Articles : On & By Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi’s Leadership – Moral And Spiritual Foundations
By Y. P. Anand
Mahatma Gandhi is universally accepted as an exemplary model of ethical and moral life, with a rare blending of personal and public life, the principles and practices, the immediate and the eternal. He considered life to be an integrated whole, growing from ‘truth to truth’ every day in moral and spiritual status.
He believed in a single standard of conduct founded on dharma of truth and nonviolence. He successfully led nonviolent struggles against racial discrimination, colonial rule, economic and social exploitation and moral degradation. So long as these manifestations of violence remain, Gandhi will remain relevant. Gandhi was “a good man in a world where few resist the corroding influence of power, wealth and vanity”1
Among the vital messages of Gandhi’s leadership are: even one person can make a difference; strength comes not from physical capacity but from an indomitable will; given a just cause, nonviolence and capacity for self-suffering, and fearlessness, victory is certain; leadership by example is the one most effective. He asserted: “We only wish to serve our fellowmen wherever we may be….” (CWMG 54:233)
Considering Gandhi’s unique and multi-faceted leadership, an attempt has been made to study his leadership under three main headings:
Ethico-social Parameters of Gandhian Leadership;
Gandhian Leadership – The Vision and the Way; and
Gandhian Political-Economic-Social Order.
I
ETHICO-SOCIAL PARAMETERS
Gandhi spoke in a low tone and was a hesitant public speaker. Yet people of all classes were drawn to him and instinctively felt him to be a leader of deeply spiritual and moral perceptions, which he sought to realize through the pursuit of Truth. Over 54 years of Gandhi’s public life were lived as an open book. He lived in South Africa for 21 years and then in India from 1915. All through his life he remained a seeker after Truth.
A central quality of his leadership was its natural evolution through intense interaction with the people and the events. He was acutely conscious of his own imperfections. “One great reason for the misunderstanding lies in my being considered almost a perfect man…..I am painfully conscious of my imperfections, and therein lies all the strength I posses, because it is a rare thing for a man to know his own limitations” (CWMG 21:457-9). The more he realized about human fallibility, the more he tried to evolve morally and spiritually. When nothing else availed, he would seek refuge in God and yet carry on.
Gandhi single-handedly made nonviolence a universal substitute for violence and the bed-rock of his leadership. His nonviolence was the way to counter injustice and exploitation, and not run away from a righteous battle. He associated the qualities of humility, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance as corollaries of nonviolence. Humility, to him, is “an indispensable test of ahimsa. In one who has ahimsa in him it becomes part of his very nature,” and, it must not be “confounded with mere manners or etiquette,” but it “should make the possessor realize that he is as nothing” (CWMG 44:205-6).
To Gandhi the spirit of service and sacrifice was the key to leadership. For the spirit of service to materialize we must lay stress on our responsibilities and duties and not on rights. He illustrated it through the example of “concentric circles”: one starts with service of those nearest to one and expands the circle of service until it covers the universe, no circle thriving at the cost of the circles beyond. Service to him implied self-sacrifice. He said: “Sacrifice is the law of life. It runs through and governs every walk of life. We can do nothing or get nothing without paying a price for it….in other words, without sacrifice” (CWMG 4:112).
The commitment to service, however demands a strong sense of conscience (moral imperative), courage (fearlessness, bravery, initiative), and character (integrity). To Mahatma Gandhi, ‘inner voice’ was synonymous with conscience. Leaders need to develop and follow their conscience even more than ordinary people as they set the path for others. Hence, he wrote: “None of us, especially no leader should allow himself to disobey the inner voice in the face of pressure from outside. Any leader who succumbs in this way forfeits his right of leadership (CWMG 34:363-4). For a leader to follow the right path requires courage and its associated qualities: “Courage, endurance and above all, fearlessness and spirit of willing sacrifices are the qualities that are required today in India for leadership” (CWMG 21:152).
Gandhi in his time wielded more power over the minds of people than any other individual but it was not the power of weapons, or terror, or violence; it was the power of his convictions, his pursuit of truth and nonviolence, fearlessness, love and justice, working through incessant service and sacrifice for fellow human beings. His power came from empowering the weak, to lead the masses in the fight against injustice, exploitation, violence and discrimination. Satyagraha elevated the struggle for survival to the highest moral-spiritual levels and ordinary, emaciated people turned heroes. His power arose through the people whom he gave a sense of self-respect, purpose and moral strength.
We may thus conclude that Gandhi’s leadership was a running ethical lesson to his followers as well as his opponents on ‘how to live’. An outline of the basic ethical tenets of Gandhian leadership, proceeding from the eternal verities towards the more applied principles of conduct are given below:
Truth
Nonviolence
Right Means and Right Ends
Primacy of Duties over Right
The Deed, not the Doer
True Religion (Universality and Brotherhood)
Aparigraha or Non-possession (voluntary Poverty)
Yajna (Sacrifice and Service)
Satyagraha or Nonviolent Conflict Resolution
II
THE VISION AND THE WAY
Gandhi’s Vision
Mahatma Gandhi was not an armchair academician or a cloistered visionary. He was deeply concerned with the world around him. He disclaimed being a visionary. He said: “Mere discipline cannot make leadership. The latter calls for faith and vision” (CWMG 72:217). The core of his vision for the people of India was contained in his concept of Swaraj, the fountainhead from which the whole range of the concepts of Gandhian philosophy flow. It necessarily starts with political self-rule as a means to achieving economic, social and moral freedom. It applies equally to the individual, the society and the state.
His concept of freedom was self-rule, i.e. self-restraint and not freedom from all restraint which “independence often means” (CWMG 45:264). “Swaraj means freedom not only for oneself but “for your neighbour too” (CWMG 60:254), because, “Men aspiring to be free could hardly think of enslaving others. If they try to do so, they would only be binding their own chains of slavery tighter” (CWMG 87:162). He defined Swaraj as a social state “in which the poorest shall feel it is their country in whose making they have an effective voice…..no high class and low class of people…..all communities shall live in perfect harmony…..no room in such an India for the curse of untouchablility or……of intoxicating drinks and drugs. Women will enjoy the same rights as men” (CWMG 47:389).
Inherent in his vision of Swaraj was his vision of democracy: “Democracy, disciplined and enlightened, is the fines thing in the world” (CWMG 47:236).
Gandhi’s Way: Satyagraha
The philosophy of Satyagraha has been explained in simple terms by Gandhi himself, as appearing in the ‘Congress Report on the Punjab Disorders, chap. IV: Satyagraha’ (see CWMG 17:151-58):
“The principles of satyagraha, as known today, constitute a gradual evolution. Its root meaning is ‘holding on to truth’; hence truth-force. I have also called it love-force or soul force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears to be truth to one, may appear to be an error to the other. And patience means self-suffering……Satyagraha…..has been conceived as a weapon of the strongest, and excludes the use of violence in any shape or form ….I feel that nations cannot be one in reality, nor can their activities be conducive to the common good of the whole community, unless there is this definite recognition and acceptance of the law of the family in national and international affairs….Satyagraha has therefore been described as a coin, on whose face you read love and on the reverse you read truth….A satyagrahi does not know what defeat is….”
“And as a satyagrahi never injures his opponent and always appeals, either to his reason…..or his heart…..satyagraha is twice blessed; it blesses him who practices it, and him against whom it is practiced. Satyagraha…..is essentially a…..process of purification and penance. It seeks to secure reforms or redress of grievances by self-suffering.”
In the Gandhian philosophy of satyagraha, dialogue and compromise―except on basic principles―play a vital part. He writes in his Autobiography: “All my life through, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of satyagraha” (CWMG 39:122).
III
GANDHIAN POLITICAL-ECONOMIC-SOCIAL ORDER
Spiritualizing Politics
Mahatma Gandhi never sought a public or political office or title. He was in politics for spiritual reasons. He explained in a speech in London (23.9.1931) “….although to all appearances my mission is political….its roots are―if I may use the term―spiritual….I claim that at least my politics are not divorces from morality, from spirituality, from religion….a man who is trying to discover and follow the will of God, cannot possibly leave a single field of life untouched. I found through bitter experience that, if I wanted to do social service, I could not possibly leave politics alone” (CWMG 48:50). Later he said: “The call to lead India did not come to me in the nature of a sudden realization. I prepared for it by fasting and self discipline. My political work grew out of my spiritual preparation” (CWMG 48:63)
He was misunderstood when he said, “I cannot conceive politics as divorced from religion. Indeed, religion should pervade every one of our actions.” He explained that, “Here religion does not mean sectarianism. It means a belief in the ordered moral government of the universe. This religion transcends Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. it does not supercede them. It harmonizes them and gives them reality” (CWMG 71: 177-8).
“…..if I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out…..I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake……I have been experimenting with myself and my friends by introducing religion into politics….Religion which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies (CWMG 17:406).
Early after arrival in India he had exhorted in a speech (8.5.1915): “You and I have to act on the political platform from a spiritual side and if this is done we should conquer the conquerors” (CWMG 13:82).
Patriotism, Nationalism and Internationalism
Mahatma Gandhi’s patriotism and nationalism were not narrow-minded or exclusive, but were part of his search for truth through unity in diversity and through service. These were expressions of his swadeshi spirit, which seeks food of the nearer society as a part of the global good. “I am patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not exclusive. I will not hurt England and Germany to serve India” (CWMG 19:427). For nationalism he said: “Internationalism is possible only when nationalism becomes a fact….It is not nationalism that is evil, it is the narrowness, selfishness, exclusiveness which is the bane of modern nations which is evil (CWMG 27:255). To him nationalism was a step towards internationalism.
He believed in the ideal of self-reliance along with that of interdependence and cooperation. He said: “Individual liberty and interdependence are both essential for life in a society. When a man has done all he can for the satisfaction of his essential requirements, he will seek the cooperation of his neighbours for the rest. That will be true cooperation” (CWMG 82:396). Even his struggle for India’s freedom was imbued with this spirit: “I want freedom of my country so that other countries may learn something from this free country of mine….so that the resources of my country may be utilized for the benefit of mankind” (CWMG 28:129).
The concept of sacrifice under Gandhian thinking became a continuous chain from the individual to the world. He described this in a idiom thus: “The logical conclusion of self-sacrifice is that the individual sacrificed himself for the community, the community sacrificed itself for the district, the district for the province, the province for the nation, and the nation for the world. A drop torn from the ocean perished without doing any good. If it remains a part of the ocean, it shared the glory of carrying on its bosom a fleet of mighty ships” (CWMG 86:23).
A New Meaning of Democracy
All through his public life, Gandhi was thinking how to institutionalize swaraj or true democracy, including Gram swaraj and village panchayats. T him democracy meant “the art and science of mobilizing the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of all…..in the service of the common good of all” (CWMG 69:50)
In an interview (9.1.1927), he defined the required qualities of leaders under swaraj thus: “My ideal is that every person should realize dharma. In that case there would be no need left for any representatives. That is the ideal swaraj….(CWMG 35: 528-31).
He was acutely conscious of the pitfalls and corruption in parliamentary democracies, and continued to lay stress on purification of the public life and political process. As early as 1934, he would write: “……corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be the inevitable products of democracy as they undoubtedly are today; nor bulk a true test of democracy” (CWMG 59: 11-2)
Towards a Humanistic Social Order
Gandhian vision of swaraj covered all aspects of human life, including the vital area of ‘Political Economy’. Gandhian economics is normative, a means to obtaining a non-violent, egalitarian, sustainable, progressive and happy social order.
To him economics and ethics go together: “True economics never militates against the highest ethical standard, just as all true ethics…..must at the same time be also good economics. As economics that inculcates mammon worship and enables the strong to amass wealth at the expense of the weak, is a false and dismal science….True economics……stands for social justice; it promotes the good of all equally, including the weakest and is indispensable for decent life” (CWMG 66:168).
He had made his first major statement on socio-economic order in his paraphrase of John Ruskin’s ‘Unto This Last’ (1860) in his booklet titled ‘Sarvodaya’ (‘Welfare of all’, 1908). He summed up his understanding of the lessons of Ruskin’s book in his Autobiography as:
“1. That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all.
2. That a lawyer’s work has the same value as a barber’s, in as much as all have the same
right of earning their livelihood from their work.
3. That a life of labour…..is the life worth living” CWMG 39:239).
In a speech delivered (22.12.1916) at Muir College Economic Society, Allahabad, he defined ‘real economics’ thus: “In a well-ordered society, the securing of one’s livelihood should be and is found to be the easiest thing in the world. Indeed the test of orderliness in a country is not the number of millionaires it owns, but the absence of starvation among its masses…. These are real economics” (CWMG 13:312).
Conclusion
The spiritual and moral foundation of the whole range of Gandhi’s leadership may be best summed up in his own words written at the end of his Autobiography:
“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to truth has drawn me into the field of politics….those who say that religion ahs nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means…..identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure at heart.
But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it…..I must reduce myself to zero. So long as man does not….put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.
Albert Einstein’s message on Gandhi’s 75th birthday sums up the essential character of his leadership: “A leader of his people, unsupported by an outward authority, a victorious fighter who always scorned the use of force, a man of wisdom and humility who has confronted the brutality of Europe with the dignity of the simple human being and at all times risen superior….”
Mahatma Gandhi remains the ultimate leader, from whose life and thought there is so much that every one of us can learn and try to absorb in our lives.
Reference
1. P.A. Nazareth, Gandhi's Outstanding Leadership, Bangalore: Sarvodaya International Trust, Gandhi Centre of Science and Human Values & Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 2006
Source: Anasakti Darshan Vol. 3, No. 2, July-December 2007
Spirituality, Mind-Body, Gender, Ecology, Ageing, Peace, Scrapbook (in English and Korean)
2024/02/14
Mahatma Gandhi's Discovery of Religion By A. Jayabalan CMF
Articles on Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi's Discovery of Religion
By A. Jayabalan CMF
MAHATMA GANDHI AS a great leader has recognized the major religions of the world as historical and cultural phenomena. Beyond these particular forms there is the religion of humanity which is reflected as faith in the moral order. This religious belief, Gandhi held, is common to all particular religions. He said: "The soul of religions is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms.'' For him, the moral order which governs the universe is Satya and the process by which life is continued is ahimsa. All religions are nothing but appropriations of Satya under the condition of cultural limitation and human finitude. Thus religions as cultural and historical phenomena are more or less true. They are equal in the sense that no single religion has the absolute or exclusive truth. He said: "Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads as long as we reach the same goal? In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.''
According to Gandhi, true religion is not narrow dogma. It is not external observance. It is faith in God and living in the presence of God, it means faith in a future life, in truth and ahimsa. He understood the fact that religion is a binding force which ultimately calls "to accelerate the process of realization of fundamental unity. He gives a simile of a faithful husband who would love no other woman. Even her faithlessness would not wean him from his faith. The bond is more than blood relationship, so is the religious bond if it is worth anything. It is a matter of the heart.
