Jump to content

Page:My Dear Pranav.pdf/16

From Wikisource
This page needs to be proofread.

what fear is. Otherwise you will go on using more and more words, but not more full meaning. Understanding a meaning alone changes you. You will not change. You will not grow. You will only use more words. :

Let me end this letter with a small story. Vinoba says Prajapati (creator of the world) gave a mantra, “da”. Devas interpreted it as “daman”, to rule. Asuras intetpreted it as “daya”, compassion. Manushyas interpreted it as “daan”, giving(4). Each one is right according to his light. No one is wrong. This is the beauty of our great Hindu Tradition. There is no one correct answer. All answers have an equal right to exist. All of them have equal justification. There need not be any conflict about the “right” meaning.

With love,

Yours, L.N. Godbole

Letter 8


J 18th February, 1990 My dear Pranav,

I wrote two letters to you which were perhaps difficult in their arguments, but I could not help it. Now, I believe, this one will be pretty simple. Once you climb the hill top, the entire scene is beautiful and simple.

Vinoba has given us so many ideas about education. The first and the most important is an idea from the Upanisads. It is “Aum Purnat Purna Mudicyate”. When you learn, you grow from fullness to fullness. It sounds silly. But that is the beauty of Hindu thought. If I tell you that you grow from the incomplete to the complete, you find it easy to understand, but you also grow from the complete to the complete (1).

Let us look at it this way. You are a young child. But are



6 