Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Remarks on Public Figures in India

Mahatma Gandhi [9]

It is curious that mosquitoes do not bite me. Perhaps they do not like my blood or they do not bite me because I don’t kill them. Here is an example of the efficacy of the truth of Ahimsa. But if this is true, why with all the Ahimsa Gandhi practises has the government not given up their enmity towards him? Of course, the meaning of Ahimsa can be extended to All-love, and, as it says in one Upanishad, everything that is not compatible with the Higher Self is Himsa.

Mosquitoes do have strong preferences (and dislikes) in the matter of blood. One person is sleeping in a room, no mosquitoes — another enters, immediately there is a cloud of mosquitoes. Also as between two persons in a room, they will swarm round one and leave the other.

I don’t think the Ahimsa principle works like that with Governments — after all Gandhi is trying to do to them or their interests immense harm and you can’t expect his mere nonviolence to make them love him for that or leave him alone. On the other hand Ahimsa does work (though not invariably) with animals — if you don’t kill them, they don’t as a rule go out of their way to kill you — unless they are frightened or mad or otherwise abnormal or unless it is their rule to kill. I don’t know what effect it can have on mosquitoes.

All-love is a different matter — it has sometimes a powerful effect, very powerful, in conciliating automatically men, animals, Nature itself. The only beings who do not respond are the Asuras and Rakshasas.

11 March 1934