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\author{Mohandas K. Gandhi}
\title{Truth is God}

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Truth is God\\

\vspace{10ex}
\fontsize{48pt}{48pt}\selectfont
Mohandas K. Gandhi
\end{center}

\newpage
\vspace*{25ex}
\begin{center}
\large{Original editor \& publisher (1955):\\
Jitendra Thakorbhai Desai\\
Navajivan Publishing House\\
Ahmedabad 380014\\
India}

\vspace{5ex}
\large{[Gleanings from the writings of Mahatma Gandhi\\
bearing on God, God-Realization and the Godly Way]\\
Compiled by R. K. Prabhu}

\vspace{10ex}
\par \large{Published by Yann FORGET\\
on \today, with \LaTeXe{}.}
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\tableofcontents

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\chapter[Foreword]{Foreword}

\par The Navajivan Managing Trustee has fallen a victim to the
prevailing fashion and illusion. He wants a ``Foreword'' from me to
a book of selections from Gandhiji's writings dealing with religion
and God. The subject as well as the author ought to have saved Shri
Jivanji from this foreword-hunger. But so strong is fashion that in
spite of everything he has done like others and wants me to do what
is wholly unnecessary.

\par God and therefore religion are fundamental necessities for
normal healthy life --- to the individual as well as to nations. Here in
this book the reader will find Gandhiji speaking from his heart on
various occasions in the course of thirty years of the maturest
period of his life. What a modern man who did very great things
thought on the subject of God and religion cannot fail to be
instructive to educated men and women in these difficult days.

\par ``We the human family are not all philosophers. Somehow or other
we want something which we can touch, something which we can see,
something before which we can kneel down. It does not matter whether
it is a book or an empty stone-building or a stone-building
inhabited by numerous figures'': so wrote Gandhiji, defending
temple-worship on the background of other prevailing religions.

\par ``Hindu Dharma is like a boundless ocean teeming with priceless
gems. The deeper you dive, the more treasures you find,'' said Gandhiji.

\par Any one who desires to understand what sort of a man the Father
of the Nation was, must read this book.
One may not want to learn anything about religion that is not in our Shastras
or in other religious books. But here is a facet of the mind of a great man we
love and to whom the nation is grateful. It has a value over and above a book
of religious instruction.

\begin{flushright}
Madras, 11-4-1955\\
C. Rajagopalachari
\end{flushright}

\chapter[To the Reader]{To the Reader}

\par I would like to say to the diligent reader of my writings and to
others who are interested in them that I am not at all concerned with
appearing to be consistent. In my search after Truth I have discarded
many ideas and learnt many new things. Old as I am in age, I have no
feeling that I have ceased to grow inwardly or that my growth will stop
at the dissolution of the flesh. What I am concerned with is my
readiness to obey the call of Truth, my God, from moment to moment, and
therefore, when anybody finds any inconsistency between any two
writings of mine, if he has still faith in my sanity, he would do well
to choose the later of the two on the same subject.

\begin{flushright}
M. K. Gandhi\\
Harijan, 29-4-1933, p. 2
\end{flushright}

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\chapter[My Quest]{My Quest}

\par I am but a seeker after Truth. I claim to have found a way to
it. I claim to be making a ceaseless effort to find it. But I admit
that I have not yet found it. To find Truth completely is to realize
oneself and one's destiny, i.e. to become perfect. I am painfully
conscious of my imperfections, and therein lies all the strength I
possess, because it is a rare thing for a man to know his own
limitations.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 17-11-1921
\end{flushright}

\par If I was a perfect man, I own I should not feel the miseries of
neighbours as I do. As a perfect man I should take note of them,
prescribe a remedy, and compel adoption by the force of
unchallengeable Truth in me. But as yet I only see as through a
glass darkly and therefore have to carry conviction by slow and
laborious processes, and then, too, not always with success. That
being so, I would be less than human if, with all my knowledge of
avoidable misery pervading the land and of the sight of mere
skeletons under the very shadow of the Lord of the Universe, I did
not feel with and for all the suffering but dumb millions of India.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 17-11-1921
\end{flushright}

\par I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good ---
wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed,
but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a
painful climb, but the pain of it is a positive pleasure to me. Each step
upward makes me feel stronger and fit for the next.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 9-4-1925
\end{flushright}

\par I know the path. It is strait and narrow. It is like the edge
of a sword.I rejoice to walk on it. I weep when I slip. God's word
is: ``He who strives never perishes.'' I have implicit faith in
that promise. Though, therefore, from my weakness I fail a thousand
times, I will not lose faith but hope that I shall see the Light
when the flesh has been brought under perfect subjection as some day it must.

\begin{flushright}
Young India,17-6-1926
\end{flushright}

\par I have not seen Him, neither have I known Him. I have made the
world's faith in God my own and as my faith is ineffaceable, I
regard that faith as amounting to experience. However, as it may be
said that to describe faith as experience is to tamper with truth,
it may perhaps be more correct to say that I have no word for
characterizing my belief in God.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography, 1948, p. 341
\end{flushright}

\par I claim to be a votary of truth from my childhood. It was the
most natural thing to me. My prayerful search gave me the revealing
maxim Truth is God, instead of the usual one God is Truth. That
maxim enables me to see God face to face as it were. I feel Him
pervade every fibre of my being.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 9-8-1942
\end{flushright}

\par Ahimsa is my God, and Truth is my God. When I look for Ahimsa,
Truth says, ``Find it through me.'' When I look for Truth, Ahimsa
says, ``Find it out through me.''