(i) Traditional Understanding
In those days, people had a conservative outlook towards religion. There were people who believed in primitive religion which was ruled by nature. Primitive man worshipped the natural forces believing that there was something supernatural in them, of course it was not devoid of superstitions. Man is seen accepting his condition passively and adapting himself to them without much criticism. Gandhi went against the current and engaged in vigorous dialogue with the traditionalists and upheld a dynamic view of Indian institutions and values. He sought to awaken in the millions of Indians an elementary minimum of self-respect and feeling of dignity which he regarded as an absolutely necessary pre-condition for his nonviolent struggle. He reinterpreted the traditional religion which often proved to give a greater impetus to economic and social development.
In the past the attitude of Christian missionaries towards non-Christian religions was a narrow and hostile one. They regarded Hinduism as an evil and idolatrous religion. It is relevant to see how the traditional virtues of a personal ethic, viz., Satya, ahimsa, brahmacharya, asteya, and aparigraha were applied and what empirical content they acquired from Gandhi's own life. Gandhi added abhaya (fearlessness) to the list and did not agree to include humility. Thus he brought a radical change in the traditional understanding of religion. Until the advent of Western civilization in its glaringly urban and industrial form, these features of ancient outlook persisted in India without serious interruption. In this sense, Indian aesthetics represents interruption, represents a continuous tradition from Bharatha's Natyasastra to Tagore's "Religion of an artist." Gandhi is the spokesman of the sociological aspect of this tradition.
(ii) New Understanding of Religion and its Praxis
Gandhi's perspective of religion was entirely different from that of others. In the past, Dharma was considered as one of the societal values. In the words of J.B. Kripalani, "It is indeed Gandhi's creative and constructive genius which inextricably blended the two traditions, namely the Truth of Sanatana Dharma and Ahimsa of Jaina Dharma.'' He insisted on the praxis of religion to the extent of saying: "I have come to this fundamental conclusion that if you want something really important to be done, you must not merely satisfy reason, you must move the heart also. The appeal of reason is more to the head but the penetration of the heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner understanding in man." For him, religion and morality are inseparable. Politics bereft of religion is absolute dirt, even to be shunned.
According to Gandhi, the whole gamut of man's activities constitutes an indivisible whole; it must be inspired by one's religious faith, a faith in God, and living in the presence of God, it means faith in a future life in Truth and Ahimsa. After a long study and experience he discovers and concludes that all religions are true. All religions have some error in them. All religions are almost as dear to me as one's own close relatives. He too believed that all religions are God-given, and therefore stressed the necessity of religion. He compares the atheist and agnostic to 'a man saying that he breathes but that he has no nose.' Vows and observances taken in his religion not only facilitate the spiritual progress of the individual but also harmonious community living on the basis of spirituality, mutual help, and collective salvation. Hence removal of the evils, inequalities, and injustices become part of one's own religious duties. Thus his entire view of religion is an integrated one.
(iii) A Critical Reflection on Praxis of Faith
Faith is the foundation of every religion. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." A man with a grain of faith in God never loses hope because he ever believes in the Ultimate triumph of Truth. A man of God never moves after untruth. Hence he can never lose hope. Such were the convictions of Gandhi. He says: "Faith is nothing but a living, wide, awake consciousness of God within.'' In his view true religion consists in having faith in God and living in the presence of God; it means faith in a future life, in Truth and Ahimsa. There prevails today a sort of apathy towards these things of spirit. For him living faith in God means acceptance of brotherhood of mankind. There exists an indissoluble bond between the individuals faith and his religion. Just as St. Paul, he gives the analogy of marriage by saying that "just as a husband, because either is conscious of some exclusive superiority of the other over the rest of his or her sex, but because of some indefinable but irresistible attraction, so does one remain irresistibly faithful to one's own religion and find full satisfaction in such adhesion.''
Since he realized that faith in its praxis passes through a crisis of skepticism and doubt, he had an unflinching faith in Truth and in God. He understood faith as an essential, constitutive element of his religion. Hence he considered a man without faith in God is like a drop thrown out of the ocean and bound to perish. For him the greatest source of his strength was his absolute faith in God. His faith in God increased with every trial he faced. He himself gives the testimony that, "I have never found Him (God) lacking in response. I have found Him nearest at hand when the horizon seemed darkest in my ordeals in goals when it was not all smooth sailing for me, I cannot recall a single moment in my life when I had a sense of desertion by God.''
In his view, faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence, the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law, the law of Truth and Love. Praxis of faith thus will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to Truth and Love. It is faith that transcends reason. He had an unshakable faith in God which made him ask How much more should I be near to Him when my faith is not a mere apology, as it is today, but has become as immovable as the Himalayas and as white as the snows on their peaks. In brief, faith according to him, does not admit of telling. It is to be believed and then it becomes self-propagating.
(iv) Realization of God
Man has an insatiable thirst for God. Consequently he feels the urge to realize God, through the means propagated by his religion. Gandhi too says: "Man's ultimate aim is the realization of God and all his activities, social, political and religious, have been guided by the ultimate aim of the vision of God. To realize God is to see Him in all that lives, that is, to realize our oneness with all creation. 'It is in the critical moments of one's life, we have a glimpse of God, a vision of Him who is guiding everyone of our steps in life. He himself testifies to the fact that as days pass I feel this living presence in every fiber of my veins. Without that feeling I should be demented.., so many events happen that would, without the realization of that presence, shake me to the very foundation.' Thus he felt the indwelling presence of God within himself.
He explicitly states the characteristics of a real seeker of God in the following words: "A real seeker of God should be purified by prayer and always be prepared to share the suffering of man whoever they may be. This noble idea will have no influence unless one is convinced of the existence of the soul distinct from body and permanent. This recognition must not just be intellectual idea, it must be a living faith.'
As St. Augustine said: "My soul does not rest until it rests in Thee," Gandhi also says: "Soul is utterly restless until it has found itself, knows it Maker and appreciates the true correspondence between the Maker and itself.'' While quoting Gandhi, Aloysius Rego says: "As gold is tried in the furnace so is the man who is devoted to God tried in tribulation and suffering. He, however does not forsake us in our miseries, but gives us the strength to prove our mettle in the midst of adversities. In all the vicissitudes of life we must be convinced that God's protecting hand and love shield us. Created to His own image and likeness we can find like Mahatma Gandhi true peace in Him and strive with might and main to reflect His attributes in our lives.''
According to Gandhi, a religionist must be free from all impure and sex thoughts in mind and heart. One can realize God's grace through complete self-surrender and ceaseless communion with Him. A man realizes the supreme by becoming absolutely free from likes and dislikes and never otherwise .... He adds realization is a matter of experience but does not lend itself to description in any language. Gandhi was endeavoring to see God through the service of humanity because he recognizes the presence of God in every man. Man's highest endeavour lies in trying to find God. He cannot be found in temples or idols or places of worship by man's hands nor can He be found in abstinences. God can be found only through love, not earthly but divine. He discovered that if he was to realize God, he has to obey the law of love even at the cost of his life. God is to be realized in one's own heart.
He believed firmly that man realizes God not in abstract things but in the factory, the home, in schools and colleges, in villages and towns as one lives and begins to move towards the realization of the Absolute. He could visualize this truth as the essential insight of his religion. A joy springs out of the communion with the Divine. The realization is proved not by extraneous evidences but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the presence of God within.
Concept Of God
Gandhi was a firm believer in God. He claims to have a living faith in the abiding presence of God. Since Gandhi was a theist, he could not accept the illogical arguments of an atheist. For him, God is an unseen power. This idea is clear in the following words of Gandhi: "An indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything; a living power that is underlying all change in an ever-changing, ever-dying world, is itself changeless, that holds all together, creates, dissolves, and recreates. That power or spirit is God." He was a monotheist. He enumerates the attributes of God that He is unfathomable, unknowable, unknown to the vast majority of mankind. He is everywhere. He sees without eyes, hears without ears. He is formless and indivisible. He is uncreated, has no father, mother and child, he allows himself even to be worshipped as stock and stone, although he is in one of these things. He is the most elusive. He is the nearest to us if we could but know the fact. But he is farthest from us when we do not want to realize His omnipresence."
For Gandhi, so great is His infinite love, he is purely a benevolent God. His testimony was that "I can see that in the midst of death life persists; in the midst of untruth, truth persists; in the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence I gather that God is life, truth, and light. He is love. He is the supreme God." He argued that God revealed Himself daily to every human being in one way or other but we are not receptive to receive His voice. God never appears to you in person but in actions. God for him is not an external entity but an abiding presence in the human heart. His conception of God can be summed up in his own words: "To me God is Truth and love; God is ethics and morality; God is fearlessness. God is the source of light and yet He is above and beyond all these. God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. For, in His boundless love God permits the atheist to live. He is the searcher of hearts. He transcends speech and reason.' 'Through these expressions, we can understand his indomitable faith in the living God who provides everything in the universe.
(i) Religion of Truth
From the time of Socrates, beauty, Truth and goodness were considered as supreme values of the society. Among these three values, it is truth that attracted Gandhi. He could discover beauty in and through Truth. All truths are not merely true ideas nor ethical values but it is primarily and inevitable connected with human existence. Many a time it is a matter of one's own conscience. People, as a rule, fail to see the beauty in Truth. Whenever men begin to see the beauty in truth, the true art begins. Hence, as Gandhi, one must seek truth; beauty and goodness will then be added.
Gandhi had a great faith in Truth, above all, in the exercise of Truth. He never thought of a failure to one who is truthful and believes in Truth. Since Gandhi's very life was an experiment with Truth, we can very well derive the salient features of Truth. He was very much inspired when he read the Mundaka Upanishad (III-I-6) which says:
Satyam eva jayate nantram,
Satyena pantha vitato deve-yanah,
Yenakramanty rsayohy apta-kama,
Yatra tat satyasya parmam nidhanam.
This means Truth alone triumphs, not falsehood. The divine path to liberation has been laid with Truth, which the seers who have overcome desire tread, and wherein also is the supreme treasure to be gained by truth.' 'For him, "truth alone triumphs, not untruth" was not a mere maxim but it was a living faith, an inspiring mantra, and words impregnated with power. He says that "Truth is only one whole and indivisible not composed of parts, and stays as such for all times past, present, and future. Not violence, not untruth but nonviolence. Truth is the law of our being which is the fundamental law for liberation.' 'Thus Truth is stable and unchanging. It is nothing but a living embodiment of God. Gandhi also affirms with Jesus the fact that "you shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free" (Jn. 8:32). The power of Truth leads us to recognize the human dignity, equality, and fraternal solidarity with all human beings irrespective of caste, colour, or creed.
For Gandhi, God alone is Truth and everything else is transitory and illusory. God is without doubt the supporter of truth. Truth always triumphs. God is, even though the whole world denies him; truth stands even if there is no public support, it is self-sustained. Hence Gandhi says: "To me God is truth and love.' 'Finally, he came to the conclusion that truth is God which seems to have given him much satisfaction. If we want to understand truth as God, the only inevitable means are love and nonviolence. We may say that Gandhi's religion is the "religion of Truth" as revealed by God.
According to Gandhi, this religion of Truth underlies all genuine religions of the world: "All faiths constitute a revelation of Truth.'28 It lends all religions the basic unity they possess. Gandhi has compared this fundamental religion to a tree with many branches you may say religions are many; as tree, religion is one.' 'Now the question may arise: If God is one and truth is one, how can, and why should, there be many religions? The answer is that for Gandhi, this religion of Truth is an abstract reality and it becomes concrete by taking on specifications like Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. according to the circumstances and needs of the various peoples of the world. For, he says: "Truth will appear to most sincere and conscientious Hindus, Mussalmans and Christians as Hinduism, Islam and Christianity respectively as they believe them.''
All of Gandhi's life was, thus, a relentless search after truth. In this he stubbornly refused to be dictated to by any external authority. He realized early in life that truth becomes freedom, power and dynamism only when it is personally discovered and personally assimilated. He would, however, insist on the highest degree of sincerity with oneself in the search after Truth.
(ii) Role of Different Scriptures
Scriptures of various religions had a vital role to play in Gandhi's life. Scriptures were the source for his prayer as well as practice of truth and nonviolence. For him, the function of scriptures in a community is not primarily to be vehicles of its culture. Its role is to make the life of the community meaningful in the context of its fundamental and foundational experience and in reference to its goal, namely self-realization and fulfillment, Moksha. It supports moral values and promotes quality of life. The Scriptures of all religions teach the same fundamental message of Satya and ahimsa. This he calls "religion of humanity." He believed in the equality of scriptures. According to him, all of them occupy a horizontal place. He says: "I believe the Bible, the Koran, and the Zend Avesta to be as much divinely inspired as the Vedas.''Hence he asked: "Why should we blaspheme God by fighting one another because we see him through different media--the Koran, the Bible, the Talmud, the Avesta, or the Gita? The same sun beams on the Himalayas as on the plains.''
Though he was a Hindu, he did not believe in the exclusive divinity of Vedas. From the point of view of Gandhi, revelation is an ongoing process. Though he considered the "holy books" of all religions as generally inspired and yet he was aware of the two dangers in interpreting them. Firstly, they are received through human prophets who are imperfect by their very nature. Secondly, the explanation given by interpreters would also mislead the people who also are sometimes subject to reinterpretation. His attitude towards other scriptures was that of vedic rishis who sang "let noble thoughts come to us from every side." But we should throw open our windows for fresh breezes to blow through our halls, we should refuse to be swept off our feet. He would say that "in reading these texts I can say I was equiminded towards all these faiths, although perhaps, I was not conscious of it.... I ever had the slightest desire to criticize any of those religions merely because they were not my own, but read each sacred book in a spirit of reverence and found the same fundamental morality in each.''
Gandhi was convinced that 'it is impossible to understand the word of God in its fullness and integrity.' Needless to say that he was enriched and enlightened by the reading of other scriptures. It also facilitated him to see unity of all faiths. He tried to apply those principles of Truth and Ahimsa (which he derived from other scriptures) in his own concrete, existential situations. He too accepted that the study of the sacred scriptures had brought a new zeal and enthusiasm to work. He himself affirms: "I derive the greatest consolation from my reading of Tulsidas's Ramayana. I have also derived solace from the New Testament and the Koran. I do not approach them with a critical mind.''
(iii) Outlook on Moksha
According to Gandhi, Moksha consisted in freeing oneself from the shackles of death and rebirth. Moksha is liberation from impure thought, complete extinction of impure thought is impossible without ceaseless penance. There is only one way to achieve this. The moment an impure thought arises confront it with pure one. This is possible only with God's grace and God's grace comes through ceaseless communion with Him and complete self-surrender. Salvation is considered to be coming into the living presence of God. It is nothing but the realization of the unity of spirit transcending the limitations of space and time.
