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there is a change in conduct. The conduct, brought about by effort, can never be natural. It cannot be more than habit. Its value is not more than that. It can never become the nature. There is no question of making what is nature. Habit is created; nature is not created. One has to reveal it.
Friend, nature is not born, it is there. It has merely to be revealed. It has only to be uncovered; just as some one sleeps and he has to be wakened up; the same has to be done with nature.
I saw a well being dug up; and then I remembered that nature had also to be dug up just like that. The sources of water were there but they were covered. They were anxious to flow and burst forth, but they were obstructed; and when the layers of the obstructing mud were removed they started flowing so nicely. Something similar is true about the nature. There also is a constant desire for flowing, developing and flowering. A little digging is necessary; then life flows out on an entirely new plane. What was not available even after attempts till yesterday becomes available so naturally. What could not be given up till yesterday even after several attempts cannot now be found even after a search. To know this process of the change of life is religion. Alchemist was in search of this alone. He was in search of a chemical which could convert iron into gold. Life as it is, is iron; life as it can be is gold.
And if we look at it a little more closely, iron is merely the cover, the cloth; gold is always present inside.
Good conduct and non-violence are the revelation of nature; they are the uncovering of the face. Mahavira accepted them in the same meaning. Whatever exists in the self, that alone is available to non-violence. That action which is merely a conduct and not a natural product of character does not take to the Brahma; it takes to the deeper layers of self-conceit. From that ego gains strength. It gets fed from all directions and becomes powerful. The deep pride that we find in the so-called saints and renouncers is not something sudden. At the root of it, there is the conduct resulting from forced efforts and the habit which has developed through efforts.
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