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 4-6-1925
\end{flushright}

\par 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 of Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say
without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say
that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography, 1948, p. 615
\end{flushright}

\par I am endeavouring to see God through service of humanity, for I
know that God is neither in heaven, nor down below, but in every one.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography, 1948, p. 615
\end{flushright}

\par I have no desire for the perishable kingdom of earth. I am
striving for the Kingdom of Heaven which is Moksha. To attain my end
it is not necessary for me to seek the shelter of a cave. I carry
one about me, if I would but know it. A cave-dweller can build
castles in the air whereas a dweller in a palace like Janak has no
castles to build. The cave-dweller who hovers round the world on the
wings of thought has no peace. A Janak though living in the midst of
``pomp and circumstance'', may have peace that passeth
understanding. For me the road to salvation lies through incessant
toil in the service of my country and therethrough of humanity. I
want to identify myself with everything that lives.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 3-4-1924
\end{flushright}

\par I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the
beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life,
even with such things as crawl upon earth. I want, if I don't give
you a shock, to realize identity with even the crawling things upon
earth, because we claim descent from the same God, and that being
so, all life in whatever form it appears must be essentially one.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 4-4-1929
\end{flushright}

\par There is no such thing as ``Gandhism,'' and I do not want to
leave any sect after me. I do not claim to have originated any new
principle of doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply
the eternal truths to our daily life and problems. Truth and
non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try
experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could do. In doing so I
have sometimes erred and learnt by my errors. Life and its problems
have thus become to me so many experiments in the practice of truth
and non-violence.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 28-3-1936
\end{flushright}

\par My faith in truth and non-violence is ever-growing, and as I am
ever trying to follow them in my life, I too am growing every
moment. I see new implications about them. I see them in a newer
light every day and read in them a newer meaning.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 2-3-1940
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God is]{God is}

\par There is an indefinable mysterious Power that pervades
everything. I feel it, though I do not see it. It is this unseen
Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike
all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses.

\par But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a
limited extent. Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not
know who rules or why, and how he rules. And yet they know that
there is a power that certainly rules. In my tour last year in
Mysore I met many poor villagers and I found upon inquiry that they did not
know who ruled Mysore. They simply said some god ruled it. If the knowledge of
these poor people was so limited about their ruler I, who am
infinitely lesser than God, than they than their ruler, need not be
surprised if I do not realize the presence of God, the King of
Kings. Nevertheless I do feel as the poor villagers felt about
Mysore that there is orderliness in the universe, there is an
unalterable Law governing everything and every being that exists or
lives. It is not a blind law; for no blind law can govern the
conduct of living beings, and thanks to the marvellous researches of
Sir. J. C. Bose, it can now be proved that even matter is life. That
Law then which governs all life is God. Law and the Lawgiver are
one. I may not deny the Law or the Lawgiver, because I know so
little about It or Him. Even as my denial or ignorance of the
existence of an earthly power will avail me nothing, so will not my
denial of God and His Law liberate me from its operation; whereas
humble and mute acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier.

\par I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever
changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living
power that is changless, that holds all together, that creates,
dissolves and re-creates. That informing power or spirit is God. And
since nothing else I see merely through the senses can or will
persist, He alone is.

\par And is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see it is purely
benevolent. For 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, Light. He is
Love. He is the Supreme Good.

\par But He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect,
if He ever does. God to be God must rule the heart and transform it.
He must express Himself in every smallest act of His votary. This
can only be done through a definite realization more real than the
five senses can ever produce. Sense perceptions can be, often are,
false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there
is realization outside the senses it is infallible. It is proved not
by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character
of those who have felt the real presence of God within.

\par Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken
line of prophets and sages in all countries and climes. To reject
this evidence is to deny oneself.

\par This realization is preceded by an immovable faith. He who would
in his own person test the fact of God's presence can do so by a
living faith. And since 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. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there
is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to
Truth and Love.

\par I cannot account for the existence of evil by any rational
method. To want to do so it is to be coequal with God. I am
therefore humble enough to recognize evil as such. And I call God
long suffering and patient precisely because He permits evil in the
world. I know that He has no evil. He is the author of it and yet
untouched by it.

\par I know too that I shall never know God if I do not wrestle with
and against evil even at the cost of life itself. I am fortified in
the belief by my own humble and limited experience. The purer I try
to become, the nearer I feel to be to God. How much more should I be, when my
faith is not a mere apology as it is today but has become as immovable as the
Himalayas and as white and bright as the snows on their peaks? Meanwhile I
invite the correspondent to pray with Newman who sang from experience:

\begin{quote}
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,\\
\hspace*{5ex}Lead Thou me on:\\
The night is dark and I am far from home,\\
\hspace*{5ex}Lead Thou me on.\\
Keep Thou my feet, I do not ask to see\\
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
\end{quote}

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 11-10-1928
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God alone is]{God alone is}

\par To me God is Truth and Love; God is ethics and morality; God is
fearlessness. God is the source of Light and Life 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. He knows us and our hearts better than we do ourselves.
He does not take us at our word for He knows that we often do not
mean it, some knowingly and others unknowingly. He is a personal God
to those who need His personal presence. He is embodied to those who
need His touch. He is the purest essence. He simply Is to those who
have faith. He is all things to all men. He is in us and yet above
and beyond us. One may banish the word ``God'' from the Congress but
one has no power to banish the thing itself. What is a solemn
affirmation, if it is not the same thing as in the name of God? And surely
conscience is but a poor and laborious paraphrase of the simple combination of
three letters called God. He cannot cease to be because hideous immoralities or
inhuman brutalities are committed in His name. He is long suffering. He is
patient but He is also terrible. He is the most exacting personage in the world
and the world to come. He metes out the same measure to us as we mete out to
our neighbours --- men and brutes. With Him ignorance is no excuse. And withal He
is ever forgiving for He always gives us the chance to repent. He is the
greatest democrat the world knows, for He leaves us ``unfettered'' to make our
own choice between evil and good. He is the greatest tyrant ever known, for He
often dashes the cup from our lips and under cover of free will leaves us a
margin so wholly inadequate as to provide only mirth for Himself at our
expense. Therefore it is that Hinduism calls it all His sport --- Lila, or calls it
all an illusion --- Maya. We are not. He alone Is. And If we will be, we must
eternally sing His praise and do His will. Let us dance to the tune of His
Bansi --- flute, and all would be well.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 5-3-1925
\end{flushright}

\begin{center}
\section{Advaitism and God}
\end{center}

\par [In answer to a friend's questions, Gandhiji wrote:]

\par I am Advaitist and yet I can support Dvaitism (dualism). The
world is changing every moment, and is therefore unreal, it has no
permanent existence. But though it is constantly changing, it has a
something about it which persists and it is therefore to that extent
real. I have therefore no objection to calling it real and unreal,
and thus being called an Anekantavadi or a Syadvadi. But my Syadvada
is not the Syadvada of the learned, it is peculiarly my own. I
cannot engage in a debate with them. It has been my experience
that I am always true from my point of view, and am often wrong from
the point of view of my honest critics. I know that we are both
right from our respective points of view. And this knowledge saves
me from attributing motives to my opponents or critics. The seven
blind men who gave seven different descriptions of the elephant were
all right from their respective points of view, and wrong from the
point of view of one another, and right and wrong from the point of
view of the man who knew the elephant. I very much like this
doctrine of the manyness of reality. It is this doctrine that has
taught me to judge a Musulman from his own standpoint and a
Christian from his. Formerly I used to resent the ignorance of my
opponents. Today I can love them because I am gifted with the eye to
see myself as others see me and vice versa. I want to take the whole
world in the embrace of my love. My Anekantavada is the result of
the twin doctrine of Satyagraha and Ahimsa.