Moksha is conceived as living in communion with God and freedom from reincarnations. In the words of Gandhi, "What I want to achieve-what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years-is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing and all my ventures in the political field are directed to this same end.'' Self-purification, obedience to the law, and mediation are the three basic pre-requisites which an individual must practice throughout his life in order to attain Moksha. For him, the desire for Moksha was indeed there, but it was not meant for anyone other than the individual himself. The world was interested in the fruits not the root. It was in the depth one's own being that the individual had to concentrate. He has to nurse it with the water of his labour and suffering. The root was his chief concern.
Gandhi used the term "Moksha' in the sense of liberation from the bondages. In a broad sense, it implied to encompass concretely historical, political, and incarnate liberation connoted by Swaraj. Real Swarajya consists in self-restraint. If an individual fulfils all the demands of Swarajya, and yet remains a fervent devotee of God, and strives towards God-realization, he is on the process towards attaining Moksha.
To conclude, for Gandhi, religion was a source of guidance all throughout his life. His understanding of religion is interesting, unique and meaningful. Because of his open-mindedness, he could also recognize the uniqueness of each religious tradition as something noble and hence to be lived by the followers of all religions. His attitude towards other scriptures and even people of other religions was remarkable and admirable. He was a man of prayer, who strived his best to attain the realization of God and ultimately Moksha. He believed more in personal religion than in the structured religion. He also invites us to personalise our religion whatever we may belong to. The comprehensive view of religions of Gandhi would of course widen our understanding of religions in its different dimensions. It also helped Gandhi to realize the higher ideals of life. He could accept and assimilate the good elements of all major religions of the world as necessary and basically true.
As we live in an environment of violence-culture, religious fundamentalism and fanaticism, it is quite relevant to recall the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "My religion has no geographical limits. My religion is based on truth and nonviolence. My religion forbids me to hate anybody. Religion is not for separating people but to bind them.''That was Mahatma's religion, true Religion of Love and Tolerance.
[Source: International Seminar on GANDHI AND THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY (January 30 - February 4, 1998), New Delhi - Wardha.]
Mahatma Gandhi's Discovery of Religion
By A. Jayabalan CMF
MAHATMA GANDHI AS a great leader has recognized the major religions of the world as historical and cultural phenomena. Beyond these particular forms there is the religion of humanity which is reflected as faith in the moral order. This religious belief, Gandhi held, is common to all particular religions. He said: "The soul of religions is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms.'' For him, the moral order which governs the universe is Satya and the process by which life is continued is ahimsa. All religions are nothing but appropriations of Satya under the condition of cultural limitation and human finitude. Thus religions as cultural and historical phenomena are more or less true. They are equal in the sense that no single religion has the absolute or exclusive truth. He said: "Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads as long as we reach the same goal? In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.''
According to Gandhi, true religion is not narrow dogma. It is not external observance. It is faith in God and living in the presence of God, it means faith in a future life, in truth and ahimsa. He understood the fact that religion is a binding force which ultimately calls "to accelerate the process of realization of fundamental unity. He gives a simile of a faithful husband who would love no other woman. Even her faithlessness would not wean him from his faith. The bond is more than blood relationship, so is the religious bond if it is worth anything. It is a matter of the heart.
(i) Traditional Understanding
In those days, people had a conservative outlook towards religion. There were people who believed in primitive religion which was ruled by nature. Primitive man worshipped the natural forces believing that there was something supernatural in them, of course it was not devoid of superstitions. Man is seen accepting his condition passively and adapting himself to them without much criticism. Gandhi went against the current and engaged in vigorous dialogue with the traditionalists and upheld a dynamic view of Indian institutions and values. He sought to awaken in the millions of Indians an elementary minimum of self-respect and feeling of dignity which he regarded as an absolutely necessary pre-condition for his nonviolent struggle. He reinterpreted the traditional religion which often proved to give a greater impetus to economic and social development.
In the past the attitude of Christian missionaries towards non-Christian religions was a narrow and hostile one. They regarded Hinduism as an evil and idolatrous religion. It is relevant to see how the traditional virtues of a personal ethic, viz., Satya, ahimsa, brahmacharya, asteya, and aparigraha were applied and what empirical content they acquired from Gandhi's own life. Gandhi added abhaya (fearlessness) to the list and did not agree to include humility. Thus he brought a radical change in the traditional understanding of religion. Until the advent of Western civilization in its glaringly urban and industrial form, these features of ancient outlook persisted in India without serious interruption. In this sense, Indian aesthetics represents interruption, represents a continuous tradition from Bharatha's Natyasastra to Tagore's "Religion of an artist." Gandhi is the spokesman of the sociological aspect of this tradition.
(ii) New Understanding of Religion and its Praxis
Gandhi's perspective of religion was entirely different from that of others. In the past, Dharma was considered as one of the societal values. In the words of J.B. Kripalani, "It is indeed Gandhi's creative and constructive genius which inextricably blended the two traditions, namely the Truth of Sanatana Dharma and Ahimsa of Jaina Dharma.'' He insisted on the praxis of religion to the extent of saying: "I have come to this fundamental conclusion that if you want something really important to be done, you must not merely satisfy reason, you must move the heart also. The appeal of reason is more to the head but the penetration of the heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner understanding in man." For him, religion and morality are inseparable. Politics bereft of religion is absolute dirt, even to be shunned.
According to Gandhi, the whole gamut of man's activities constitutes an indivisible whole; it must be inspired by one's religious faith, a faith in God, and living in the presence of God, it means faith in a future life in Truth and Ahimsa. After a long study and experience he discovers and concludes that all religions are true. All religions have some error in them. All religions are almost as dear to me as one's own close relatives. He too believed that all religions are God-given, and therefore stressed the necessity of religion. He compares the atheist and agnostic to 'a man saying that he breathes but that he has no nose.' Vows and observances taken in his religion not only facilitate the spiritual progress of the individual but also harmonious community living on the basis of spirituality, mutual help, and collective salvation. Hence removal of the evils, inequalities, and injustices become part of one's own religious duties. Thus his entire view of religion is an integrated one.
(iii) A Critical Reflection on Praxis of Faith
Faith is the foundation of every religion. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." A man with a grain of faith in God never loses hope because he ever believes in the Ultimate triumph of Truth. A man of God never moves after untruth. Hence he can never lose hope. Such were the convictions of Gandhi. He says: "Faith is nothing but a living, wide, awake consciousness of God within.'' In his view true religion consists in having faith in God and living in the presence of God; it means faith in a future life, in Truth and Ahimsa. There prevails today a sort of apathy towards these things of spirit. For him living faith in God means acceptance of brotherhood of mankind. There exists an indissoluble bond between the individuals faith and his religion. Just as St. Paul, he gives the analogy of marriage by saying that "just as a husband, because either is conscious of some exclusive superiority of the other over the rest of his or her sex, but because of some indefinable but irresistible attraction, so does one remain irresistibly faithful to one's own religion and find full satisfaction in such adhesion.''
Since he realized that faith in its praxis passes through a crisis of skepticism and doubt, he had an unflinching faith in Truth and in God. He understood faith as an essential, constitutive element of his religion. Hence he considered a man without faith in God is like a drop thrown out of the ocean and bound to perish. For him the greatest source of his strength was his absolute faith in God. His faith in God increased with every trial he faced. He himself gives the testimony that, "I have never found Him (God) lacking in response. I have found Him nearest at hand when the horizon seemed darkest in my ordeals in goals when it was not all smooth sailing for me, I cannot recall a single moment in my life when I had a sense of desertion by God.''
In his view, faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence, the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law, the law of Truth and Love. Praxis of faith thus will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to Truth and Love. It is faith that transcends reason. He had an unshakable faith in God which made him ask How much more should I be near to Him when my faith is not a mere apology, as it is today, but has become as immovable as the Himalayas and as white as the snows on their peaks. In brief, faith according to him, does not admit of telling. It is to be believed and then it becomes self-propagating.
(iv) Realization of God
Man has an insatiable thirst for God. Consequently he feels the urge to realize God, through the means propagated by his religion. Gandhi too says: "Man's ultimate aim is the realization of God and all his activities, social, political and religious, have been guided by the ultimate aim of the vision of God. To realize God is to see Him in all that lives, that is, to realize our oneness with all creation. 'It is in the critical moments of one's life, we have a glimpse of God, a vision of Him who is guiding everyone of our steps in life. He himself testifies to the fact that as days pass I feel this living presence in every fiber of my veins. Without that feeling I should be demented.., so many events happen that would, without the realization of that presence, shake me to the very foundation.' Thus he felt the indwelling presence of God within himself.
He explicitly states the characteristics of a real seeker of God in the following words: "A real seeker of God should be purified by prayer and always be prepared to share the suffering of man whoever they may be. This noble idea will have no influence unless one is convinced of the existence of the soul distinct from body and permanent. This recognition must not just be intellectual idea, it must be a living faith.'
As St. Augustine said: "My soul does not rest until it rests in Thee," Gandhi also says: "Soul is utterly restless until it has found itself, knows it Maker and appreciates the true correspondence between the Maker and itself.'' While quoting Gandhi, Aloysius Rego says: "As gold is tried in the furnace so is the man who is devoted to God tried in tribulation and suffering. He, however does not forsake us in our miseries, but gives us the strength to prove our mettle in the midst of adversities. In all the vicissitudes of life we must be convinced that God's protecting hand and love shield us. Created to His own image and likeness we can find like Mahatma Gandhi true peace in Him and strive with might and main to reflect His attributes in our lives.''
According to Gandhi, a religionist must be free from all impure and sex thoughts in mind and heart. One can realize God's grace through complete self-surrender and ceaseless communion with Him. A man realizes the supreme by becoming absolutely free from likes and dislikes and never otherwise .... He adds realization is a matter of experience but does not lend itself to description in any language. Gandhi was endeavoring to see God through the service of humanity because he recognizes the presence of God in every man. Man's highest endeavour lies in trying to find God. He cannot be found in temples or idols or places of worship by man's hands nor can He be found in abstinences. God can be found only through love, not earthly but divine. He discovered that if he was to realize God, he has to obey the law of love even at the cost of his life. God is to be realized in one's own heart.
He believed firmly that man realizes God not in abstract things but in the factory, the home, in schools and colleges, in villages and towns as one lives and begins to move towards the realization of the Absolute. He could visualize this truth as the essential insight of his religion. A joy springs out of the communion with the Divine. The realization is proved not by extraneous evidences but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the presence of God within.
Concept Of God
Gandhi was a firm believer in God. He claims to have a living faith in the abiding presence of God. Since Gandhi was a theist, he could not accept the illogical arguments of an atheist. For him, God is an unseen power. This idea is clear in the following words of Gandhi: "An indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything; a living power that is underlying all change in an ever-changing, ever-dying world, is itself changeless, that holds all together, creates, dissolves, and recreates. That power or spirit is God." He was a monotheist. He enumerates the attributes of God that He is unfathomable, unknowable, unknown to the vast majority of mankind. He is everywhere. He sees without eyes, hears without ears. He is formless and indivisible. He is uncreated, has no father, mother and child, he allows himself even to be worshipped as stock and stone, although he is in one of these things. He is the most elusive. He is the nearest to us if we could but know the fact. But he is farthest from us when we do not want to realize His omnipresence."
For Gandhi, so great is His infinite love, he is purely a benevolent God. His testimony was that "I can see that in the midst of death life persists; in the midst of untruth, truth persists; in the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence I gather that God is life, truth, and light. He is love. He is the supreme God." He argued that God revealed Himself daily to every human being in one way or other but we are not receptive to receive His voice. God never appears to you in person but in actions. God for him is not an external entity but an abiding presence in the human heart. His conception of God can be summed up in his own words: "To me God is Truth and love; God is ethics and morality; God is fearlessness. God is the source of light and yet He is above and beyond all these. God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. For, in His boundless love God permits the atheist to live. He is the searcher of hearts. He transcends speech and reason.' 'Through these expressions, we can understand his indomitable faith in the living God who provides everything in the universe.
(i) Religion of Truth
From the time of Socrates, beauty, Truth and goodness were considered as supreme values of the society. Among these three values, it is truth that attracted Gandhi. He could discover beauty in and through Truth. All truths are not merely true ideas nor ethical values but it is primarily and inevitable connected with human existence. Many a time it is a matter of one's own conscience. People, as a rule, fail to see the beauty in Truth. Whenever men begin to see the beauty in truth, the true art begins. Hence, as Gandhi, one must seek truth; beauty and goodness will then be added.
Gandhi had a great faith in Truth, above all, in the exercise of Truth. He never thought of a failure to one who is truthful and believes in Truth. Since Gandhi's very life was an experiment with Truth, we can very well derive the salient features of Truth. He was very much inspired when he read the Mundaka Upanishad (III-I-6) which says:
Satyam eva jayate nantram,
Satyena pantha vitato deve-yanah,
Yenakramanty rsayohy apta-kama,
Yatra tat satyasya parmam nidhanam.
This means Truth alone triumphs, not falsehood. The divine path to liberation has been laid with Truth, which the seers who have overcome desire tread, and wherein also is the supreme treasure to be gained by truth.' 'For him, "truth alone triumphs, not untruth" was not a mere maxim but it was a living faith, an inspiring mantra, and words impregnated with power. He says that "Truth is only one whole and indivisible not composed of parts, and stays as such for all times past, present, and future. Not violence, not untruth but nonviolence. Truth is the law of our being which is the fundamental law for liberation.' 'Thus Truth is stable and unchanging. It is nothing but a living embodiment of God. Gandhi also affirms with Jesus the fact that "you shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free" (Jn. 8:32). The power of Truth leads us to recognize the human dignity, equality, and fraternal solidarity with all human beings irrespective of caste, colour, or creed.
For Gandhi, God alone is Truth and everything else is transitory and illusory. God is without doubt the supporter of truth. Truth always triumphs. God is, even though the whole world denies him; truth stands even if there is no public support, it is self-sustained. Hence Gandhi says: "To me God is truth and love.' 'Finally, he came to the conclusion that truth is God which seems to have given him much satisfaction. If we want to understand truth as God, the only inevitable means are love and nonviolence. We may say that Gandhi's religion is the "religion of Truth" as revealed by God.
According to Gandhi, this religion of Truth underlies all genuine religions of the world: "All faiths constitute a revelation of Truth.'28 It lends all religions the basic unity they possess. Gandhi has compared this fundamental religion to a tree with many branches you may say religions are many; as tree, religion is one.' 'Now the question may arise: If God is one and truth is one, how can, and why should, there be many religions? The answer is that for Gandhi, this religion of Truth is an abstract reality and it becomes concrete by taking on specifications like Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. according to the circumstances and needs of the various peoples of the world. For, he says: "Truth will appear to most sincere and conscientious Hindus, Mussalmans and Christians as Hinduism, Islam and Christianity respectively as they believe them.''
