Present as seen through past

The present hardly exists for there is an absence of feeling & sensation which might
separate it from dead past. There is stillness & everlastingness about the past, it
changes not & has a touch of eternity, like a painted picture or statue in bronze or
marble. ------- without the passion & urge to action which are very stuff of life
there is a gradual oozing out of hope & vitality, a settling down on lower levels of
existence, a slow merging into non-existence. We become prisoner of past.
------- it has not been difficult for me to envisage history as a living process with
which I could identify myself to some extent. The roots of that lay in the past & so I
made voyages of discovery into the past, ever seeking a clue in it, if any such
existed, to the understanding of the present.
Religion
Religion, as I saw it practiced & accepted even by thinking minds, whether it was
Hinduism or Islam or Buddhism or Christianity, did not attract me. It seemed to be
so closely associated superstitious practices & dogmatic beliefs, & behind it lay a
method of approach to lifes problems which was certainly not that of science.
Life does not consists entirely of what we see & hear and feel, the visible world
which is undergoing change in time & space; it is continually touching an invisible
world of others, and possibly more stable & equally changeable elements, and no
thinking person can ignore this invisible world.
Ethical approach of life & deeply attracted by Gandhijis stress on right means,
one of the his greatest contribution to public life has been this emphasis.

-----------Nehru from Ahmednagar jail.

Points:
Should not be prisoner of past;
Passion to act;
Right means in life