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<strong>Prayer</strong><br />
04. THE ETERNAL DUEL<br />
A friend writes:<br />
"In the article entitled "The Tangle of Ahimsa" appearing in Young India of<br />
October 11 th , you have stated most forcefully that cowardice and Ahimsa are<br />
incompatible. There is not an ambiguous syllable in your statement. But may I<br />
request that you tell us how cowardice can be exorcised from a man's<br />
character I notice that all characters are but the sum total of habits formed.<br />
How are we to undo our old habits and build the new ones of courage,<br />
intelligence and action I am convinced that habits can be destroyed, and<br />
better and nobler habits can be formed giving birth to a new character in a<br />
person. It seems to me that you know prayers, discipline and studies by which a<br />
man can attain a second birth. Won't you kindly tell us about them Do give us<br />
your knowledge and advice in one of the numbers of Young India. Please help<br />
us by giving an account of the method of praying and working by which a man<br />
can recreate himself."<br />
The question refers to the eternal duel that is so graphically described in the<br />
Mahabharata under the cloak of history and that is every day going on in<br />
millions of breasts. Man's destined purpose is to conquer old habits, to overcome<br />
the evil in him and to restore good to its rightful place. If religion does<br />
not teach us how to achieve this conquest, it teaches us nothing. But there is<br />
no royal road to success in this, the truest enterprise in life. Cowardice is<br />
perhaps the greatest vice from which we suffer and is also possibly the greatest<br />
violence, certainly far greater than bloodshed and the like that generally go<br />
under the name of violence. For it comes from want of faith in God and<br />
ignorance of His attributes. But I am sorry that I have not the ability to give 'the<br />
knowledge and the advice' that the correspondent would have me to give on<br />
how to dispel cowardice and other vices. But I can give my own testimony and<br />
say that a heart-felt prayer is undoubtedly the most potent instrument that<br />
man possesses for overcoming cowardice and all other bad old habits. <strong>Prayer</strong> is<br />
an impossibility without a living faith in the presence of God within.<br />
www.mkgandhi.org Page 14
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