All of Gandhi's life was, thus, a relentless search after truth. In this he stubbornly refused to be dictated to by any external authority. He realized early in life that truth becomes freedom, power and dynamism only when it is personally discovered and personally assimilated. He would, however, insist on the highest degree of sincerity with oneself in the search after Truth.
(ii) Role of Different Scriptures
Scriptures of various religions had a vital role to play in Gandhi's life. Scriptures were the source for his prayer as well as practice of truth and nonviolence. For him, the function of scriptures in a community is not primarily to be vehicles of its culture. Its role is to make the life of the community meaningful in the context of its fundamental and foundational experience and in reference to its goal, namely self-realization and fulfillment, Moksha. It supports moral values and promotes quality of life. The Scriptures of all religions teach the same fundamental message of Satya and ahimsa. This he calls "religion of humanity." He believed in the equality of scriptures. According to him, all of them occupy a horizontal place. He says: "I believe the Bible, the Koran, and the Zend Avesta to be as much divinely inspired as the Vedas.''Hence he asked: "Why should we blaspheme God by fighting one another because we see him through different media--the Koran, the Bible, the Talmud, the Avesta, or the Gita? The same sun beams on the Himalayas as on the plains.''
Though he was a Hindu, he did not believe in the exclusive divinity of Vedas. From the point of view of Gandhi, revelation is an ongoing process. Though he considered the "holy books" of all religions as generally inspired and yet he was aware of the two dangers in interpreting them. Firstly, they are received through human prophets who are imperfect by their very nature. Secondly, the explanation given by interpreters would also mislead the people who also are sometimes subject to reinterpretation. His attitude towards other scriptures was that of vedic rishis who sang "let noble thoughts come to us from every side." But we should throw open our windows for fresh breezes to blow through our halls, we should refuse to be swept off our feet. He would say that "in reading these texts I can say I was equiminded towards all these faiths, although perhaps, I was not conscious of it.... I ever had the slightest desire to criticize any of those religions merely because they were not my own, but read each sacred book in a spirit of reverence and found the same fundamental morality in each.''
Gandhi was convinced that 'it is impossible to understand the word of God in its fullness and integrity.' Needless to say that he was enriched and enlightened by the reading of other scriptures. It also facilitated him to see unity of all faiths. He tried to apply those principles of Truth and Ahimsa (which he derived from other scriptures) in his own concrete, existential situations. He too accepted that the study of the sacred scriptures had brought a new zeal and enthusiasm to work. He himself affirms: "I derive the greatest consolation from my reading of Tulsidas's Ramayana. I have also derived solace from the New Testament and the Koran. I do not approach them with a critical mind.''
(iii) Outlook on Moksha
According to Gandhi, Moksha consisted in freeing oneself from the shackles of death and rebirth. Moksha is liberation from impure thought, complete extinction of impure thought is impossible without ceaseless penance. There is only one way to achieve this. The moment an impure thought arises confront it with pure one. This is possible only with God's grace and God's grace comes through ceaseless communion with Him and complete self-surrender. Salvation is considered to be coming into the living presence of God. It is nothing but the realization of the unity of spirit transcending the limitations of space and time.
Moksha is conceived as living in communion with God and freedom from reincarnations. In the words of Gandhi, "What I want to achieve-what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years-is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing and all my ventures in the political field are directed to this same end.'' Self-purification, obedience to the law, and mediation are the three basic pre-requisites which an individual must practice throughout his life in order to attain Moksha. For him, the desire for Moksha was indeed there, but it was not meant for anyone other than the individual himself. The world was interested in the fruits not the root. It was in the depth one's own being that the individual had to concentrate. He has to nurse it with the water of his labour and suffering. The root was his chief concern.
Gandhi used the term "Moksha' in the sense of liberation from the bondages. In a broad sense, it implied to encompass concretely historical, political, and incarnate liberation connoted by Swaraj. Real Swarajya consists in self-restraint. If an individual fulfils all the demands of Swarajya, and yet remains a fervent devotee of God, and strives towards God-realization, he is on the process towards attaining Moksha.
To conclude, for Gandhi, religion was a source of guidance all throughout his life. His understanding of religion is interesting, unique and meaningful. Because of his open-mindedness, he could also recognize the uniqueness of each religious tradition as something noble and hence to be lived by the followers of all religions. His attitude towards other scriptures and even people of other religions was remarkable and admirable. He was a man of prayer, who strived his best to attain the realization of God and ultimately Moksha. He believed more in personal religion than in the structured religion. He also invites us to personalise our religion whatever we may belong to. The comprehensive view of religions of Gandhi would of course widen our understanding of religions in its different dimensions. It also helped Gandhi to realize the higher ideals of life. He could accept and assimilate the good elements of all major religions of the world as necessary and basically true.
As we live in an environment of violence-culture, religious fundamentalism and fanaticism, it is quite relevant to recall the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "My religion has no geographical limits. My religion is based on truth and nonviolence. My religion forbids me to hate anybody. Religion is not for separating people but to bind them.''That was Mahatma's religion, true Religion of Love and Tolerance.
[Source: International Seminar on GANDHI AND THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY (January 30 - February 4, 1998), New Delhi - Wardha.]
Gandhi's Source of Inspiration
Articles : On & By Gandhi
Gandhi's Source of Inspiration
(Mahtma Gandhi was inspired by people as well as books. In this article the author elaborated - very briefly - on those people and books that inspired Gandhi. Raychandbhai and Gopal Krishna Gokhale were seen by Gandhi as his teachers. Tolstoy and Gandhi corresponded regularly. Both had similar views on truth and morality and both had the same heroes - Buddha, Socrates and Mohammed. Tolstoy's book 'The Kingdom of God is within you' overwhelmed Gandhi. Ruskin's book 'Unto this Last' had cast a magic spell on Gandhi so much so that he paraphrased the book as 'Sarvodaya' and decided to teach from it.)
"The greatest genius is the most indebted person" These words of Emerson, The American thinker are very true for M. GANDHI. Inspirations both mould and give direction to life.
Sources of Inspiration could be personal and impersonal. As for personal as well as impersonal sources of Inspiration, M. Gandhi himself has said! " Three moderns have left a deep impress on my life and captivated me. Raychandbhai by his living contact; Tolstoy by his book, "The Kingdom of God is within you"; and Ruskin by his "unto this last" Besides these three personalities, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and the Gita and the Bible were life long sources of inspiration of Gandhi.
To begin with Gandhi met Raychandbhai (or Shri Rajchandra) immediately on his return from London to India at Bombay. Gandhi was at once convinced that Raychandbhai was a man of great character and learning. He was a real seeker after truth. Gandhi very often found him absorbed in Godly pursuits in the midst of weighty business transactions. Gandhi never saw him lose his state of equipoise. Gandhi enjoyed the closest association with him. Above all Raychandbhai's impression as a spiritual guide on Gandhi's mind was unrivalled and Gandhi implicitly believed that Raychandbhai would never willingly lead him astray and in turn Raychandbhai would always confide in Gandhi his inner most thoughts. In Gandhi's moments of spiritual crisis, as in South Africa, Raychandbhai was Gandhi's refuge.
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the rare gem among contemporary moderate political leaders welcomed Gandhi as if they were renewing an old friendship. Gokhale seemed like the Ganga to Gandhi where one could have a refreshing bath in the holy river. In the sphere of politics the place that Gokhale occupied in Gandhi's heart was absolutely unique. Gokhale embodied the goal of spiritualizing (i.e. values of life) in politics and Gandhi steadfastly adhered to it by enriching it. It is significant to remember that Gandhi has devoted seven chapters exclusively to Gokhale in his autobiography. Finally on his return from South Africa to India in 1915, Gandhi looked upon Gokhale as a sure guide whenever Gandhi was in difficulty & that took a great load off Gandhi's mind.
Tolstoy of Russia was the only one with whom Gandhi had some prolonged correspondence. Both Tolstoy and Gandhi worshipped in the common shrine and the same heroes - i.e. Buddha's Light of Asia, Socrates, Mohammed, Upanishads, Gita. Both of them were not mere philosophers, but teachers of humanity who endeavored hard to practise what they preached. Gandhi described himself with characteristic candour as Tolstoy's disciple in his letters to Tolstoy. Tolstoy wrote to Gandhi emphasizing the almost pivotal significance of Gandhi's Satyagraha in South Africa. Tolstoy was the prophet of the latter half of the nineteenth century and Gandhi of the first half of the twentieth century. Finally Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is within you" overwhelmed Gandhi. It left an abiding impression on Gandhi. Tolstoy manifested independent thinking, profound morality and truthfulness.
Ruskin, the English thinker, was perhaps the most powerful source of inspiration when Gandhi himself described Ruskin's book, "Unto This Last" as "the magic spell". Gandhi was offered Ruskin's book by Gandhi's intimate friend Mr. Polak and Gandhi read it on his train journey from Johannesburg to Durban. The book gripped Gandhi so much that its teaching of the book appealed to Gandhi instantaneously and Gandhi paraphrased it into Gujarati as "Sarvodaya" (The welfare of all). Gandhi learnt the teachings of the book to be :
The good of the individual is contained in the welfare of all.
All have same right of earning their livelihood from their work.
That a life of labour is the life worth living.
Gandhi read the Gita for the first time in England i.e. Sir Edwin Arnold's "The song Celestial" and it made a deep impression on his mind and Gandhi regarded the Gita par excellence for the knowledge of Truth and it afforded him invaluable help in his moments of gloom. The Gita became Gandhi's life long companion and the guide especially the last eighteen verses of the second chapter of the Gita. Gandhi derived the Gospel of selfless action or duty from the Gita. His commentary on the Gita reflects his life and mission.
Gandhi read the Bible especially "The New Testament" and "The Sermon on the Mount" which went straight to his heart. The compassion and renunciation of Jesus appealed greatly to Gandhi.
Gandhi : India and Universalism Dr. Ravindra Kumar*
Articles : On & By Gandhi
| 
Gandhi : India and Universalism
Dr. Ravindra Kumar*
India is a country committed to internationalism or universalism. This commitment is thousands of years old and can be well acknowledged and understood through India’s ancient slogan of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’. Besides this, thousands of years old harmonious and evolutionary Indian Culture, through the practices of its up bingers, Indians, has also been categorically reiterating its commitment towards internationalism. Until today it is doing so. India’s Culture along with its other unique and exemplary characteristics, of which adaptation and universal acceptance are the foremost, has been drawing the attention of the whole world by opening the door of the Indian soil for each and every one, doesn’t matter to which part or region of the glob he or she belongs. This, definitely, has been an outstanding step towards internationalism. For all the nations and citizens of the world it is a good lesson to be learnt. Particularly, in these days of globalization, which is another form of internationalism, which is constantly decreasing distances among the nations at different levels and different walks of life, and in which marching forward together has become necessary, Indian Culture and its exemplary features can guide the world for the establishment of a true internationalism and also to make it firm and all welfaristic.
It was Indian Culture and its large scope that accorded protection to the followers of various faiths and beliefs of the world from time-to-time. This Culture opened doors for all to settle on the Indian soil and provided equal opportunities to them for development. This process started thousands of years ago and continued for centuries. Perhaps, such kind of exclusive and excellent work started in India alone.
India’s commitment to internationalism can also be well observed in its respect to Ahimsa, non-violence, the supreme human value. In other words, Ahimsa being an indivisible part of day-to-day practices of Indians calls upon human welfare at the highest level and thus makes the idea of internationalism firm and great. It works for human unity.
“Not to inflict others’ thoughts, words and actions by our own thoughts, words and deeds, simultaneously not to spoil the life” is included in India’s concept pertaining to Ahimsa. In brief, “The aloofness in toto from Himsa-violence is Ahimsa-non-violence.” It is evident that not only human beings but all living beings are within the domain of India’s concept of non-violence. Now, where there is such a feeling for living beings, how much regard will be there for human beings? We can understand it from India’s concept of non-violence and through it can realize India’s commitment and dedication to internationalism and universalism.
Indian philosophy, spiritual thinking and education and messages of those great men, reformers and initiators of new ages who born on India’s soil from time-to-time, called upon people to carryout their day-to-day practices having larger interest of humanity in the centre. They urged people to base their behaviour on the principle of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’. They declared nationalism to be the first stage of internationalism and inspired people to strengthen it with the purpose of prosperity and welfare of the whole world. Therefore, India’s concept of nationalism is not a narrow one, or in it not ungenerous in its nature. I repeat it is the early step towards internationalism. Those who consider Indian nationalism to be narrow in outlook or observe it to be isolated, they must understand its reality. They should go into its roots. If they do so, I am sure they will find it completely free from the state of isolation. They will definitely find it to be dedicated to internationalism or universalism.
Mahatma Gandhi, who was a worshiper of Ahimsa and a forerunner of India’s Culture in his time, had said, “If I want freedom for my country…I do not want that freedom in order that I, belonging to a nation which counts one-fifth of the human race, may exploit any other race upon earth, or any single individual. If I want that freedom for my country, I would not be deserving of that freedom if I did not cherish and treasure the equal right of every other race, weak or strong, to the same freedom.” This statement is fully capable of clarifying the reality of India’s commitment to universalism. Simultaneously, his following statement is also equally relevant and significant in this regard:“ Through the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver the so-called weaker races of the earth from the crushing heels f Western exploitation. India’s coming to her own will mean every nation doing likewise.” Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of Sarvodaya, which is in consonance with Indian traditions and values and which is also influenced by Ruskin’s theory of ‘Unto This Last’, can be considered to be the best on the way to human equality. This principle without any caste, class gender, community or territory-based discrimination endorses equal value for the labour of an intellectual or a cultivator. It talks of greatest happiness to all in comparison to utilitarian theory of greatest happiness to greatest number. In it is the room for equal opportunities for the lowest to progress. This firmly elucidates that in greatest happiness to all also includes the greatest happiness to greatest number. Hence, it brings the whole humanity in its fold and, therefore, reveals internationalism in a beautiful manner.
Furthermore, Gandhi’s theory of Trusteeship, which according to the Mahatma can be the alternative to the violence-based institution like the State, clearly reflects the perception of internationalism. He as one of the great anarchists is in favour of abolishing the institution of the State step-by-step. In place of the State he stresses upon the establishment of a worldly order based on equality. It is in fact a step beyond internationalism. In it whole humanity without any discrimination and territorial limit comes together and becomes identical. Therefore, Mahatma Gandhi’s views cannot be taken slightly, doesn’t matter if the institution of the State as desired by him cannot be abolished immediately or within a time fixed for the purpose. His views are worth giving a thought, doesn’t matter if his desire for a worldly order seems to be utopian to many. In this regard Gandhi during his stay in South Africa had set an example of collective living in the ‘Tolstoy Form’. In it people belonging to different religious-communities, sects and castes stayed together. They worked together and ate together. It was a successful experiment of Gandhi. Therefore, his ideas, in spite of seeming utopian or impractical and fully imbibed with morality and ethics, are the subject of minutely analysis as they are important and significant for the establishment of internationalism. Eighty-five years ago, in 1924, Mahatma Gandhi had said, “The world desires today not absolutely independent States warring one against another, but a federation of friendly interdependent States. The consummation of that event may be far off. I want to make no ground claim for our country. But I see nothing grand or impossible about our expressing our readiness for universal interdependence rather than independence.” This statement of the Mahatma adds to the concept of internationalism. It makes its range to be large.