\par I talk of God exactly as I believe Him to be. I believe Him to
be creative as well as non-creative. This too is the result of my
acceptance to the doctrine of the manyness of realty. From the
platform of the Jains I prove the non-creative aspect of God, and
from that of Ramanuja the creative aspect. As a matter of fact we
are all thinking of the Unthinkable, describing the Indescribable,
seeking to know the Unknown, and that is why our speech falters, is
inadequate and even often contradictory. That is why the Vedas
describe Brahman as ``not this'', ``not this''. But if He or It is
not this, He or It is. If we exist, if our parents and their parents
have existed, then it is proper to believe in the Parent of the
whole creation. If He is not, we are nowhere. And that is why all of
us with one voice call one God differently as Paramatma, Ishwara,
Shiva, Vishnu, Rama, Allah, Khuda, Dada Hormuzda, Jehova, God, and
an infinite variety of names. He is one and yet many; He is smaller than
an atom, and bigger than the Himalayas. He is contained even in a
drop of the ocean, and yet not even the seven seas can compass Him.
Reason is powerless to know Him. He is beyond the reach or grasp of
reason. But I need not labour the point. Faith is essential in this
matter. My logic can make and unmake innumerable hypotheses. An
atheist might floor me in a debate. But my faith runs so very much
faster than my reason that I can challenge the whole world and say,
``God is, was and ever shall be.''

\par But those who want to deny His existence are at liberty to do
so. He is merciful and compassionate. He is not an earthly king
needing an army to make us accept His sway. He allows us freedom,
and yet His compassion commands obedience to His will. But if any
one of us disdain to bow to His will, He says: ``So be it. My sun
will shine no less for thee, my clouds will rain no less for thee. I
need not force thee to accept my sway.'' Of such a God let the
ignorant dispute the existence. I am one of the millions of wise men
who believe in Him and am never tired of bowing to Him and singing
His glory.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 21-1-1926
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Truth is God]{Truth is God}

\par [Replying to a question asked of him at a meeting in
Switzerland on his way back from the Round Table Conference in
London, Gandhiji said:]

\par You have asked me why I consider that God is Truth. In my early
youth I was taught to repeat what in Hindu
scriptures are known as one thousand names of God. But these one
thousand names of God were by no means exhaustive. We believe --- and I
think it is the truth --- that God has as many names as there are
creatures and, therefore we also say that God is nameless and since
God has many forms we also consider Him formless, and since He speaks
to us through many tongues we consider Him to be speechless and so on.
And so when I came to study Islam I found that Islam too had many
names for God. I would say with those who say God is Love, God is
Love. But deep down in me I used to say that though God may be Love,
God is Truth, above all. If it is possible for the human tongue to
give the fullest description of God, I have come to the conclusion
that for myself, God is Truth. But two years ago I went a step further
and said that Truth is God. You will see the fine distinction between
the two statements, viz. that God is Truth and Truth is God. And I
came to that conclusion after a continuous and relentless search after
Truth which began nearly fifty years ago. I then found that the
nearest approach to Truth was through love. But I also found that love
has many meanings in the English language at least and that human love
in the sense of passion could become a degrading thing also. I found
too that love in the sense of Ahimsa had only a limited number of
votaries in the world. But I never found a double meaning in
connection with truth and even atheists had not demurred to the
necessity or power of truth. But in their passion for discovering
truth, the atheists have not hesitated to deny the very existence of
God --- from their own point of view rightly. And it was because of this
reasoning that I saw that rather than say that God is Truth, I should
say that Truth is God. I recall the name of Charles Bradlaugh who
delighted to call himself an atheist, but knowing as I do something of
him, I would never regard him as an atheist. I would call him a
God-fearing man, though I know that he would reject the claim. His
face would redden if I would say ``Mr. Bradlaugh, you are a
truth-fearing man, and so a God-fearing man.'' I would automatically
disarm his criticism by saying that Truth is God, as I have disarmed
criticisms of many a young man. Add to this the great difficulty
that millions have taken the name of God and in His name committed
nameless atrocities. Not that scientists very often do not commit
cruelties in the name of truth. I know how in the name of truth and
science inhuman cruelties are perpetrated on animals when men
perform vivisection. There are thus a number of difficulties in the
way, no matter how you describe God. But the human mind is a limited
thing, and you have to labour under limitations when you think of a
being or entity who is beyond the power of man to grasp.

\par And then we have another thing in Hindu philosophy, viz. God
alone is and nothing else exists, and the same truth you find
emphasized in the Kalma of Islam. There you find it clearly stated?
that God alone is and nothing else exists. In fact the Sanskrit word
for Truth is a word which literally means that which exists --- Sat. For
this and several other reasons that I can give you, I have come to
the conclusion that the definition, ``Truth is God'', gives me the
greatest satisfaction. And when you want to find Truth as God the
only inevitable means is Love, i.e. non-violence, and since I
believe that ultimately the means and end are convertible terms, I
should not hesitate to say that God is Love.

\par ``What then is Truth?''

\par A difficult question, but I have solved it for myself by saying
that it is what the voice within tells you. How, then, you ask,
different people think of different and contrary truths? Well,
seeing that the human mind works through
innumerable media and that the evolution of the human mind is not the
same for all, it follows that what may be truth for one may be untruth
for another, and hence those who have made these experiments have come to
the conclusion that there are certain conditions to be observed in making
those experiments. Just as for conducting scientific experiments there is
an indispensable scientific course of instruction, in the same way strict
preliminary discipline is necessary to qualify a person to make
experiments in the spiritual realm. Every one should, therefore, realize
his limitations before he speaks of his Inner Voice. Therefore we have
the belief based upon experience, that those who would make individual
search after Truth as God, must go through several vows, as for instance,
the vow of truth, the vow of Brahmacharya (purity)?for you cannot
possibly divide your love for Truth and God with anything else?, the vow
of non-violence, of poverty and non-possession. Unless you impose on
yourselves the five vows you may not embark on the experiment at all.
There are several other conditions prescribed, but I must not take you
through all of them. Suffice it to say that those who have made these
experiments know that it is not proper for every one to claim to hear the
voice of conscience, and it is because we have at the present moment
everybody claiming the right of conscience without going through any
discipline whatsoever and there is so much untruth being delivered to a
bewildered world, all that I can, in true humility, present to you is
that truth is not to be found by anybody who has not got an abundant
sense of humility. If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth
you must reduce yourself to a zero. Further than this I cannot go along
this fascinating path.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 31-12-1931
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God is Love]{God is Love}

