March 18NextPrevious
“The Practical and the Spiritual”–Daily Metta
“If any action of mine claimed to be spiritual is proved to be unpractical, it must be pronounced to be a failure. I do believe that the most spiritual act is the most practical act in the true sense of the term.”
-–Gandhi (Harijan, 7-1-1939, p. 181)
Seeking the practical is always a key path for Gandhi, and here he shows that the dichotomy between ‘spiritual’ and ‘practical’ that most of us believe in (suffer from?) is perfectly false — just as, for him and some other visionaries, there was no distinction between the ‘right’ (moral) choice and the most effective or practical choice. And why he called himself, inspiringly, a “practical idealist.”
Experiment in Nonviolence
Starting with something small, and reasonably safe, do what seems to you the spiritual/moral thing to do even though it might seem ‘impractical’. Track the results (bearing in mind the principle of “work” vs. work).
The Metta Center for Nonviolence, PO Box 98, Petaluma, California 94953 707-774-6299 info@mettacenter.org