It is possible that eighty-five years ago the above statement of Gandhi seemed just to be imaginable to many. But, today in completely changed circumstances of the world it calls upon us to think over it honestly and sincerely.
Due to constantly increasing development at the global level, in spite of existence of independent nation-States, an advanced state of interdependence is before us today. This state will still go higher. Doesn’t matter if it is considered to be a compulsion of the nations of the world, but to move forward together is inevitable now. Working together is necessary for all citizens of the world. In such a situation suggestions of the Mahatma and views expressed by him from time-to-time, which are full of internationalism, prove their adaptability and significance. It will be better and welfaristic if nations of the world by having the views and suggestions of Gandhi in the centre come forward to work in a state of harmony as per the demand of time and space instead of working in a state of compulsion. If they create conducive atmosphere collectively it will do well to all in the world. In the beginning we have discussed about India’s commitment to internationalism. Mahatma Gandhi had desired India to come forward for the establishment of a worldly order dedicated to peace and prosperity. He also desired India to accomplish this gigantic task considering it to be her responsibility. It is possible because India due to its unique values, exemplary Culture and commitment to non-violence is capable to do so. Therefore, India must come forward for the establishment of a true and real internationalism, and by doing so it must become ideal for others in the world.
*Dr. Ravindra Kumar is a renowned Indologist; he is a former vice chancellor of CCS University, Meerut, India.
| Gandhi : India and Universalism
Dr. Ravindra Kumar*
India is a country committed to internationalism or universalism. This commitment is thousands of years old and can be well acknowledged and understood through India’s ancient slogan of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’. Besides this, thousands of years old harmonious and evolutionary Indian Culture, through the practices of its up bingers, Indians, has also been categorically reiterating its commitment towards internationalism. Until today it is doing so. India’s Culture along with its other unique and exemplary characteristics, of which adaptation and universal acceptance are the foremost, has been drawing the attention of the whole world by opening the door of the Indian soil for each and every one, doesn’t matter to which part or region of the glob he or she belongs. This, definitely, has been an outstanding step towards internationalism. For all the nations and citizens of the world it is a good lesson to be learnt. Particularly, in these days of globalization, which is another form of internationalism, which is constantly decreasing distances among the nations at different levels and different walks of life, and in which marching forward together has become necessary, Indian Culture and its exemplary features can guide the world for the establishment of a true internationalism and also to make it firm and all welfaristic.
It was Indian Culture and its large scope that accorded protection to the followers of various faiths and beliefs of the world from time-to-time. This Culture opened doors for all to settle on the Indian soil and provided equal opportunities to them for development. This process started thousands of years ago and continued for centuries. Perhaps, such kind of exclusive and excellent work started in India alone.
India’s commitment to internationalism can also be well observed in its respect to Ahimsa, non-violence, the supreme human value. In other words, Ahimsa being an indivisible part of day-to-day practices of Indians calls upon human welfare at the highest level and thus makes the idea of internationalism firm and great. It works for human unity.
“Not to inflict others’ thoughts, words and actions by our own thoughts, words and deeds, simultaneously not to spoil the life” is included in India’s concept pertaining to Ahimsa. In brief, “The aloofness in toto from Himsa-violence is Ahimsa-non-violence.” It is evident that not only human beings but all living beings are within the domain of India’s concept of non-violence. Now, where there is such a feeling for living beings, how much regard will be there for human beings? We can understand it from India’s concept of non-violence and through it can realize India’s commitment and dedication to internationalism and universalism.
Indian philosophy, spiritual thinking and education and messages of those great men, reformers and initiators of new ages who born on India’s soil from time-to-time, called upon people to carryout their day-to-day practices having larger interest of humanity in the centre. They urged people to base their behaviour on the principle of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’. They declared nationalism to be the first stage of internationalism and inspired people to strengthen it with the purpose of prosperity and welfare of the whole world. Therefore, India’s concept of nationalism is not a narrow one, or in it not ungenerous in its nature. I repeat it is the early step towards internationalism. Those who consider Indian nationalism to be narrow in outlook or observe it to be isolated, they must understand its reality. They should go into its roots. If they do so, I am sure they will find it completely free from the state of isolation. They will definitely find it to be dedicated to internationalism or universalism.
Mahatma Gandhi, who was a worshiper of Ahimsa and a forerunner of India’s Culture in his time, had said, “If I want freedom for my country…I do not want that freedom in order that I, belonging to a nation which counts one-fifth of the human race, may exploit any other race upon earth, or any single individual. If I want that freedom for my country, I would not be deserving of that freedom if I did not cherish and treasure the equal right of every other race, weak or strong, to the same freedom.” This statement is fully capable of clarifying the reality of India’s commitment to universalism. Simultaneously, his following statement is also equally relevant and significant in this regard:“ Through the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver the so-called weaker races of the earth from the crushing heels f Western exploitation. India’s coming to her own will mean every nation doing likewise.” Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of Sarvodaya, which is in consonance with Indian traditions and values and which is also influenced by Ruskin’s theory of ‘Unto This Last’, can be considered to be the best on the way to human equality. This principle without any caste, class gender, community or territory-based discrimination endorses equal value for the labour of an intellectual or a cultivator. It talks of greatest happiness to all in comparison to utilitarian theory of greatest happiness to greatest number. In it is the room for equal opportunities for the lowest to progress. This firmly elucidates that in greatest happiness to all also includes the greatest happiness to greatest number. Hence, it brings the whole humanity in its fold and, therefore, reveals internationalism in a beautiful manner.
Furthermore, Gandhi’s theory of Trusteeship, which according to the Mahatma can be the alternative to the violence-based institution like the State, clearly reflects the perception of internationalism. He as one of the great anarchists is in favour of abolishing the institution of the State step-by-step. In place of the State he stresses upon the establishment of a worldly order based on equality. It is in fact a step beyond internationalism. In it whole humanity without any discrimination and territorial limit comes together and becomes identical. Therefore, Mahatma Gandhi’s views cannot be taken slightly, doesn’t matter if the institution of the State as desired by him cannot be abolished immediately or within a time fixed for the purpose. His views are worth giving a thought, doesn’t matter if his desire for a worldly order seems to be utopian to many. In this regard Gandhi during his stay in South Africa had set an example of collective living in the ‘Tolstoy Form’. In it people belonging to different religious-communities, sects and castes stayed together. They worked together and ate together. It was a successful experiment of Gandhi. Therefore, his ideas, in spite of seeming utopian or impractical and fully imbibed with morality and ethics, are the subject of minutely analysis as they are important and significant for the establishment of internationalism. Eighty-five years ago, in 1924, Mahatma Gandhi had said, “The world desires today not absolutely independent States warring one against another, but a federation of friendly interdependent States. The consummation of that event may be far off. I want to make no ground claim for our country. But I see nothing grand or impossible about our expressing our readiness for universal interdependence rather than independence.” This statement of the Mahatma adds to the concept of internationalism. It makes its range to be large.
It is possible that eighty-five years ago the above statement of Gandhi seemed just to be imaginable to many. But, today in completely changed circumstances of the world it calls upon us to think over it honestly and sincerely.
Due to constantly increasing development at the global level, in spite of existence of independent nation-States, an advanced state of interdependence is before us today. This state will still go higher. Doesn’t matter if it is considered to be a compulsion of the nations of the world, but to move forward together is inevitable now. Working together is necessary for all citizens of the world. In such a situation suggestions of the Mahatma and views expressed by him from time-to-time, which are full of internationalism, prove their adaptability and significance. It will be better and welfaristic if nations of the world by having the views and suggestions of Gandhi in the centre come forward to work in a state of harmony as per the demand of time and space instead of working in a state of compulsion. If they create conducive atmosphere collectively it will do well to all in the world. In the beginning we have discussed about India’s commitment to internationalism. Mahatma Gandhi had desired India to come forward for the establishment of a worldly order dedicated to peace and prosperity. He also desired India to accomplish this gigantic task considering it to be her responsibility. It is possible because India due to its unique values, exemplary Culture and commitment to non-violence is capable to do so. Therefore, India must come forward for the establishment of a true and real internationalism, and by doing so it must become ideal for others in the world.
*Dr. Ravindra Kumar is a renowned Indologist; he is a former vice chancellor of CCS University, Meerut, India.
How Gandhi Came To Me? By Tatsuo Morimoto
Articles : On & By Gandhi
How Gandhi Came To Me?
By Tatsuo Morimoto
After thinking a lot about what should be the subject of today's lecture, I have finally chosen to speak about my personal reminiscences of Gandhian study. I did so because I think this is the best theme to stir up interests among the eminent savants and my senior friends in India. I would like to open this speech with a personal recollection of my school days during World War II. I remember the day clearly when I was conscious of the name of Gandhi to be close to me. I was chatting with my friends, while reading a newspaper, when we happened to find a few lines on the fast of Gandhi for 21 days. Two boys were so astonished. Of course, even the middle schoolboys knew the name of Gandhi as a great leader of the Indian Independence Movement, but we didn't know at all who Gandhi was and what he was doing.
Then we began a very childish discussion on his fast: "Can a man really survive without eating anything for as many as 21 days?" or "what impact will his fast have on the British Government – isn't it a rather profitable and delightful deed for the opponent?" and so on. And then, I repeated what we had learnt about Gandhi in our history class. Our teacher of history spoke with an air of importance as if he had let out a secret that he only had known. According to him, Gandhi, the supreme leader of Indian National Movement, was an intimate pro-Japanese and secretly expected the Japanese military forces to enter across the Indian border and support the Indian Independence Movement.
At that time, a shoji (a paper sliding door in a Japanese house) was thrown open, and there was my father (perhaps he was listening to our conversation) standing firm. He said in a sharp tone, "Your teacher is wrong." We two boys were dumb-founded by his sudden appearance and his words, because in my boyhood days, our parents never used to criticize their children's teachers. They would always advice their children to believe and obey the teachers meekly.
A moment later, my father told us a little bashfully, as if apologizing for his rash comment, "Your teacher must have misunderstood Gandhi-san (san is the Japanese equivalent of the Hindi 'ji'). He is a man of honesty, a man of purity like Buddha. He will never betray his people, he will never preach non-violence on the one hand and welcome Japanese violent forces on the other." My father was quite an ordinary businessman and I don't think he was especially interested in Gandhi and India. His information on them must have been limited to the reports of newspapers and radio, which were under government control during wartime. So what was the source of my father's knowledge of Gandhi remains a mystery to me even now. Nor could I ask him, because he was then seriously ill and passed away soon after the end of the war. And even if he had lived for another ten years, till I began my study of Gandhi, he could not possibly have systematically explained what he said at that time. At any rate, he believed in Gandhi as a man just as many of contemporary Indians did. They followed him, I imagine, because they loved his personality before understanding his thought. We might even say that people read his thought in his everyday sacrifice and devotion to them.
But this incident made me keenly interested in Gandhi, as I wanted to find out who was right, my father or my teacher? I started cutting out every article on Gandhi that appeared in newspapers and pasted them on a scrapbook.
It was only after the war that the words and deeds of Gandhi and the history of Indian Freedom Movement were gradually revealed to us. When a father and his son were talking about Gandhi in a small corner of Japan and when Japanese army was approaching the Northeast frontier of India, what actually happened in Indian politics? According to Gandhi, there were at least four schools of thought in India at that time.
First was the group that approved the War Declaration of the British Government and expressed their support politically and economically. The second was the passionate and patriotic group who hated the British rule and wanted the national independence so impatiently that they were ready to receive aid from any foreign power including the Nazis in Germany or the Japanese military power. The names of Ras Behari Bose, president of IIL (Indian Independence League in Asia) and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose were so popular even among the common people in Japan. In the words of Gandhi "their fatigue of British yoke is so great that they would even welcome the Japanese yoke for a change." (Harijan, 12.4.1942). The third was the group called "the neutrals" led by top leaders of the Indian National Congress like Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana A. K. Azad who declared that they would fight all forms of imperialism, whether British Imperialism or German Nazism or Japanese Militant Nationalism.
Then, the fourth and the last was the group of non-violent resisters led by Gandhi and his faithful disciples. "They believe implicitly in their own way of fighting and no other. They have neither hatred for the British nor love for the Japanese. They wish well to both as to all others. They believe that non-violence alone will lead man to do right under all circumstances. Therefore, if for want of enough companions, non-violent resisters cannot reach the goal, they will not give up their way but pursue it to death?" To them, the means of fighting is much more important tan the goal, for the means and the end must be completely one. This was the unchanged belief of Gandhi throughout his life since he had declared it in his first Credo, 'Hind Swaraj'. When I read these lines as a student of theology, I immediately remembered the famous verses of the Bible: "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (St Matthew 5:44). I heard the same teaching of Jesus from a political leader who was acting in the actual battlefield like Krishna.
Generally speaking, the greatest concern of political leaders is to win the favour of their people, and so they try to shun words w3hich might appear offensive to the people. Especially during wartime, many political leaders appeal to their people to endure hard times until their country win. But they never utter the word 'defeat'. But this political leader of a queer character said that even if the resisters could not reach the goal with non-violence, they should not give up their way but pursue it to death. With what feelings his people listened to his words was beyond my imagination. Still, Gandhi encouraged people and wrote in Harijan (12.4.1942), "The task before the votaries of non-violence is very difficult. But no difficulty can baffle men who have faith in their mission." To him only to follow the way of non-violence which is another name of Truth is then end as well as the means.
Again, Gandhi often called himself 'a practical dreamer' or 'a practical idealist'. With these expressions, some critics conclude Gandhi to be a utilitarian realist, and others emphasize the aspects of an unrealistic philosopher.
But Gandhi was a realist because his feet were firmly on the ground, and idealist because he always gazed at the future far beyond. Gandhi's ideal was to realize the heaven on the earth. That was a great comfort to an adolescent like me who was suffering from the discord between ideal and reality.
When I was a freshman or sophomore in University of Kyoto, a well-known pacifist who was a Member of Parliament and the president of Gandhi association in Japan visited our university to deliver a lecture on Gandhi. After the lecture, a documentary film on Gandhi's Salt March was shown. I was so impressed that tears came to my eyes. It was the scene at the seaside of Dandi where Gandhi picked up a handful of salt after a simple ritual of bath and prayer, and then followed his faithful marchers and villagers. It was very much amazing to see the unarmed common people confronting armed police with passive resistance (at that time, I didn't yet know the term 'Satyagraha'). I could hardly believe my eyes.