\par Scientists tell us that without the presence of the cohesive
force amongst the atoms that comprise this globe of ours, it would
crumble to pieces and we cease to exist; and even as there is
cohesive force in blind matter, so must there be in all things
animate and the name for that cohesive force among animate beings is
Love. We notice it between father and son, between brother and
sister, friend and friend. But we have to learn to use that force
among all that lives, and in the use of it consists our knowledge of
God. Where there is love there is life; hatred leads to
destruction.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 5-5-1920
\end{flushright}

\par Though there is enough repulsion in Nature, she lives by
attraction. Mutual love enables Nature to persist. Man does not live
by destruction. Self-love compels regard for others. Nations cohere
because there is mutual regard among individuals composing them.
Some day we must extend the national law to the universe, even as we
have extended the family law to form nations --- a larger family.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 2-3-1922
\end{flushright}

\par I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction
and, therefore, there must be a higher law than that of destruction.
Only under that law would a well-ordered society be intelligible
and life worth-living. And if that is the law of life, we have to
work it out in daily life. Whereever there are jars, wherever you
are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love. In this
crude manner, I have worked it out in my life. That does not mean that all my
difficulties are solved. Only I have found that this law of love has answered
as the law of destruction has never done.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 1-10-1931
\end{flushright}

\par I believe that the sum total of the energy of mankind is not to bring us
down but to lift us up, and that is the result of the definite, if unconscious,
working of the law of love. The fact that mankind persists shows that the
cohesive force is greater than the disruptive force, centripetal force greater
than centrifugal.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 12-11-1931
\end{flushright}

\par If love or non-violence be not the law of our being, \ldots there is no
escape from a periodical recrudescence of war, each succeeding one outdoing the
preceding one in ferocity.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 26-9-1936
\end{flushright}

\par All the teachers that ever lived have preached that law with more or less
vigour. If love was not the law of life, life would not have persisted in the
midst of death. Life is a perpetual triumph over the grave. If there is a
fundamental distinction between man and beast, it is the former's progressive
recognition of the law and its application in practice to his own personal
life. All the saints of the world, ancient and modern, were each according to
his light and capacity a living illustration of that supreme law of our being.
That the brute in us seems so often to gain an easy triumph is true enough.
That, however does not disprove the law. It shows the difficulty of practice.
How should it be otherwise with a law which is as high as truth itself? When
the practice of the law becomes universal, God will reign on earth as He does
in Heaven. I need not be reminded that earth and Heaven are in us. We know the
earth, we are strangers to the Heaven within us. If it is allowed that for some
the practice of love is possible, it is arrogance not to allow even the
possibility of its practice in all the others. Not very remote ancestors of
ours indulged in cannibalism and many other practices which we would today call
loathsome. No doubt in those days too there were Dick Sheppards who must have
been laughed at and possibly pilloried for preaching the (to them) strange
doctrine of refusing to eat fellow men.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 26-9-1936
\end{flushright}

\par God is not a Power residing in the clouds. God is an unseen
Power residing within us and nearer to us than finger-nails to the
flesh. There are many powers lying hidden within us and we discover
them by constant struggle. Even so may we find this Supreme Power if
we make diligent search with the fixed determination to find Him.
One such way is the way of Ahimsa. It is so very necessary because
God is in every one of us and, therefore, we have to identify
ourselves with every human being without exception. This is called
cohesion or attraction in scientific language. In the popular
language it is called love. It binds us to one another and to God.
Ahimsa and love are one and the same thing.

\begin{flushright}
From a private letter dated, 1-6-1942\\
Harijan, 28-3-1953
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God is Truth? Knowledge? Bliss?]{God is Truth? Knowledge? Bliss?}

\par The word Satya (Truth) is derived from Sat, which means
``being''. Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why
Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God. In fact it
is more correct to say that Truth is God, than to say that God is
Truth. But as we cannot do without a ruler or a general, such names
of God as ``King of Kings'' or ``The Almighty'' are and will remain
generally current. On deeper thinking, however, it will be realized,
that Sat or Satya is the only correct and fully significant name for
God.

\par And where there is Truth,there also is knowledge which is true.
Where there is no Truth,there can be no true Knowledge. That is why
the word Chit or knowledge is associated with the name of God. And
where there is true Knowledge, there is always Bliss (Ananda). There
sorrow has no place. And even as Truth is eternal, so is the Bliss
derived from it. Hence we know God as Sat-Chit-Ananda, One who
combines in Himself Truth, Knowledge and Bliss.

\par Devotion to this Truth is the sole justification for our
existence. All our activities should be centred in Truth. Truth
should be the very breath of our life. When once this stage in the
pilgrim's progress is reached, all other rules of correct living
will come without effort, and obedience to them will be instinctive.
But without Truth it is impossible to observe any principles or
rules in life.

\par Generally speaking, observation of the law of Truth is
understood merely to mean that we must speak the truth.
But we in the Ashram should understand the word Satya or Truth in a
much wider sense. There should be Truth in thought, Truth in speech,
and Truth in action. To the man who has realized this Truth in its
fulness, nothing else remains to be known, because all knowledge is
necessarily included in it. What is not included in it is not Truth,
and so not true knowledge; and there can be no inward peace without
true knowledge. If we once learn how to apply this never-failing
test of Truth, we will at once be able to find out what is worth
doing, what is worth seeing, what is worth reading.

\par But how is one to realize this Truth, which may be likened to
the philosopher's stone or the cow of plenty? By single-minded
devotion (abhyasa) and indifference to all other interests in life
(vairagya)?replies the Bhagavad-gita In spite, however, of such
devotion, what may appear as truth to one person will often appear
as untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker.
Where there is honest effort, it will be realized that what appear
to be different truths are like the countless and apparently
different leaves of the same tree. Does not God Himself appear to
different individuals in different aspects? Still we know that He
is one. But Truth is the right designation of God. Hence there is
nothing wrong in every man following Truth according to his lights.
Indeed it is his duty to do so. Then if there is a mistake on the
part of anyone so following Truth, it will be automatically set
right. For the quest of Truth involves tapas --- self-suffering,
sometimes even unto death. There can be no place in it for even a
trace of self-interest. In such selfless search for Truth nobody can
lose his bearings for long. Directly he takes to the wrong path he
stumbles, and is thus redirected to the right path. Therefore the
pursuit of Truth is true bhakti (devotion). It is the path that
leads to God. There is no place in it for cowardice, no place for defeat. It is
the talisman by which death itself becomes the portal to life eternal.

