibration alive, and there must be a ceaseless endeavour in individual and collective life to perpetuate the waves of that vibration. One must maintain one’s zeal so that, with the passage of time, the momentum of the vibration does not slow down. Its vigour and vitality should not turn into stagnation. Staticity should not creep into the hidden corners of the human mind.
Those who depend solely on magnanimity of mind or on humanistic appeals are bound to fail. And those who aspire to establish communistic systems either through legal methods or at bayonet point without changing the hearts of the people, without implementing development programmes and without introducing moral and ideological education to reform people’s bad habits, are also bound to fail.
(Human Society - 1, Social Justice)
