I Think we can ALL learn something From this:
The time is shortly after India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947. India is torn by civil strife; Muslims and Hindus are killing each other; and Gandhi is fasting to protest the violence and to jolt people into becoming aware of their terrible actions.
Gandhi is near death from starvation when a crazed man, a Hindu, arrives with food that he insists Gandhi must eat. He demands, "Here! Eat! Eat! I'm going to hell - but not with your death on my soul!"
Gandhi replies, "Only God decides who goes to hell."
"I killed a child!" the man confesses. "I smashed his head against a wall!"
Gandhi asks, "Why?"
"Because they killed our son... my boy! The Muslims killed my son!"
Gandhi sees the man's unbearable grief and remorse. He gently tells him, "I know a way out of hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed - a little boy - and raise him as your own. Only be sure to raise him as a Muslim..."
“ Gandhi’s fast succeeds in stopping the violence through out India. The quite did not last, but the vicious and violent period did end temporally. I do not know what happened of the crazed man, but I do think of him often. I think of his anguish, and his despair, and his horror at what he had done. I also think about his possibility of his journey out of hell. The journey Gandhi described requires giving to, caring for and loving what is most difficult to give, care for or love- your hated enemy. Do you have someone in your life you hate too much to ever love? Perhaps it is an abuser, or one of the men who destroyed the Twin towers. Maybe you don’t hate anyone that much, but you dislike someone enough to complain about him to your friends.
Whether you hate or dislike, you are living in a hell. You do not have to die to experience it. You are in it each time you feel your hatred or dislike.
If you don’t like the way your hell feels, remember Gandhi and the crazed man, and then see if you can find a way out of tours own hell. “ –Gary Zukav
