Ahimsa - Boon or Bane of Hinduism?

Question:
Ahimsa is very much mistaken.
It is not 100% non-violence.
WHen violence is the only way to uphold dharma there is nothing wrong in using it. But unfortunately many think ahimsa means the other wise. The biggest exponent of ahimsa is Gandhi - and i can say many of the ills of Hinduism now can be attributed to the cowardly idea of ahimsa propogated by Gandhi. Wat are your opinions?

My Reply:
Extremes look alike and hence usually are confused with each other. One cannot see if there no light or if there is full of light.

As I keep repeating, there are three states: Tamasic, Rajasik, Sattvik

It is said that when 18 invading horsemen invaded Nalanda university, more than 10,000 Buddhist monks there fled. They ran in fear and justified it to themselves as “non-violence”. This is tamas.

When Arjuna faced similar dilemma in Mahabharata war, Sri Krishna advises him to fight the adarma as it is his duty to do so. This is Rajasik

What is real non-violence is displayed by Buddha himself. When angulimali came to attack Buddha… Buddha did not run away like is disciplines in the name of non-violence. He did not feel the need to take arms like Arjuna to protect his dharma. His mere presence changed angulimali.

To compromise with falsehood is not tolerance or nonviolence. It is self-destruction. To turn away in fear or hesitation, not to stand up for what one believes is true, is not modesty but self-betrayal.

Real tolerance is not timidity but spiritual strength. What Buddha did is the highest form of non-violence… he did not run away, nor did he accept falsehood. Even the concept of violence has gone from his mind.

If one has not attained to that state, then the next best thing to do is stand up and fight in the name of Dharma as Sri Krishna advised Arjuna to. If we have greater power, we will fight adharma on the spiritual plane, else we will fight it on the physical plane; but uphold we will Dharma always.

Question:
Surya - whether the non-violence followed by Buddha is applicable to the islamic terrorism that is unleasehed on Hindus and Hinduism? I will say rajsik way is best to deal with it rather than saatvik - what is your opinion?

My Reply:
Well, Sattva is always highest. In Rajas you silence a enemy; in Sattva you make the enemy a disciple… so obviously it’s the better one.

See you are seeing from only the single personalities, while I am seeing it from a scale of mass psychology.

When I say fighting non-violence on spiritual plane, I am not saying that we send a emissary to Osama and Musharaff… what I mean is erode their mass base--- reconvert back the masses with spirituality. This will reduce them to nothing.

Violent methods are sometimes necessary and I am not against them. But they are temporary in nature. A lasting solution can be only spiritual in nature, it cannot be forced from outside, it has to be from within.

Hence the way to fight Islamism or any other threat on any given day is only spiritual… various threats assume threatening postures only on the basis of mass support to it. So the only way to kill them is to erase that… this can be done only a spiritual action. Flood the people with spirituality, make them Hindus and the threat is gone.

Many people restrict their lives to only physical plane and thus do not understand the power of spiritual force. But it is the most potent of all, coz it works on the minds, which in turn guides the body.