\par In this connection it would be well to ponder over the lives and
examples of Harishchandra, Prahlad, Ramachandra, Imam Hasan and Imam
Hussain, the Christian saints, etc. How beautiful it would be, if
all of us, men and women, devoted ourselves wholly to Truth in all
that we might do in our waking hours, whether working, eating,
drinking, or playing, till dissolution of the body makes us one with
Truth? God as Truth has been for me a treasure beyond price: may
He be so to every one of us.

\begin{flushright}
From Yeravda Mandir, Chapter I.
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God and Nature]{God and Nature}

\par We do not know all the laws of God nor their working. Knowledge
of the tallest scientist or the greatest spiritualist is like a
particle of dust. If God is not a personal being for me like my
earthly father, He is infinitely more. He rules me in the tiniest
detail of my life. I believe literally that not a leaf moves but by
His will. Every breath I take depends upon His sufferance.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 16-2-1934
\end{flushright}

\par He and His Law are one. The Law is God. Anything attributed to
Him is not a mere attribute. He is the attribute. He is Truth, Love
and Law and a million other things that human ingenuity can name.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 16-2-1934
\end{flushright}

\par The laws of Nature are changeless, unchangeable, and there are
no miracles in the sense of infringement or interruption of Nature's laws. But
we limited beings fancy all kinds of things and impute our limitations to God.
We may copy God, but not He us. We may not divide Time for Him. Time for Him is
eternity. For us there is past, present and future. And what is human life of a
hundred years but less than a mere speck in the eternity of Time?

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 17-4-1937
\end{flushright}

\par God Himself has reserved no right of revision of His own laws
nor is there any need for Him for any such revision. He is
all-powerful, all-knowing. He knows at the same time and without any
effort the past, the present and the future. He has therefore
nothing to reconsider, nothing to revise, nothing to alter and
nothing to amend.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 25-11-1926
\end{flushright}

\par This earthly existence of ours is more brittle than the glass
bangles that ladies wear. You can keep glass bangles for thousands
of years if you treasure them in a chest and let them remain
untouched. But this earthly existence is so fickle that it may be
wiped out in the twinkling of an eye. Therefore, while we get
breathing time, let us get rid of the distinctions of high and low,
purify our hearts and be ready to face our Maker when an earthquake
or some natural calamity or death in the ordinary course overtakes us.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 2-2-1934
\end{flushright}

\par I share the belief with the whole world --- civilized and
uncivilized --- that calamities (such as the Bihar earthquake of 1934)
come to mankind as chastisement for their sins. When that conviction
comes from the heart, people pray, repent and purify themselves\ldots
. I have but a limited knowledge of His purpose. Such calamities are
not a mere caprice of the Deity or Nature. They obey fixed laws as
surely as the planets move in obedience to laws governing their
movement. Only we do not know the laws governing these events and,
therefore, call them calamities or disturbances.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 2-2-1934
\end{flushright}

\par There is divine purpose behind every physical calamity. That
perfected science will one day be able to tell us beforehand when
earthquakes will occur, as it tells us today of eclipses, is quite
possible. It will be another triumph of the human mind. But such
triumph even indefinitely multiplied can bring about no purification
of self without which nothing is of any value.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 8-6-35
\end{flushright}

\par I ask those who appreciate the necessity of inward purification
to join in the prayer that we may read the purpose of God behind
such visitations, that they may humble us and prepare us to face our
Maker whenever the call comes, and that we may be ever ready to
share the sufferings of our fellows whosoever they may be.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 8-6-1935
\end{flushright}

\par To say that God permits evil in this world may not be pleasing
to the ear. But if He is held responsible for the good, it follows
that He has to be responsible for the evil too. Did not God permit
Ravana to exhibit unparalleled strength? Perhaps the root cause of
the perplexity arises from a lack of the real understanding of what
God is. God is not a person. He transcends description. He is the
Law maker, the Law and the Executor. No human being can well
arrogate these powers to himself. If he did,he would be looked upon
as an unadulterated dictator. They become only Him whom we worship
as God.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 24-2-1946
\end{flushright}

\par In a strictly scientific sense God is at the bottom of both
good and evil. He directs the assassin's dagger no less than the
surgeon's knife. But for all that good and evil are,
for human purposes, from each other distinct and incompatible, being
symbolical of light and darkness, God and Satan.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 20-2-1937
\end{flushright}

\par I do not regard God as a person. Truth for me is God, and
God's Law and God are not different things or facts, in the sense
that an earthly king and his law are different. Because God is an
idea, Law Himself. Therefore, it is impossible to conceive God as
breaking the Law. He, therefore, does not rule our actions and
withdraw Himself. When we say He rules our actions, we are simply
using human language and we try to limit Him. Otherwise He and His
Law abide everywhere and govern everything. Therefore, I do not
think that He answers in every detail every request of ours, but
there is no doubt that He rules our action, and I literally believe
that not a blade of grass grows or moves without His will. The free
will we enjoy is less than that of a passenger on a crowded deck.

\par ``Do you feel a sense of freedom in your communion with God?''

