Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

TWENTY-NINTH TALK 597

first, there would haye been no need to adopt this
very unpleasant form of terrorism. It is not a
pleasant sort* of bugbear to put before people. We
might do better than this, but that idea is still about.
If you take your revenge upon a criminal you are
acting brutally, just as the criminal is acting brutally.
Your idea should be to educate him, to show him
that his method is all wrong. That is more trouble.
To kill him off saves you a certain amount of trouble.
It does not save him, as an ego, any trouble at all.
In all these cases you have to think of the real man—
the soul—and not the present body. It is sometimes
less trouble for you to dispose of a thing off-hand.
It would be less trouble for a judge or a magistrate
to dispose oŁ a case without looking into it, but in
that case he would do frightful injustice. Similarly,
to hang a criminal is a quick way out of our difficulty.
He is an unfortunate son of the country, one of whom
the country is by no means proud. But remember,
if you have a sick child you do not think what a
trouble it is to you. Yc?u think : <( What can I do
for it ? It needs more care than those that are
strong." Well, the criminal is the sick child of the
State, and you should deal with him from that
point of view. You should deal with him from the
point view of the soul within. Another thing is
that \ve interfere far too much with other people.
Remember, I have said that Society must defend
itself. We cannot allow anyone to steal or kill, or