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is destructive. Non-love is a destructive force; that is the maid-servant of death. He who moves from that direction goes down deeper and deeper into destruction, death and darkness. That is death, because that is a move against the nature of the self.
Non-violence is the announcement of life; love is life.
There is prohibition against the negativeness of violence in the word non-violence and I have heard that two negatives make a positive. Perhaps, in the word non-violence there is an indication of the same positiveness. Then the cover of the word is meaningless. The living re which is hidden underneath the ashes of the word has to be understood. That fire is the fire of love, and love is creative. The opposite of love I have called destructive; love I call creative. In life, love alone is the source of creation. It is because of the origin and manifestation of positiveness and creativeness of love that Christ has been able to describe love as God, and God as love. Truly, it is difficult to search out any manifestation of creativeness better and more demonstrative than love.
I find that if this constructiveness and self-strength of non-violence is not keep in view then it just becomes a prohibition of violence. Non-indulgence in violence alone is not non-violence. Non-violence is much more than that. Absence of enmity is not love; love is much more than that. Absence of enmity is not love; love is much more than that. If this difference is not borne in mind then attainment of non-violence is just converted into prohibition of violence. and renunciation of violence. The results of this are killing. The attitude of negativeness and prohibition does not provide broadness to life; it gives narrowness, stagnation and bondage. The individual does not grow; he becomes narrower. Thereby the magnificent life does not grow into the Brahma; it gets narrowed down to the small and to self-conceit. It could have become a river and reached the ocean, but it starts drying up as a tank. To awaken non-violence is like becoming a river; getting involved in mere renunciation of violence is like becoming a tank. Achievement of the negative does not take to prosperity,
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