I couldn't imagine, Indian people were, as Gandhi often said, superior to the other nations in the world. But in Gandhian era, as called by some historians, common people of Indian demonstrated the 'good in man' collectively and socially. Looking back at the history of the world, one finds that there had been many people that fought their enemy bravely and desperately and died for ideals under their powerful leaders. But there was rarely a people who fought for the truth and against their opponent so heroically (the word 'enemy' is unsuitable here because Gandhi told his people never to regard anyone as their enemy even if they were beaten or kicked).
Who but Gandhi could lift the brute in man to the human level and change them into God's warriors? Although I know Gandhi wouldn't like such an expression, I dare call him 'a man of miracle' in the sense of a man who challenged the possibilities of human divinity to its limit.
Through another article in Harijan, which I read when I was a student, I knew the living personality of both love and austerity in Gandhi. It was written at the critical time when the Japanese forces were drawing near the north-eastern border of India.
The Congress leaders appealed to the Indian people to meet the aggressor with the so-called 'scorched earth' policy. Although Gandhi didn't agree with this policy, his way of resistance was much more severe and exhaustive. Gandhi said, "Non-violent resisters would refuse them any help, even water. For it is no part of their duty to help anyone to steal their country."
While these words were still fresh, he changed his mood and wrote again, "But if a Japanese had missed his way and was dying of thirst and sought help as a human being, a non-violent resister, who may not regard anyone as his enemy, would give water to the thirsty one. Suppose the Japanese compel the resisters to give them water, the resisters must die in the act of resistance." This is a very important key to understanding Gandhi. The uncompromising belief in non-violence and the adaptable acts of ahimsa to meet the situation were consistent in the depth of Gandhian thought. The thought of Gandhi is often criticized to be complicated and complex. But to Gandhi all the conflicts and inscrutabilities in this world were (are) out of consideration. For what matters to him was (is) only truth and ahimsa.
Once he confessed, "At the time of writing I never think of what I have said before. My aim is not to be consistent with my pervious statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth" Harijan, 30.9.1939).
Certainly, truth is one and immovable, but to the eyes of a man who does not yet attain the height of truth it does not stand on the same spot. We have to climb always "from truth to truth." Soon after telling the non-violent resisters to refuse any help, even water, he told them to give water to a thirsty one who had missed his way and was dying of thirst. There is even no time passage between these two inconsistent advices, which was given almost simultaneously. Indeed, it is ahimsa that brings consistency into existence in the various inconsistencies of the world. As Gandhi said, the non-resisters who believe implicitly in their own way of fighting and no other would never bend before any aggressor or be deceived by honeyed promises.
These complexities and inconsistencies can often be found in the teachings of the great religious leaders of the world. For example, Jesus who, on one hand, told a crowd gathering around him that "Every one who looks at women lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Bible: Matthew, 5:28). And on the other hand, when people asked him what punishment be given to a woman caught in the act of adultery, he said, "let him who is without sin among you, be the first to throw a stone at her." And he told later, "Women, neither do I condemn you; go and do not sin again." (Bible: John, 8:11). This forgiveness beyond dogma and creed depends on divine love, agape in Jesus Christ and ahimsa in Mahatma Gandhi.
Now, as I said above, our boyhood days were spent during the war time Japan. So, even children knew the names of two Indians besides Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Ras Behari Bose. Ras Behari Bose escaped from India to Japan in 1915. He was wanted by the British police for his attempted assassination on Viceroy Hardinge. But his Japanese protectors didn't extradite him. He was married to a Japanese woman, daughter of a well-known restaurant owner in Tokyo and got a Japanese citizenship. He was president of I.I.L. (Indian Independence League in Asia) until he yielded his post to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1942. Both of them in military uniforms were often seen on the newspapers, looking more stately to children's eyes than Gandhi clad in white humble clothes.
I was give the honor of translating Jawaharlal Nehru's 'A Bunch of Old Letters' into Japanese in my youth. I hadn't known about the pathetic controversy between Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose until I read the correspondences. Here I have to refrain from making any arbitrary comment on this subject because not only of political complexities but also emotional and psychological ones.
Instead, I would like to introduce two very interesting episodes, which I had the privilege of hearing during my interview with General Iwaichi Fujiwara. Fujiwara, then a junior officer, was ordered to help Capt. Mohan Singh through F. Kikan (Fujiwara Intelligence unit agents) to organize the Indian National Army (I.N.A.) with volunteers from civilians and POWs in the south-east Asian countries. Mohan Singh earnestly wanted to invite Subhas Chandra Bose, who was at that time in Berlin, as the Commander-in Chief on I.N.A. Bose was disappointed with Hitler's indifferent attitude towards Indian Independence. And after strenuous efforts, they succeeded in receiving Subhas Chandra Bose at Singapore to a great fanfare on 2 July 1943. Bose's long submarine journey from Germany to Asia across the Indian Ocean is a still remembered narrative of adventure.
How did Bose impress Fujiwara? Fujiwara recalled his first meeting with Bose in these words (In the reception room) a group of senior officers of my acquaintance were standing in line with friendly expressions. A tall man in military uniform, looking very dignified and noble, steeped out of the line towards me. Without the host's introduction, I knew that he was Netaji Bose. He was effusive in his greetings as if welcoming an old friend. In his appearance I saw the nobleness of a philosopher, a steely will, passionate fighting spirit and great wisdom and refinement. At the first sight he appeared to me as a man of extraordinary ability.
Although Fujiwara admired the personality of Bose, he didn't forget to add his comment on Netaji. Bose was so impatient for India's Independence that "it cannot be said he possessed much magnanimity or very much tolerance for the opinion of others." Hearing this, I immediately remembered Gandhi coming home to India in 1915 and traveling throughout India for one year "keeping his eyes and ears open". What a slow starter!
I also wanted to k now what impression Fujiwara, one of the responsible planners of Japan's fundamental policy towards Indian Independence, had of Gandhi and his thoughts.
"Of course," said he, "we had no opportunity to see and talk to Gandhi, and there was not any attempt to contact us from his side either." During this period, however, Gandhi was appealing 'To every Japanese' through his writings in 'Harijan'. But unfortunately, his message did not reach the Japanese people till the end of the war. "But" Fujiwara continues "instead of seeing and hearing him directly, I witnessed a heroic fight of non-violence by this followers. Although I did my best to help Mohan Singh in recruiting soldiers from Indian POWs all over Asia and create the strong I.N.A., all the Indian POWs didn't join this plan. Many of them volunteered in I.N.A. but some others refused firmly to our military policy. Efforts were made to persuade them by every means to join the I.N.A. But they were not to be coaxed by any sweet promises or threatened by any weapons. At last we gave up, and couldn't help treating them as our prisoners of war, and isolating them from the soldiers of I.N.A. We resolved to gather the prisoners from everywhere in Asia and send them to a small island. But on the harbour they suddenly began their non-violent resistance. They sat down with folded arms in silence." Major Fujiwara had never seen such a strange scene which took his breath away. They were the strong soldiers of non-violence without any weapons in hands and fear in mind. Fujiwara, a professional soldier, must have been fearless of bullets and swords. But then, as he confessed, he felt a sort of fear, rather, more than fear, it was a feeling of awe and solemnness.
The relation between Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Fujiwara was more than what was expected between the Indian highest leader of I.N.A. and the Japanese officer in charge of I.N.A. Both of them admired and trusted each other. Fujiwara was one of those rare soldiers who had the traditional Japanese spirit of Samurai and Bushido. He didn't utter a thoughtless word comparing Bose, whom he had met everyday, with Gandhi, whom he had never seen. But hearing his story, I wondered what it was that transformed those very common people into fearless braves and who encouraged and led them? Then I imagined an old man clad in a dhoti coming to me with a gentle toothless smile.
Only a few years ago, when the new millennium arrived, all the people on the earth said good-bye to the old age called "the century of war and genocide" and welcomed enthusiastically the arrival of a new era with hearts full of hope and expectation. But the dream of world peace and human cooperation seems to have been completely betrayed and disappeared on September 11, 2001. This event has taught us a lesson that the foundation on which we stand is too frail and unstable.
Since then, the situation of the world has been changing drastically from bad to worse. Hatred has produced bigger hatred, grudge more serious grudge, apprehension deeper apprehension, and revenge more severe revenge, between not only rival races and nations but also among the people who worship the same God.
It is true that old type of imperialism which was the root of all evils in the 19th and the 20th centuries has ended, but the monster of imperialism has survived and changed their old weapons into that of commerce. The strong nations have continued to exploit the poorer and the weaker ones as before not by military but by economic power. Ninety years ago when Tagore visited Japan for the first time, he promptly foresaw the crisis of the world as well as of Japan and predicted among the many human institutions in the present-day world, the institution of commerce is the ugliest. It is wearying the earth with its weight, deafening the earth with its noise, dirtying the earth with its filth, and wounding the earth with its claws of greed. (Japan Yatri, 1919)
It appears surprising today that nearly a century ago Tagore warned us about the dangers of environmental pollutions.
Now it has become an urgent necessity for us to stop this course towards the annihilation of humanity. But how? We have learnt through our long history that political tactics and the weapons of murder are totally useless. Today, most of all, what we need is a complete changeover of our ways of thinking and deed. If mankind is truly eager to survive, there is no other way but for us to accept Gandhi's message of ahimsa and follow his method of Satyagraha. Gandhi has directed us to the way from hatred to love, from punishment to forgiveness, from greed to renunciation and, above all, from violence to non-violence.
Let us make non-violence our guiding spirit to the world peace in the 21st century.
Now as I approach the twilight of my life, I don’t know where I am going, heaven or hell. But wherever it is, if I meet my father there, I would like to tell him, Father, you were right. Now my question as to why you could say, 'Gandhi-san is a man of honesty, a man of purity like Buddha' has been answered, for we have to judge a man like Gandhi not by knowledge and mind but by heart and love. Because of you, I have been able to devote myself to a lifelong study of Gandhi and Tagore. Thank you.
Thank you for your kind attendance and attention.
Source: Anasakti Darshan; Volume 2 No. 1; January – June 2006
Spiritualism / Religion Articles : On & By Gandhi
Articles : On & By Gandhi Spiritualism / Religion
The Soul as it is, and how to deal with it - By Gilbert Murray
Gandhi through the Eyes of the Gita - By Marie Beuzeville Byles
God
Religion
Science and Spirituality - By M. S. Dadage
Mahatma Gandhi's Discovery of Religion - By A. Jayabalan CMF
Tolstoy's Thoughts on Religion and Nonviolence
Mahatma Gandhi on Problem of Communalism - By Dr. Ravindra Kumar
Mahatma Gandhi's Leadership - Moral And Spiritual Foundations - By Y. P. Anand
Gandhian Perspective on "Convergence of Values: Spiritual, Political and Economic" - By M.P. Lele
Gandhi showed how Religion is used in Politics - By Vishal Arora
Gandhi, Spirituality and Social Action - By Surendra Bhana
Mazhar Mallouhi: Gandhi’s Living Christian Legacy in the Muslim World - By Paul-Gordon Chandler
Imitation of Christ? The world's most famous Hindu became the greatest exemplar of the Sermon on the Mount - By Harris Wofford
The Soul as it is, and how to deal with it - By Gilbert Murray
Gandhi through the Eyes of the Gita - By Marie Beuzeville Byles
God
Religion
Science and Spirituality - By M. S. Dadage
Mahatma Gandhi's Discovery of Religion - By A. Jayabalan CMF
Tolstoy's Thoughts on Religion and Nonviolence
Mahatma Gandhi on Problem of Communalism - By Dr. Ravindra Kumar
Mahatma Gandhi's Leadership - Moral And Spiritual Foundations - By Y. P. Anand
Gandhian Perspective on "Convergence of Values: Spiritual, Political and Economic" - By M.P. Lele
Gandhi showed how Religion is used in Politics - By Vishal Arora
Gandhi, Spirituality and Social Action - By Surendra Bhana
Mazhar Mallouhi: Gandhi’s Living Christian Legacy in the Muslim World - By Paul-Gordon Chandler
Imitation of Christ? The world's most famous Hindu became the greatest exemplar of the Sermon on the Mount - By Harris Wofford
====
Gandhi Through the Eyes of the Gita By Marie Beuzeville Byles
Articles : On & By Gandhi
Gandhi Through the Eyes of the Gita
By Marie Beuzeville Byles
Gandhi will be remembered in history because of his satyagraha campaigns and his use of the weapons of truth, love and non-violence to win self-government for India. But Gandhi said that “no one is competent to offer satyagraha unless he has a living faith in God”.1 And the Bhagavad-Gita, to which he would always turn for inspiration, is the allegorical description, not of a satyagraha campaign, but of the quest of the human soul for union with the Supreme or God. Further, in the eyes of the Gita the outward work that Gandhi did in liberating India and raising the depressed classes, is of no more importance than the work of a humble scavenger, while Gandhi himself ceaselessly reiterated that no work is superior or inferior. It was this quest for God that determined Gandhi’s every action. And let us remember that when he said Truth is God, Truth did not mean only devotion to material facts. Far more important for him was devotion to the Inner Light that the rishis of India and the authors of the Upanishads told of and experienced.
It is therefore not through the pages of history but through the eyes of the Bhagavad-Gita that Gandhi’s work and message must be studied if it is to be understood.
It was in middle life when I was escaping from the intellectual and materialistic agnosticism of university days that I happened to pick up from a second-hand bookshop a copy of Edwin Arnold’s version of the Bhagavad-Gita, “The Song Celestial”. I had not the faintest idea what it was, but it swept me away with its sublime wisdom. It seemed incredible that such insight could be crammed into such a small space. Shortly afterwards someone told me my ideas were rather like Gandhi’s. Up till then Gandhi was almost as unknown to me as the Gita. I set to work to read everything I could find about him. His words gripped me in the same way as did the Gita's. Neither speaks through the beautiful veils and ecstasies of most religious literature. Both have a purity and simplicity related to everyday life.
When Harijan recommenced publication, Gandhi’s words came like a weekly tonic. Somehow he was always utterly right, right because no speck of self-pride or incredible supernatural revelation spoilt the purity, simplicity and courteousness of all he said. When news of his death came, I wept with a personal selfish sorrow, for a guiding hand seemed to have been withdrawn. We cannot read a weekly message any more, but his words and writings have been collected, and through them, perhaps for the first time in history, we have the intimate detail of the inner life of a great public character and spiritual genius, from childhood until death. Especially we are indebted to V. B. Kher for having collected in three volumes, entitled “In Search of the Supreme”, Gandhi’s words on the spiritual aspect of life. As well as his own “Experiments with truth”, there is also Pyarelal’s “Mahatma Gandhi: the Last Phase”, which gives the intimate details of this quest during the last years. This quest for the Supreme is Gandhi’s message and this quest must also be ours if we would follow in his footsteps.