\par I do. I do not feel cramped as I would on a boat full of
passengers. Although I know that my freedom is less than that of a
passenger, I appreciate that freedom as I have imbibed through and
through the central teaching of the Gita that man is the maker of
his own destiny in the sense that he has freedom of choice as to the
manner in which he uses that freedom. But he is no controller of
results. The moment he thinks he is, he comes to grief.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 23-3-1940
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God as Daridranarayan]{God as Daridranarayan}

\par Daridranarayan is one of the millions of names by which
humanity knows God who is unnameable and unfathomable by human
understanding and it means God of the poor, God appearing in the
hearts of the poor.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 4-4-1929
\end{flushright}

\par For the poor the economic is the spiritual. You cannot make any
other appeal to those starving millions. It will fall flat on them.
But you take food to them and they will regard you as their God.
They are incapable of any other thought.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 5-5-1927
\end{flushright}

\par With this very hand I have collected soiled pies from them tied
tightly in their rags. Talk to them of modern progress. Insult them
by taking the name of God before them in vain. They will call you
and me fiends if we talk about God to them. They know, if they know
God at all, a God of terror, vengeance, a pitiless tyrant.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 15-9-1927
\end{flushright}

\par I dare not take before them the message of God. I may as well
place before the dog over there the message of God as before those
hungry millions who have no lustre in their eyes and whose only God
is their bread. I can take before them a message of God only by
taking the message of sacred work before them. It is good enough to
talk of God whilst we are sitting here after a nice breakfast and
looking forward to a nicer luncheon, but how am I to talk of God
to the millions who have to go without two meals a day? To them God
can only appear as bread and butter. Well the peasants of India were
getting their bread from their soil. I offered them the spinning
wheel in order that they may get butter and if I appear today\ldots
in my loin-cloth it is because I come as the sole representative of
those half-starved, half-naked dumb millions.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 15-10-1931
\end{flushright}

\par I claim to know my millions. All the hours of the day I am with
them. They are my first care and last because I recognize no God
except that God that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb
millions. They do not recognize His presence; I do. And I worship
the God that is Truth or Truth which is God through the service of
these millions.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 11-3-1939
\end{flushright}

\par I suggest that we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that
I do not need for my own immediate use and keep it, I thieve it from
somebody else. It is the fundamental law of Nature, without
exception, that Nature produces enough for our wants from day to
day, and if only everybody took enough for himself and nothing more,
there would be no pauperism in this world, there would be no man
dying of starvation.

\begin{flushright}
Mahatma Gandhi (1918), p. 189
\end{flushright}

\par In India we have got many millions of people who have to be
satisfied with one meal a day and that meal consisting of a Chapati
containing no fat in it and a pinch of salt. You and I have no right
to anything that we really have until these millions are clothed and
fed. You and I ought to know better, must adjust our wants, and even
undergo voluntary privation in order that they may be nursed, fed
and clothed.

\begin{flushright}
Mahatma Gandhi (1918), p. 189
\end{flushright}

\chapter[The Voice of God]{The Voice of God}

\par My claim to hear the voice of God is no new claim.
Unfortunately there is no way that I know of proving the claim
except through results. God will not be God if He allowed Himself to
be an object of proof by his creatures. But He does give His willing
slave the power to pass through the fieriest of ordeals. I have been
a willing slave to this most exacting Master for more than half a
century. His voice has been increasingly audible as years have
rolled by. He has never forsaken me even in my darkest hour. He has
saved me often against myself and left me not a vestige of
independence. The greater the surrender to Him, the greater has been
my joy.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 6-5-1933
\end{flushright}

\par Nobody has to my knowledge questioned the possibility of the
Inner Voice speaking to some, and it is a gain to the world even if
one person's claim to speak under the authority of the Inner Voice
can be really sustained. Many men make the claim, but not all will
be able to substantiate it. But, it cannot and aught not to be
suppressed for the sake of preventing false claimants. There is no
danger whatsoever if many people could truthfully represent the
Inner Voice. But, unfortunately, there is no remedy against
hypocrisy. Virtue must not be suppressed because many will feign it.
Men have always been found throughout the world claiming to speak
for the Inner Voice. But no harm has yet overtaken the world through
their shortlived activities. Before one is able to listen to that Voice, one
has to go through a long and fairly severe course of training, and when it
is the Inner Voice that speaks, it is unmistakable. The world cannot
be successfully fooled for all time. There is, therefore, no danger
of anarchy setting in because a humble man like me will not be
suppressed and will dare to claim the authority of the Inner Voice,
when he believes that he has heard it.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 18-3-1933
\end{flushright}

\par For me the Voice of God, of Conscience, of Truth or the Inner
Voice or ``the still small Voice'' mean one and the same thing. I
saw no form. I have never tried, for I have always believed God to
be without form. But what I did hear was like a Voice from afar and
yet quite near. It was as unmistakable as some human voice
definitely speaking to me, and irresistible. I was not dreaming at
the time I heard the Voice. The hearing of the Voice was preceded by
a terrific struggle within me. Suddenly the Voice came upon me. I
listened, made certain that it was the voice, and the struggle
ceased. I was calm. The determination was made accordingly, the date
and the hour of the fast were fixed. Joy came over me. This was
between 11 and 12 midnight. I felt refreshed and began to write the
note about it which the reader must have seen.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 8-7-1933
\end{flushright}

\par Could I give any further evidence that it was truly the Voice
that I heard and that it was not an echo of my own heated
imagination? I have no further evidence to convince the sceptic. He
is free to say that it was all self-delusion or hallucination. It
may well have been so. I can offer no proof to the contrary. But I
can say this --- that not the unanimous verdict of the whole world against me
could shake me from the belief that what I heard was the true Voice of God.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 8-7-1933
\end{flushright}

\par But some think that God Himself is a creation of our own
imagination. If that view holds good, then nothing is real,
everything is of our own imagination. Even so, whilst my imagination
dominates me, I can only act under its spell. Realest things are
only relatively so. For me the Voice was more real than my own
existence. It has never failed me, and for that matter, any one
else.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 8-7-1933
\end{flushright}

\par And every one who wills can hear the Voice. It is within every
one. But like every-thing else, it requires previous and definite
preparation.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 8-7-1933
\end{flushright}

\par There is no question of hallucination. I have stated a simple
scientific truth, thus to be tested by all who have the will and the
patience to acquire the necessary qualifications, which are again
incredibly simple to understand and easy enough to acquire where
there is determination. I can only say: ``You have to believe no one
but yourselves. You must try to listen to the Inner Voice, but if
you won't have the expression ``Inner Voice'', you may use the
expression ``dictates of reason'', which you should obey, and if you
will not parade God, I have no doubt you will parade something else
which in the end will prove to be God, for fortunately, there is no
one and nothing else but God in this universe.'' I would also submit
that it is not every one claiming to act on the urge of the Inner
Voice (who) has that urge. After all, like every other faculty, this
faculty for listening to the still small Voice within requires
previous effort and training, perhaps much greater than what is
required for the acquisition of any other faculty, and
even if out of thousands of claimants only a few succeed in
establishing their claim, it is well worth running the risk of
having and tolerating doubtful claimants. A person falsely claiming
to act under divine inspiration of the promptings of the Inner Voice
without having any such, will fare worse than the one falsely
claiming to act under the authority of an earthly sovereign. Whereas
the latter on being exposed will escape with injury to his body the
former may perish body and soul together. Charitable critics impute
no fraud to me, but suggest that I am highly likely to be acting
under some hallucination. The result for me, even then, will not be
far different from what it would be if I was laying a false claim. A
humble seeker that I claim to be has need to be most cautious and,
to preserve the balance of mind, he has to reduce himself to zero
before God will guide him. Let me not labour this point.

