My Experiments with Truth

Manusmriti at any rate did not then teach me ahimsa. I have told the story of my meat-eating. Manusmriti seemed to support it. I also felt that it was quite moral to kill serpents, bugs and the like.

But the fact that I had learnt to be tolerant to other religions did not mean that I had any living faith in God. I happened, about this time, to come across Manusmriti which was amongst my father’s collection. The story of the creation and similar things in it did not impress me very much, but on the contrary made me incline somewhat towards atheism.

The face of truth is hidden behind the golden veil of maya, says the Upanishad.

That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all

Hate the sin and not the sinner’

brahmacharya lies the protection of the body, the mind and the soul

advised that it was far better to remain unlettered and break stones for the sake of liberty than to go in for a literary education in the chains of slaves will probably be able now to trace my advice to its source.

Finally, this is better, that one do His own task as he may, even though he fail, Than take tasks not his own, though they seem good. To die performing duty is no ill; But who seeks other roads shall wander

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served.

Howsoever you may repair it, a rift is a rift.