All work is transient, and Gandhi’s is no exception. To very few is given the task of taking part in satyagraha struggles. But we each have our own work, and it is our own work, however humble, that both Gandhi and the Gita would have its fulfill, and it is of the Mahatma’s message in connection with our ordinary lives, that I would say something.
“It is better to do your own duty however imperfectly than assume duties of another person however successful; prefer to die performing your own duty; the duty of another will bring you great spiritual danger.”2
And what is our own duty or work?
Under the ancient Hindu system of division into castes, or more correctly varnas, a man’s work was determined by the hereditary calling of his father. The son of a sandal-maker must become a sandal-maker himself and a woman of course learned only the domestic arts according to the station in life of her father. The abuses of caste are so blatant that we of the West overlook the security and contentment that resulted from being born into one’s own niche, and also the absence of cut-throat competition. Gandhi’s ideas concerning caste or varna underwent considerable modification as his experiments with Truth proceeded and in the end he would probably have agreed that a man’s proper work was that ordained by his nature. But he never gave up the idea of the need for division of labour, and from the beginning he asserted that no work was superior or inferior; the work of a Brahmin, of expounding holy truths, was not one whit better than that of a sudra who removed night-soil. He also consistently asserted that the work done for a livelihood must be done as a duty, and not for money making or one’s own pleasure, and that it must never be changed for the sake of making a better livelihood. But of course one’s bread-and-butter work does not prevent one’s engaging in public service also.
Furthermore, even as there is no question of superiority and inferiority, neither is there any importance in success or failure. Success and failure are not in our hands, for all actions are the result of the working of the three gunas “and take place in time by the interweaving of the forces of nature”3 Only the deluded man thinks that he himself is the actor. How utterly foolish, therefore, to imagine that the result of our work matters. The Stoics compared man to a messenger boy sent to deliver a parcel. The boy does his best to find the addressee, but if after making every effort he fails to do so, lie has no personal interest in the fate of the parcel.
Gandhi’s own work was only very partially successful. Self-government for India was obtained without violence or bloodshed. It was accomplished even without hatred for the British, with the surprising result that a person with a passport of the conquering race is welcomed everywhere as a friend, in a manner almost unbelievable and I should imagine unprecedented in history. But the innate tendency to hate was not sublimated; it was only repressed, and it came out in another way, in hatred between Muslims and Hindus. And the riots that followed independence were probably also unparalleled in history.
That Gandhi was unutterably cast down at the failure of his efforts to instill love and nonviolence, shows that even up to shortly before his death he had not wholly absorbed into his being the Gita teaching-and his own also-that success and failure are of no account. It was only by fasting that he was able to purify his mind of depression and regain the equanimity of a rishi. But the very fact of this human weakness and ability in the end to overcome it, perhaps makes his teaching more helpful than that of the rishis who are said to have dwelt always on the Himalayan heights of perfect serenity. It shows that he was human like ourselves and his heart speaks to our own as does that of Marcus Aurelius who also partly failed.
Those who have not absorbed the Gita teaching that success and failure are of no account and who suffered gaol and lathi charges, must find it hard to accept the truth that the “matchless weapon” of satyagraha that Gandhi brought into use is already being forgotten. When Martin Luther King started the desegregation movement in America, he did not consciously copy Gandhi’s methods. The movement came into being of its own accord, and only after it was fully launched did its leader remember back to his reading of, Gandhi and see the likeness of Gandhi’s methods to his own. Gandhi’s work did not influence the Negroes, but the same spirit that was in him is now in the sincerely practicing Christians who follow Martin Luther King. In each case the work was not that of an individual, but the result of the “interweaving of the forces of nature”.
Thus it is that all work, say both the Gita and Gandhi, must be offered to the Lord, or the Supreme, as a sacrifice, something to be made holy because it is done as a service to all.
When the universe was created, simultaneously the law of sacrifice, the opposite to creation, was brought into being, for the universe is composed of pairs of opposites.4 The clouds give of themselves to make rain. The rain gives of itself to feed the earth which in turn feeds the plant. The plant flowers and fruits and gives up its fruit. “Except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.”5 The law of sacrifice is universal; and it is only at his peril that man tries to exclude himself from the working of this law. In the East it seems to be almost a universal custom to recognize that this law applies to man, by symbolically offering food to the God before partaking of it oneself. Because of the absence of this custom in the West, the meaning of verses 11, 12 and 13 of Chapter 3 is usually lost to the Western reader. Gandhi says that “Sacrifice means exerting oneself for the benefit of others, in a word, service. . . . Look upon all creatures as Gods”6 That is to say, we must sacrifice ourselves for all, giving our work freely and asking nothing in return.
In Japan at the beginning of this century, Tenko Nashida, affectionately known as Tenko San, discovered this law for himself. He was in his late twenties when he woke up to the alarming fact that society consisted of individuals and groups of individuals each striving against each other and each seeking to get as much as possible and give as little as possible. He asked himself how a peaceful society, let alone a peaceful world, could be built on such an attitude. He gave away his property, and for three years wandered about Japan seeking a way out of the impasse. Finally he sat down to fast and meditate at a wayside temple. On the fourth day he heard a baby cry and its cries subside as its mother gave it her breast. Light came. We must give instead of trying to get. There is a law within the universe by which man can be delivered from suffering and this deliverance includes provision for his daily livelihood; but that law cannot come into operation unless, like all else, we learn to give freely without asking anything in return. He at once started to put this new found truth into practice by going from house to house asking for work without payment. He never lacked for food and lodging. Out of that first venture there came into existence the now flourishing community of 350 men, women and. children known as Ittoen, the Garden of the One Light, with thousands of “lay” disciples throughout Japan.
Tenko San later found that Mahatma Gandhi had made the same discovery as himself and a plaque of the Mahatma is now in the International Hall of Ittoen.
Ittoen’s men and women, youths and maidens will go anywhere and do any work provided only they can be the means of giving humble service to others. And that was Gandhi's passion also. It probably dated from the South African period, but in his “Experiments with Truth”, he said it had become utterly necessary for him on his return to India.
Gandhi’s interpretation of ch. 7 v. 17 is very interesting from this point of view. This verse describes the man dearest to God. It has been translated variously. Annie Besant translated it as “The wise, constantly harmonized, worshipping the one”; Mukherjee as “The wise, ever steadfast, fired by a single purpose”; Isherwood and Prabhavananda as “The man of spiritual discrimination”; Edwin Arnold as “He who is intent upon the One”; Mascaro as “The man of vision”; Radhakrishnan as “The wise one who is ever in constant union with the Divine and whose devotion is single-minded”. But Gandhi said it is “Those who know what they are about and for whom service to others is something they cannot do without”.7 Again in the Eighth Chapter, Gandhi’s interpretation of the bright fortnight of the moon is the path of selfless service.
Tenko San also made the same discovery as Gandhi concerning the need for complete sacrifice of self. Gandhi spoke of the reduction of self to zero. Tenko San said, “Death solves all problems; he who has any problems has not died to self.” Chapter II of the Gita describing God the Destroyer is another chapter which by and large Westerners skip over because they are accustomed only to the idea of God the Creator. But Gandhi says we should read, re-read and meditate upon “God as world-destroying time into whose gaping mouths the universe rushes to its doom”.8 If we do this we see that we are mere morsels, the sense of self is lost and we realize the need for utter surrender and the reduction of self to zero.
Complete surrender to the Supreme and universal love towards all creation are the culminating notes of the Gita. “Who burns with the bliss and suffers with the sorrow of every creature within his heart, making his own each bliss and each sorrow . . “v” He who in this oneness of love, loves me in whatever he sees, wherever that man may live, in truth this man lives in me.”10
But the culminating note of Gandhi’s teaching was Truth. Truth is doubtless implied in every chapter of the Gita, but its necessity is never made explicit. Truth is not one of the things that Krishna describes himself as being.
The reason, I think, is that the Gita came into existence when people were simpler and when there was greater harmony between the conscious and subconscious mind, which latter was brought into daylight, as it were, by dreams and myths which to people in those days were real. When the Gita talks about the sacred fig tree of Aswattha, “the everlasting rooted in heaven, its branches earthward, its leaves a song of the Vedas”, this to us is merely a pretty fancy. But to people of the age of the Gita it was real. It was real because it was part of the collective sub conscious which dream-life showed to be a fact. Nowadays we treat the wisdom of the subconscious as beneath serious consideration-unless we are unusually devout disciples of Jung, perhaps! and the result is that there arises a rift between the conscious and the subconscious. We deliberately try to repress the unpleasant darkness of the subconscious life and show always a respectable face to the world. The result is that self-deception and petty lies become the usual order of the day. However, whether this theory is or is not correct, it is a fact that untruthfulness is a vice almost unmentioned amid the many intimate details of virtues and vices and daily life told of in the many volumes of the Pali texts of primitive Buddhism. It is also a fact that today untruthfulness is taken for granted unless it is frightfully blatant. It was therefore utterly essential that Gandhi should place truth before all and state that Truth is God.
I have said that Gandhi’s message in Harijan came to me as a weekly tonic for the living of daily life. But it is often asserted that the gospels of Gandhi and the Gita are impossible of fulfilment in a society based upon money-making and self-seeking just as much as upon petty lying, for very few can live in a community like Ittoen. People who make this assertion forget that Gandhi himself was a highly successful barrister before he espoused the Lady Poverty. It is obvious, these say, that a person who owns a shop would soon go bankrupt if he gave his goods away instead of exacting a proper payment for them. On the face of it, it would seem that in such a case he must place his own self-interest before that of a starving waif.
If in fact considerations like this do prevent living the teaching of the Gita and of Gandhi, then such teaching can have no meaning for us. But do they? It is the attitude of mind and detachment that matter, not the things owned or the work done - so long as the work done is that for which we are born - and does not injure others, the Buddha would add.
The man who owns a grocer’s shop must obviously run it on ordinary business principles which include proper costing. If he feels called as a public duty to feed starving waifs, this too must be done on business principles, but here the means will probably be provided by donations of others as well as himself, and it will probably be done through a welfare society which in addition to giving food, will perhaps, like Gandhi, show the starving waifs how to give e work in return for food. The test of whether this grocer is following in the steps of the Mahatma and the Gita, will be whether he is able to remain equable when someone defrauds him in his business, or when the hungry waif steals food he foolishly left open to temptation. The test is also whether he strives to make more and more money, instead of striving to give more and more service.
There is also another test even more down to earth, and this is the spirit in which we render little services to others, services which we are beholden to give. Most people give grudgingly, and expect thanks or a reward, or at least prestige. But the follower of the Gita will give because it is good to give; he will give his services as a thanks offering for being able to be in tune with the Law of Sacrifice. He will certainly not expect anything in return.
Another objection that is often raised to the possibility of living the teaching of the Gita and of Gandhi, is that we should completely exhaust ourselves if we “burned with the bliss and suffered with the sorrow of every creature”. Those who make this assertion have no experience of the meaning of detachment, or of being detached from their own bliss and sorrow. If we cannot stand aside from our own joys and troubles, we cannot understand how it is possible to feel sympathetic joy and compassion for another without being emotionally involved. It is this attitude of detachment that makes the work of a good doctor or nurse of value. No parent, no matter how eminent a surgeon, would operate on his own child simply because he is emotionally attached and cannot stand aside and know true compassion which is without worry and anxiety. But the compatibility of compassion and sympathetic joy with perfect detachment is something that must be experienced to be understood. It cannot be explained intellectually to one who does not know it from actual experience.
It is true that the greater our power, wealth and prestige, the greater the difficulty in achieving perfect detachment, love and truth. It is significant that Gandhi gave up his membership of the Congress when he found it was compromising his quest for Truth.
None the less it has been found in every age and all religions that though one lives in the world, it is still possible to follow the teaching of the Gita. Mahayana Buddhism expresses this faith in the much loved Vimalakirti Sutra. The hero of this was a wealthy house-holder, but though he had wife and children as well as wealth, he observed the monastic rules, and though a layman he was universally proclaimed wiser than the greatest of the Buddha’s monk disciples.
But let us make no mistake, if we aspire to be like Vimalakirti, the Pure One, we must make the quest for the Supreme paramount. That is to say, the things of this world, including its sensual pleasures, must play less and less part in our lives. God, the Light, the Oneness, or whatever we choose to call it, must become more and more a living experience, so that other things fade into the background and we become like Gandhi only “a dancer to the tune of God”.
Christians who admired Gandhi would ask whether it was not the Presence of Christ that guided him. He replied (I quote from memory): “If you mean the historical Jesus, then I feel no such presence. But if you mean a Spirit guiding me, nearer than hands and feet, nearer than the very breath of me, then I do feel such a Presence. Had it not been for this Presence, the waters of the Ganges would long ere this have been my destruction. You may call it Christ or Krishna - that does not matter to me.”
And that is the Gandhi we see through the eyes of the Gita, the only real Gandhi in so far as any perishable human being can be called “real”.
Sources
1. V. B. Kher, In Search of the Supreme, III, p. 343.
2. Bhagavad-Gita, Isherwood's translation, p. 58.
3. Ibid., Mascaro's translation, 3 : 27.
4. Gita, ch. 3; Kher, III, p. 236.
5. Gospel of St. John, II, ch. 12. v. 24.
6. Kher, III, p. 236.
7. Kher, III, p. 243.
S. Kher, 111, p. 257.
9. Isherwood's tr., p. 86.
10. Mascaro's tr., ch. 6. v. 31.
Gandhi Through the Eyes of the Gita
By Marie Beuzeville Byles
Gandhi will be remembered in history because of his satyagraha campaigns and his use of the weapons of truth, love and non-violence to win self-government for India. But Gandhi said that “no one is competent to offer satyagraha unless he has a living faith in God”.1 And the Bhagavad-Gita, to which he would always turn for inspiration, is the allegorical description, not of a satyagraha campaign, but of the quest of the human soul for union with the Supreme or God. Further, in the eyes of the Gita the outward work that Gandhi did in liberating India and raising the depressed classes, is of no more importance than the work of a humble scavenger, while Gandhi himself ceaselessly reiterated that no work is superior or inferior. It was this quest for God that determined Gandhi’s every action. And let us remember that when he said Truth is God, Truth did not mean only devotion to material facts. Far more important for him was devotion to the Inner Light that the rishis of India and the authors of the Upanishads told of and experienced.
It is therefore not through the pages of history but through the eyes of the Bhagavad-Gita that Gandhi’s work and message must be studied if it is to be understood.
