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itself from violence Nonviolence is not social, it is spiritual. If we make nonviolence a social law, then we may, some day, consider violence a necessity. And then it becomes such a disaster that violence will be considered necessary to protect nonviolence. Suppose a man commits violence against somebody, the court will commit violence -- punish him because he had committed violence. If a country -- a nation commits violence against another country, then the latter will react with violence against the former, because it is considered just to reply violence with violence.
To endure violence is injustice, and it is not proper to endure injustice. And the slogan of nonviolence, of which I am talking about is spiritual. And if we wish to discuss social nonviolence, there will always be a relative law of nonviolence also. It will accommodate both violence and nonviolence. These two will be mixed there, it will be like a Mixed Economy. Violence and nonviolence stand side by side here; only their aspects go on changing. Complete or total nonviolence is not possible on the social level. It is extremely difficult to achieve total nonviolence even on an individual level. It is not proper even to hope when we shall achieve it on a society level and a mass level. It is as improper as to hope for self-realisation on a society mass level .
It is not proper even to hope that all persons will achieve self-knowledge, because it is a matter of choice. If a person wishes to remain without self-knowledge, he cannot be compelled to achieve self-knowledge. There will always be freedom to achieve self-knowledge, there will be choice. We simply hope that gradually more and more persons may get self-knowledge, but there is one danger -- fear. I shall tell you about that also. He who achieves self-knowledge, cannot return to this society of ours. He does not return. There is no new birth for him, because desires, hope and wishes are necessary for a new birth. He whose desires have remained unfulfilled returns for a new birth in which he wishes to fulfil them.
If persons like Mahavira or Buddha return to one new birth, their one desire at least has remained unfulfilled
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