By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.[See note, below] But secondly—and this is much more important—I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.
Day: February 17, 2021
Gandhi himself, in his middle thirties, took the vow of BRAMAHCHARYA, which means not only complete chastity but the elimination of sexual desire. This condition, it seems, is difficult to attain without a special diet and frequent fasting. One of the dangers of milk-drinking is that it is apt to arouse sexual desire. And finally this is the cardinal point—for the seeker after goodness there must be no close friendships and no exclusive loves whatever.
Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you.
I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the Secretary of State is aware that complaint has been made against Mr. Carrie, Magistrate of Howrah, of assault and use of abusive language to native gentlemen within the precincts of the Court, on the 6th of August last
Mr. O’GRADY asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India intend to do anything in the way of compensating the thirty-three men who were confined in gaol for close on six months, and then acquitted in the Howrah gang case, the trial showing that these men were arrested upon insufficient evidence?
According to the Census of 1901 the number of Mahomedans in Kashmir was 2,154,695, and of Hindus 689,073. I am unable to state the number of officials in the State professing these two faiths,
The reception of the measures designed by my Government for improving Indian administration has given me deep satisfaction. A Bill will at once be laid before you, dealing with matters in which your sanction is required; and it is my strong desire that the steps to be taken for giving effect to the policy announced in my Message of last November to the Princes and people of India may impartially protect the interests and advance the welfare of all races, classes, and communities in my Indian dominions
Come, don’t let us separate from each other with sarcasms, but rather let us allow that religion, like Janus, or, better still, like the Brahman god of death, Yama, has two faces, and like him, one very friendly and one very sullen. Each of us, however, has only fixed his eyes on one.
It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time to read them; but one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition of their contents. To desire that a man should retain everything he has ever read, is the same as wishing him to retain in his stomach all that he has ever eaten. He has been bodily nourished on what he has eaten, and mentally on what he has read, and through them become what he is. As the body assimilates what is homogeneous to it, so will a man retain what interests him; in other words, what coincides with his system of thought or suits his ends.
Protestantism was not a reformation by accident,because it happened to find the church corrupt; it is a reformation essentially, in that every individual must reinterpret the Bible and the practices of the church in his own spirit. If he accepted them without renewing them in the light of his personal religious experience, he would never have what Protestantism thinks living religion. German philosophy has inherited this characteristic; it is not a cumulative science that can be transmitted ready made.
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