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is no fear from darkness outside, no cave is surrounded by darkness, and in spite of this, darkness remains a cause of fear even today. Fear due to darkness, which man's mind got millions of years ago, is not yet leaving its pursuit of man, it is still linked with him. I said this as an illustration. Exactly in the same way, violence is an impression carried by man from his life as a beast. Beast cannot live without committing violence. But we cannot live with violence. Man is not born with violence. But we see that man is not doing anything else but fighting for the last many thousand years. He is not living, he is merely fighting; there would not be any exaggeration if we say man is living simply for the purpose of fighting. Fifteen thousand battles have been fought in the last three thousand years. This fact of thousands of battles is on a big scale, but we are quarrelling and fighting all twenty-four hours. At times we are fighting with enemies, at times with friends, at times for wealth and at times for fame. We fight for position and then our fight takes a political form. And when we fight for wealth, our greed takes the form of exploitation. At times we also fight without any cause, because the fighting habit in us makes us fight. When a person goes hunting, be fights without any cause. He is fighting and calls it a sport. Man searches out and develops such sports in which the fighting instinct is satisfied. If he cannot go into actual warfare, he would win to fight in a game of chess. In a deep sense, there is a strong longing to defeat others and an interest to fight with others in a game of chess.
Life is full of violence on all sides. Violence is a disease for man. Now, it is not inevitable, it may be inevitable for beasts. It should be borne in mind that no sooner is a new step of evolution taken than new responsibilities and new burdens are also taken. Every step in evolution is a step towards greater responsibility. Nonviolence has become his responsibility from the day man left beasthood and evolved as man, because the flower of manhood can never bloom in the midst of violence. His manhood can fully bloom only in the midst of love. That is
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