It was in middle life when I was escaping from the intellectual and materialistic agnosticism of university days that I happened to pick up from a second-hand bookshop a copy of Edwin Arnold’s version of the Bhagavad-Gita, “The Song Celestial”. I had not the faintest idea what it was, but it swept me away with its sublime wisdom. It seemed incredible that such insight could be crammed into such a small space. Shortly afterwards someone told me my ideas were rather like Gandhi’s. Up till then Gandhi was almost as unknown to me as the Gita. I set to work to read everything I could find about him. His words gripped me in the same way as did the Gita's. Neither speaks through the beautiful veils and ecstasies of most religious literature. Both have a purity and simplicity related to everyday life.
When Harijan recommenced publication, Gandhi’s words came like a weekly tonic. Somehow he was always utterly right, right because no speck of self-pride or incredible supernatural revelation spoilt the purity, simplicity and courteousness of all he said. When news of his death came, I wept with a personal selfish sorrow, for a guiding hand seemed to have been withdrawn. We cannot read a weekly message any more, but his words and writings have been collected, and through them, perhaps for the first time in history, we have the intimate detail of the inner life of a great public character and spiritual genius, from childhood until death. Especially we are indebted to V. B. Kher for having collected in three volumes, entitled “In Search of the Supreme”, Gandhi’s words on the spiritual aspect of life. As well as his own “Experiments with truth”, there is also Pyarelal’s “Mahatma Gandhi: the Last Phase”, which gives the intimate details of this quest during the last years. This quest for the Supreme is Gandhi’s message and this quest must also be ours if we would follow in his footsteps.
All work is transient, and Gandhi’s is no exception. To very few is given the task of taking part in satyagraha struggles. But we each have our own work, and it is our own work, however humble, that both Gandhi and the Gita would have its fulfill, and it is of the Mahatma’s message in connection with our ordinary lives, that I would say something.
“It is better to do your own duty however imperfectly than assume duties of another person however successful; prefer to die performing your own duty; the duty of another will bring you great spiritual danger.”2
And what is our own duty or work?
Under the ancient Hindu system of division into castes, or more correctly varnas, a man’s work was determined by the hereditary calling of his father. The son of a sandal-maker must become a sandal-maker himself and a woman of course learned only the domestic arts according to the station in life of her father. The abuses of caste are so blatant that we of the West overlook the security and contentment that resulted from being born into one’s own niche, and also the absence of cut-throat competition. Gandhi’s ideas concerning caste or varna underwent considerable modification as his experiments with Truth proceeded and in the end he would probably have agreed that a man’s proper work was that ordained by his nature. But he never gave up the idea of the need for division of labour, and from the beginning he asserted that no work was superior or inferior; the work of a Brahmin, of expounding holy truths, was not one whit better than that of a sudra who removed night-soil. He also consistently asserted that the work done for a livelihood must be done as a duty, and not for money making or one’s own pleasure, and that it must never be changed for the sake of making a better livelihood. But of course one’s bread-and-butter work does not prevent one’s engaging in public service also.
Furthermore, even as there is no question of superiority and inferiority, neither is there any importance in success or failure. Success and failure are not in our hands, for all actions are the result of the working of the three gunas “and take place in time by the interweaving of the forces of nature”3 Only the deluded man thinks that he himself is the actor. How utterly foolish, therefore, to imagine that the result of our work matters. The Stoics compared man to a messenger boy sent to deliver a parcel. The boy does his best to find the addressee, but if after making every effort he fails to do so, lie has no personal interest in the fate of the parcel.
Gandhi’s own work was only very partially successful. Self-government for India was obtained without violence or bloodshed. It was accomplished even without hatred for the British, with the surprising result that a person with a passport of the conquering race is welcomed everywhere as a friend, in a manner almost unbelievable and I should imagine unprecedented in history. But the innate tendency to hate was not sublimated; it was only repressed, and it came out in another way, in hatred between Muslims and Hindus. And the riots that followed independence were probably also unparalleled in history.
That Gandhi was unutterably cast down at the failure of his efforts to instill love and nonviolence, shows that even up to shortly before his death he had not wholly absorbed into his being the Gita teaching-and his own also-that success and failure are of no account. It was only by fasting that he was able to purify his mind of depression and regain the equanimity of a rishi. But the very fact of this human weakness and ability in the end to overcome it, perhaps makes his teaching more helpful than that of the rishis who are said to have dwelt always on the Himalayan heights of perfect serenity. It shows that he was human like ourselves and his heart speaks to our own as does that of Marcus Aurelius who also partly failed.
Those who have not absorbed the Gita teaching that success and failure are of no account and who suffered gaol and lathi charges, must find it hard to accept the truth that the “matchless weapon” of satyagraha that Gandhi brought into use is already being forgotten. When Martin Luther King started the desegregation movement in America, he did not consciously copy Gandhi’s methods. The movement came into being of its own accord, and only after it was fully launched did its leader remember back to his reading of, Gandhi and see the likeness of Gandhi’s methods to his own. Gandhi’s work did not influence the Negroes, but the same spirit that was in him is now in the sincerely practicing Christians who follow Martin Luther King. In each case the work was not that of an individual, but the result of the “interweaving of the forces of nature”.
Thus it is that all work, say both the Gita and Gandhi, must be offered to the Lord, or the Supreme, as a sacrifice, something to be made holy because it is done as a service to all.
When the universe was created, simultaneously the law of sacrifice, the opposite to creation, was brought into being, for the universe is composed of pairs of opposites.4 The clouds give of themselves to make rain. The rain gives of itself to feed the earth which in turn feeds the plant. The plant flowers and fruits and gives up its fruit. “Except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.”5 The law of sacrifice is universal; and it is only at his peril that man tries to exclude himself from the working of this law. In the East it seems to be almost a universal custom to recognize that this law applies to man, by symbolically offering food to the God before partaking of it oneself. Because of the absence of this custom in the West, the meaning of verses 11, 12 and 13 of Chapter 3 is usually lost to the Western reader. Gandhi says that “Sacrifice means exerting oneself for the benefit of others, in a word, service. . . . Look upon all creatures as Gods”6 That is to say, we must sacrifice ourselves for all, giving our work freely and asking nothing in return.
In Japan at the beginning of this century, Tenko Nashida, affectionately known as Tenko San, discovered this law for himself. He was in his late twenties when he woke up to the alarming fact that society consisted of individuals and groups of individuals each striving against each other and each seeking to get as much as possible and give as little as possible. He asked himself how a peaceful society, let alone a peaceful world, could be built on such an attitude. He gave away his property, and for three years wandered about Japan seeking a way out of the impasse. Finally he sat down to fast and meditate at a wayside temple. On the fourth day he heard a baby cry and its cries subside as its mother gave it her breast. Light came. We must give instead of trying to get. There is a law within the universe by which man can be delivered from suffering and this deliverance includes provision for his daily livelihood; but that law cannot come into operation unless, like all else, we learn to give freely without asking anything in return. He at once started to put this new found truth into practice by going from house to house asking for work without payment. He never lacked for food and lodging. Out of that first venture there came into existence the now flourishing community of 350 men, women and. children known as Ittoen, the Garden of the One Light, with thousands of “lay” disciples throughout Japan.
Tenko San later found that Mahatma Gandhi had made the same discovery as himself and a plaque of the Mahatma is now in the International Hall of Ittoen.
Ittoen’s men and women, youths and maidens will go anywhere and do any work provided only they can be the means of giving humble service to others. And that was Gandhi's passion also. It probably dated from the South African period, but in his “Experiments with Truth”, he said it had become utterly necessary for him on his return to India.
Gandhi’s interpretation of ch. 7 v. 17 is very interesting from this point of view. This verse describes the man dearest to God. It has been translated variously. Annie Besant translated it as “The wise, constantly harmonized, worshipping the one”; Mukherjee as “The wise, ever steadfast, fired by a single purpose”; Isherwood and Prabhavananda as “The man of spiritual discrimination”; Edwin Arnold as “He who is intent upon the One”; Mascaro as “The man of vision”; Radhakrishnan as “The wise one who is ever in constant union with the Divine and whose devotion is single-minded”. But Gandhi said it is “Those who know what they are about and for whom service to others is something they cannot do without”.7 Again in the Eighth Chapter, Gandhi’s interpretation of the bright fortnight of the moon is the path of selfless service.
Tenko San also made the same discovery as Gandhi concerning the need for complete sacrifice of self. Gandhi spoke of the reduction of self to zero. Tenko San said, “Death solves all problems; he who has any problems has not died to self.” Chapter II of the Gita describing God the Destroyer is another chapter which by and large Westerners skip over because they are accustomed only to the idea of God the Creator. But Gandhi says we should read, re-read and meditate upon “God as world-destroying time into whose gaping mouths the universe rushes to its doom”.8 If we do this we see that we are mere morsels, the sense of self is lost and we realize the need for utter surrender and the reduction of self to zero.
Complete surrender to the Supreme and universal love towards all creation are the culminating notes of the Gita. “Who burns with the bliss and suffers with the sorrow of every creature within his heart, making his own each bliss and each sorrow . . “v” He who in this oneness of love, loves me in whatever he sees, wherever that man may live, in truth this man lives in me.”10
But the culminating note of Gandhi’s teaching was Truth. Truth is doubtless implied in every chapter of the Gita, but its necessity is never made explicit. Truth is not one of the things that Krishna describes himself as being.
The reason, I think, is that the Gita came into existence when people were simpler and when there was greater harmony between the conscious and subconscious mind, which latter was brought into daylight, as it were, by dreams and myths which to people in those days were real. When the Gita talks about the sacred fig tree of Aswattha, “the everlasting rooted in heaven, its branches earthward, its leaves a song of the Vedas”, this to us is merely a pretty fancy. But to people of the age of the Gita it was real. It was real because it was part of the collective sub conscious which dream-life showed to be a fact. Nowadays we treat the wisdom of the subconscious as beneath serious consideration-unless we are unusually devout disciples of Jung, perhaps! and the result is that there arises a rift between the conscious and the subconscious. We deliberately try to repress the unpleasant darkness of the subconscious life and show always a respectable face to the world. The result is that self-deception and petty lies become the usual order of the day. However, whether this theory is or is not correct, it is a fact that untruthfulness is a vice almost unmentioned amid the many intimate details of virtues and vices and daily life told of in the many volumes of the Pali texts of primitive Buddhism. It is also a fact that today untruthfulness is taken for granted unless it is frightfully blatant. It was therefore utterly essential that Gandhi should place truth before all and state that Truth is God.
I have said that Gandhi’s message in Harijan came to me as a weekly tonic for the living of daily life. But it is often asserted that the gospels of Gandhi and the Gita are impossible of fulfilment in a society based upon money-making and self-seeking just as much as upon petty lying, for very few can live in a community like Ittoen. People who make this assertion forget that Gandhi himself was a highly successful barrister before he espoused the Lady Poverty. It is obvious, these say, that a person who owns a shop would soon go bankrupt if he gave his goods away instead of exacting a proper payment for them. On the face of it, it would seem that in such a case he must place his own self-interest before that of a starving waif.
If in fact considerations like this do prevent living the teaching of the Gita and of Gandhi, then such teaching can have no meaning for us. But do they? It is the attitude of mind and detachment that matter, not the things owned or the work done - so long as the work done is that for which we are born - and does not injure others, the Buddha would add.
The man who owns a grocer’s shop must obviously run it on ordinary business principles which include proper costing. If he feels called as a public duty to feed starving waifs, this too must be done on business principles, but here the means will probably be provided by donations of others as well as himself, and it will probably be done through a welfare society which in addition to giving food, will perhaps, like Gandhi, show the starving waifs how to give e work in return for food. The test of whether this grocer is following in the steps of the Mahatma and the Gita, will be whether he is able to remain equable when someone defrauds him in his business, or when the hungry waif steals food he foolishly left open to temptation. The test is also whether he strives to make more and more money, instead of striving to give more and more service.
There is also another test even more down to earth, and this is the spirit in which we render little services to others, services which we are beholden to give. Most people give grudgingly, and expect thanks or a reward, or at least prestige. But the follower of the Gita will give because it is good to give; he will give his services as a thanks offering for being able to be in tune with the Law of Sacrifice. He will certainly not expect anything in return.
Another objection that is often raised to the possibility of living the teaching of the Gita and of Gandhi, is that we should completely exhaust ourselves if we “burned with the bliss and suffered with the sorrow of every creature”. Those who make this assertion have no experience of the meaning of detachment, or of being detached from their own bliss and sorrow. If we cannot stand aside from our own joys and troubles, we cannot understand how it is possible to feel sympathetic joy and compassion for another without being emotionally involved. It is this attitude of detachment that makes the work of a good doctor or nurse of value. No parent, no matter how eminent a surgeon, would operate on his own child simply because he is emotionally attached and cannot stand aside and know true compassion which is without worry and anxiety. But the compatibility of compassion and sympathetic joy with perfect detachment is something that must be experienced to be understood. It cannot be explained intellectually to one who does not know it from actual experience.
It is true that the greater our power, wealth and prestige, the greater the difficulty in achieving perfect detachment, love and truth. It is significant that Gandhi gave up his membership of the Congress when he found it was compromising his quest for Truth.
None the less it has been found in every age and all religions that though one lives in the world, it is still possible to follow the teaching of the Gita. Mahayana Buddhism expresses this faith in the much loved Vimalakirti Sutra. The hero of this was a wealthy house-holder, but though he had wife and children as well as wealth, he observed the monastic rules, and though a layman he was universally proclaimed wiser than the greatest of the Buddha’s monk disciples.
But let us make no mistake, if we aspire to be like Vimalakirti, the Pure One, we must make the quest for the Supreme paramount. That is to say, the things of this world, including its sensual pleasures, must play less and less part in our lives. God, the Light, the Oneness, or whatever we choose to call it, must become more and more a living experience, so that other things fade into the background and we become like Gandhi only “a dancer to the tune of God”.
Christians who admired Gandhi would ask whether it was not the Presence of Christ that guided him. He replied (I quote from memory): “If you mean the historical Jesus, then I feel no such presence. But if you mean a Spirit guiding me, nearer than hands and feet, nearer than the very breath of me, then I do feel such a Presence. Had it not been for this Presence, the waters of the Ganges would long ere this have been my destruction. You may call it Christ or Krishna - that does not matter to me.”
And that is the Gandhi we see through the eyes of the Gita, the only real Gandhi in so far as any perishable human being can be called “real”.
Sources
1. V. B. Kher, In Search of the Supreme, III, p. 343.
2. Bhagavad-Gita, Isherwood's translation, p. 58.
3. Ibid., Mascaro's translation, 3 : 27.
4. Gita, ch. 3; Kher, III, p. 236.
5. Gospel of St. John, II, ch. 12. v. 24.
6. Kher, III, p. 236.
7. Kher, III, p. 243.
S. Kher, 111, p. 257.
9. Isherwood's tr., p. 86.
10. Mascaro's tr., ch. 6. v. 31.
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