\begin{flushright}
The Bombay Chronicle, 18-11-1933
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God-Realisation]{God-Realisation}

\par For me Truth is the sovereign principle, which includes
numerous other principles. This Truth is not only truthfulness in
word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative
truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the Eternal
Principle, that is God. There are innumerable definitions of God,
because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with
wonder and awe and for a moment stun me. But I worship God as Truth
only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am
prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this
quest. Even if the sacrifice demanded be
my very life I hope I may be prepared to give it. But as long as I have not
realized this Absolute Truth, so long must I hold by the relative truth as I
have conceived it. That relative truth must, meanwhile, by my beacon, my shield
and buckler. Though this path is strait and narrow and sharp as the razor's
edge, for me it has been the quickest and easiest. Even my Himalayan blunders
have seemed trifling to me because I have kept strictly to this path. For the
path has saved me from coming to grief, and I have gone forward according to my
light. Often in my progress I have had faint glimpses of the Absolute Truth,
God, and daily the conviction is growing upon me that He alone is real and all
else is unreal.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography, (1948) pp.6-7
\end{flushright}

\par The further conviction has been growing upon me that whatever is possible
for me is possible even for a child, and I have found sound reasons for saying
so. The instruments for the quest of Truth are as simple as they are difficult.
They may appear quite impossible to an arrogant person, and quite possible to
an innocent child. The seeker after Truth should be humbler than the dust. The
world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after Truth should so
humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till
then, will he have a glimpse of Truth.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography, (1948) pp.6-7
\end{flushright}

\par This belief in God has to be based on faith which transcends reason.
Indeed, even the so-called realization has at bottom an element of faith
without which it cannot be sustained. In the very nature of things it must be
so. Who can transgress the limitations of his being? I hold that complete
realization is impossible in this embodied life. Nor is it necessary. A living
immovable faith is all that is required for reaching the full spiritual height
attainable by human beings. God is not outside this earthly case of ours.
Therefore, exterior proof is not of much avail, if any at all. We must ever
fail to perceive Him through the senses, because He is beyond them. We can feel
Him, if we will but withdraw ourselves from the senses. The divine music
is incessantly going on within ourselves, but the loud senses drown the
delicate music, which is unlike an infinitely superior to anything we
can perceive or hear with our senses.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 13-6-1936
\end{flushright}

\par I have seen and believe that God never appears to you in person,
but in action which can only account for your deliverance in your
darkest hour.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 13-6-1936
\end{flushright}

\par My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God
than Truth\ldots The little fleeting glimpses\ldots that I have been able
to have of Truth can hardly convey an idea of the indescribable lustre
of Truth, a million times more intense than that of the sun we daily see
with our eyes. In fact,what I have caught is only the faintest glimmer
of that mighty effulgence. But this much I can say with assurance as a
result of all my experiments, that a perfect vision of Truth can only
follow a complete realization of Ahimsa.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 7-2-1929
\end{flushright}

\par I have no special revelation of God's will. My firm belief is that
He reveals Himself daily to every human being but we shut our ears to
the still small Voice. We shut our eyes to the Pillar of Fire in front
of us. I realize His omnipresence.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 25-5-1921
\end{flushright}

\par Man's ultimate aim is the realization of God, and all his
activities, social, political, religious, have to be guided
by the ultimate aim of the vision of God. The immediate service of all human
beings becomes a necessary part of the endeavour, simply because the only way
to find God is to see Him in his creation and be one with it. This can only be
done by service of all. I am a part and parcel of the whole and I cannot find
Him apart from the rest of humanity. My countrymen are my nearest neighbours.
They have become so helpless, so resourceless, so inert that I must concentrate
myself on serving them. If I could persuade myself that I could find Him in a
Himalayan cave I would proceed there immediately. But I know that I cannot find
Him apart from humanity.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-8-1936
\end{flushright}

\par The impenetrable darkness that surrounds us is not a curse but a blessing.
He has given us power to see only the step in front of us, and it should be
enough if Heavenly light reveals that step to us. We can then sing with Newman,
``One step enough for me''. And we may be sure from our past experience that
the next step will always be in view. In other words, the impenetrable darkness
is nothing so impenetrable as we imagine. But it seems impenetrable when, in
our impatience, we want to look beyond that one step.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 20-4-1934
\end{flushright}

\par I am surer of His existence than of the fact that you and I are sitting in
this room. Then I can also testify that I may live without air and water but
not without Him. You may pluck out my eyes, but that cannot kill me. You may
chop off my nose, but that will not kill me. But blast my belief in God, and I
am dead. You may call this a superstition, but I confess it is a superstition
that I hug, even as I used to do the name of Rama in my childhood when there
was any cause of danger or alarm. That was what an old nurse had taught me.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 14-5-1938
\end{flushright}

\par God is the hardest taskmaster I have known on earth, and he
tries you through and through. And when you find that your faith is
failing or your body is failing you, are sinking, He comes to your
assistance somehow or other and proves to you that you must not lose
faith and that He is always at your beck and call, but on His terms,
not on your terms. So I have found. I cannot recall a single
instance when, at the eleventh hour, He has forsaken me.

\begin{flushright}
Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (1933), p. 1069
\end{flushright}

\chapter[The Path of Ahimsa]{The Path of Ahimsa}

\par The path of Truth is the narrow as it is straight. Even so is
that of Ahimsa. It is like balancing oneself on the edge of a sword.
By concentration an acrobat can walk on a rope. But the
concentration required to tread the path of Truth and Ahimsa is far
greater. The slightest inattention brings one tumbling to the
ground. One can realize Truth and Ahimsa only by ceaseless striving.
\ldots

\par Ahimsa is not the crude thing it has been made to appear. Not to
hurt any living things is no doubt a part of Ahimsa. But it is its
least expression. The principle of Ahimsa is hurt by every evil
thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill to
anybody. It is also violated by our holding on to what the world
needs. But the world needs even what we eat day by day. In the place
where we stand there are millions of a micro-organisms to whom the
place belongs, and who are hurt by our presence there. What should
we do then? Should we commit suicide? Even that is no solution, if
we believe, as we do, that so long as the spirit is attached to the
flesh, on every destruction of body it weaves for itself another.
The body will cease to be only when we give up all attachment to it. This
freedom from all attachment is the realization of God as Truth. Such
realization cannot be attained in a hurry. The body does not belong
to us. While it lasts we must use it as a trust handed over to our
charge. Treating in this way the things of the flesh, we may one day
expect to become free from the burden of the body. Realizing the
limitations of the flesh, we must strive day by day towards the
ideal with what strength we have in us.

