M. Imyu Longchar
The Ethical teaching is the central philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. He is the universally accepted as an exemplary model of Ethical and a moral life with a blending personal and public life, the Principle and Practice the immediate and the internal. He consider the everyday life to be growth from truth to truth in moral status. He believed in the conduct on Dharma of truth and non violence.
Gandhi-ji leadership has not comes from the physical capacity but from an indomitable spiritual will. He chose non-violence a substitute for violence to counter injustice and exploitation which was the bed rock of his leadership quality. The concept of his qualities are humility, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance which are the proposition of non-violence. He implied the self sacrifice without which nothing will get. Again, he implied that, a leader is to follow the right path and required courage, endurance, moral imperative and above all, fearlessness and a spirit of willingness to sacrifice. These are the qualities required for a good leadership.
Gandhi in his time wielded power which was not the power of weapon, or terror or violence, but, it was the power of his convection, the pursuit of truth and non-violence, love and justice and sacrifice for the fellow human being. This power came from empowering the weak and lead the masses in fighting against injustice, exploitation violence and discrimination. His power arose through the people whom he gave a sense of self respect and the moral strength. He expressed that morality is inseparable with the conception with God and religion. Morality is the core essence of religion and the spiritual is the highest goal of man and all must be achieve this goal. According to him, there are seven deadly sins in the human life.
They are:-
1. Wealth without work,
2. Pleasure without conscious,
3. Knowledge without character,
4. Commerce without morality,
5. Science without humanity,
6. Religion without sacrifice,
7. Politics without principle.
Gandhi-ji says, non-violence means to keep oneself completely away from such action which may hurt others physically or mentally. The violence is a behaviour of physical force intending to hurting, damaging or killing. Whereas non-violence is the most effective means to fight against discrimination falsehood and exploitation. It prevent murder, war, abortion service and infanticide in human society.
Non-violence develop love, co-operation forgiving, help and kindness. It is fundamental to the discovery of truth. Truth is God and non-violence is God’s love. Truth is the ultimate goal of human life and the non-violence is the means to achieve this ultimate goal. Non-violence and truth are practically impossible to disintegrate and to separate them. He emphasis that non-violence should be cultivate in our every day life.
According to Gandhi, if we merely love only those who love us, it is not the non-violence, but if we love even those who hate us then only Non-violence can achieve. The potential of non-violence must begin with the mind. Non-violence without co-operation of the mind, it is the non-violence of weak or the cowardly and has therefore no potency if we could bear the malice and hatred and not to retaliate, it would return back to us and prevent us from destruction. Therefore if non-violence successfully established in our place this influence will spread everywhere. He said, “Non-violence of my conception is more active and real fighting against weakness. It is one of the major moral qualities of human being”. He used the Non-violence not only for the purification of his soul, but to purify for conduct of the human society.
Thus, non-violence is more powerful than violence, because it is link with bravely minded and a powerful weapon. He practised non-violence in mass action and devised means to fight out injustice.
Gandhi-ji says, truth is the law of our human being. Truth is God. Truth is a virtue. It is God. It is in fact a self revealing, but we have blind on account of our ignorance. He said, this is due to moral degradation of one kind caused the ignorance. He explicitly mentioned the six deadly enemies which cause prejudice, malice and ill will which the person is unable to see or feel the truth.
These are:
1) Desire
2) Anger
3) Greed
4) Attachment
5) Pride
6) Jealousy
Therefore in order to practice the truth one must constantly endeavour to oneself from this evils, and then one must try to cultivate moral purity, courage and must not allow those evils to cloud over one vision. Gandhi-ji was already aware that in present day world falsehood appears to be more paying and beneficial by speaking lies and getting success, but he demonstrated the superiority of truth over falsehood. According to him, there is one condition regarding the speaking of truth which he accepted because of its pragmatic value. He emphasis that truth should be spoken in a pleasant way even if the truth expressed in an unpleasant, blunt and rough manner, it may socially injure and might give rise to anger and quarrels. He said, in the ancient Indian philosophy, there is a maxim “which say speak the truth, and speak the pleasant, but do not speak the unpleasant truth”. Mahatma Gandhi seems to be influence by this maxim. Therefore he says, that truthfulness to be practiced is an art which could be develop by constant practice in discipline Gandhi-ji teaching of an another ethical value is that, the non-stealing, it mean not to take by thought work and action anything to which one is not entitled. There are two sense of the word of non-stealing. Firstly, it means observance of rule of not taking away the belonging or the property of anybody unless it is given by that person. Secondly, it means forbids the keeping or holding in possession of such things that are not needed. So he emphasised the uses of non-stealing in both sense. Therefore he taught the moral of every individual to take a solemn vow to cultivate the virtue of non-stealing. Gandhi-ji emphasis another ethical value, that the character is the moral and ethical strength. The character comes from within, it is the key to success. A man character will make himself worthy of any possession. This will mostly count at the crucial moments. Character building comes from really within one mind. Therefore he says “that if wealth is lost, nothing is lost, if health is lost something is lost, if character is lost, everything is lost.” Thus ethical teaching of Mahatma Gandhi are the great sources for right, peaceful, healthy and blissful living in this world.
