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Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 17:04:00 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ahimsa
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ahimsa (uh-HIM-sah) noun

   The principle of noninjury to living beings.

[Sanskrit ahimsa : a-, not + himsa, injury (from himsati, he injures).]

   "As my conception of Ahimsa went on maturing, I became more vigilant
   about my thought and speech. The lines in the Anthem:
       Scatter her enemies
       And make them fall;
       Confound their policies,
       Frustrate their knavish tricks
   particularly jarred upon my sentiments of Ahimsa."
   M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, 1927.

Today is October 2, the day Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in the year
1869. A man born some two centuries ago may appear irrelevant to our age,
but in reality his life and message are still applicable to our lives today.
As opposed to being a tale of great achievements, as most autobiographies
are, his `Story of My Experiments With Truth' is a collection of
introspections and experiences in his search for truth. "Let us not reduce
the standards of truth even by a hair's breadth for judging erring mortals
like myself," he writes in the introduction.

In a world where success is measured by what kind of car one drives, how
lavish a house one lives in, can we learn something from a man who got by
with just a loincloth?

This week's AWAD picks a few words from his autobiography, translated from
the original in Gujarati by Mahadev Desai. Visit your local library or
click http://www.mahatma.org.in to learn more about Mahatma, literally,
great soul.                                                         -Anu

.............................................................................
What is to give light must endure burning. -Viktor Frankl, author,
neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)

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Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/ahimsa.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/ahimsa.ram