No One is an Eternal Enemy

If one appears to be your antagonist, never regard him as your permanent opponent. Attribute his opposition as temporary in nature. Try to influence him positively.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the general thinking of the communist world was that those who were not with them were their enemies. Such thinking was, both erroneous and destructive. For about 50 years, all the communists who indulged in this foolish thinking set about massacring all those people who did not agree with their movement. In the former Soviet Union, the communists killed twenty million people and destroyed the lives of countless families.

In those countries where they did not have such power, they engaged in an unending verbal warfare with those who did not side with their movement. Levelling false accusations, indulging in character assassination, printing false literature, issuing false propaganda and laying all kinds of blame at their door became their way of life. Towards this end they squandered all their best abilities and best resources.

Such thinking is entirely unnatural. Experience shows that a person’s thinking keeps changing. Today he thinks along one line. Tomorrow he thinks along another line. With the increase in information and the acceptance of new arguments, a person’s mind keeps changing. A human being is not a rigid statue. He is a living being. Over and over he is swayed by external influences.

If any person appears to be your antagonist, you should never regard him as being your opponent forever. Rather, his opposition should be attributed to inadequate knowledge or wrong information, and therefore of a temporary nature.