\par It is perhaps clear from the foregoing, that without Ahimsa it
is not possible to seek and find Truth.

\par Ahimsa and Truth are so interwined that it is practically
impossible to disentangle and separate them. They are like the two
sides of a coin, or rather of a smooth unstamped metallic disc. Who
can say, which is the obverse, and which is the reverse?
Nevertheless, Ahimsa is the means; Truth is the end. Means to be
means must always be within our reach, and so Ahimsa is our supreme
duty. If we take care of the means, we are bound to reach the end
sooner or later. When once we have grasped this point, final victory
is beyond question. Whatever difficulties we encounter, whatever
apparent reverses we sustain, we may not give up the quest for Truth
which alone is, being God Himself.

\begin{flushright}
From Yeravda Mandir, Chapter II
\end{flushright}

\par Non-violence is an active force of the highest order. It is
soul-free or the power of Godhead within us. Imperfect man cannot
grasp the whole of that essence --- he would not be able to bear its
full blaze, but even an infinitesimal fraction of it, when it
becomes active within us, can work wonders. The sun in the heavens
fills the whole universe with its life-giving warmth. But if one
went too near it, it would consume him to ashes. Even so, it is
with Godhead. We become Godlike to the extent we realize
non-violence, but we can never become wholly God. Non-violence is
like radium in its action. An infinitesimal quantity of it embedded
in a malignant growth, acts continuously, silently and ceaselessly
till it has transformed the whole mass of the diseased tissue into a
healthy one. Similarly, even a little of true non-violence acts in a
silent, subtle, unseen way and leavens the whole society.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 12-11-1938
\end{flushright}

\par Truth without humility should be an arrogant caricature. He who
wants to practise truth knows how hard it is. The world may applaud
his so-called triumphs. Little does the world know his falls. A
truthful man is a chastened being. He has need to be humble. A man
who wants to love the whole world including one who calls himself
his enemy knows how impossible it is to do so in his own strength.
He must be as mere dust before he can understand the elements of
Ahimsa. He is nothing if he does not daily grow in humility as he
grows in love\ldots And no one can see God face to face who has
aught of the I in him. He must become a cypher if he would see God.
Who shall dare say in this storm-tossed universe, ``I have won''?
God triumphs in us, never we\ldots What is true of the physical
world is true of the spiritual. If in order to gain a worldly
battle, Europe sacrificed several million lives during the late war,
itself a transitory event, what wonder that in the spiritual battle
millions have to perish in the attempt so that one complete example
may be left to the world?

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 25-6-1925
\end{flushright}

\par Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man. Destruction is not the law of the humans. Man lives
freely by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never
by killing him. Every murder or injury, no matter for what cause, committed or
inflicted on another is a crime against humanity.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 20-7-1935
\end{flushright}

\par The virtues of mercy, non-violence, love and truth in any man
can be truly tested only when they are pitted against ruthlessness,
violence, hate and untruth.

\par If this is true, then it is incorrect to say that Ahimsa is of
no avail before a murderer. It can certainly be said that to
experiment with Ahimsa in face of a murderer is to seek
self-destruction. But this is the real test of Ahimsa. He who gets
himself killed out of sheer helplessness, however, can in no wise be
said to have passed the test. He who when being killed bears no
anger against this murderer and even asks God to forgive him is
truly non-violent. History relates this of Jesus Christ. With his
dying breath on his cross, he is reported to have said:
``Father,forgive them for they know not what they do.'' We can get
similar instances from other religions but the quotation is given
because it is world famous.

\par It is another matter that our non-violence has not reached such
heights. It would be wholly wrong for us to lower the standard of
Ahimsa by reason of our own fault or lack of experience. Without
true understanding of the ideal, we can never hope to reach it. It
is necessary for us, therefore, to apply our reason to understand
the power of non-violence.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 28-4-1946
\end{flushright}

\par Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle. We are helpless mortals
caught in the conflagration of Himsa. The saying
that life lives on life has a deep meaning in it. Man cannot for a
moment live without consciously or unconsciously committing outward
Himsa. The very fact of his living --- eating, drinking and moving about
--- necessarily involves some Himsa, destruction of life, be it ever so
minute. A votary of Ahimsa therefore remains true to his faith if
the spring of all his actions is compassion, if he shuns to the best
of his ability the destruction of the tiniest creature, tries to
save it, and thus incessantly strives to be free from the deadly
coil of Himsa. He will be constantly growing in self-restraint and
compassion, but he can never become entirely free from outward
Himsa.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), pp. 427-28
\end{flushright}

\par Then again, because underlying Ahimsa is the unity of all life,
the error of one cannot but affect all, and hence man cannot be
wholly free from Himsa. So long as he continues to be a social
being, he cannot but participate in the Himsa that the very
existence of society involves. When two nations are fighting, the
duty of a votary of Ahimsa is to stop the war. He who is not equal
to that duty, he who has no power of resisting war, he who is not
qualified to resist war, may take part in war, and yet
whole-heartedly try to free himself, his nation and the world from
war.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), p. 428
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Prayer, the Essence of Religion]{Prayer, the Essence of Religion}

\par I believe that prayer is the very soul and essence of religion,
and therefore prayer must be the very core of the life of man, for
no man can live without religion. There
are some who in the egotism of their reason declare that they have
nothing to do with religion. But it is like a man saying that he
breathes but that he has no nose. Whether by reason, or by instinct,
or by superstition, man acknowledges some sort of relationship with
the divine. The rankest agnostic or atheist does acknowledge the
need of a moral principle, and associates something good with its
observance and something bad with its non-observance. Bradlaugh,
whose atheism is well known, always insisted on proclaiming his
innermost conviction. He had to suffer a lot for thus speaking the
truth, but he delighted in it and said that truth is its own reward.
Not that he was quite insensible to the joy resulting from the
observance of truth. This joy however is not all worldly, but
springs out of communion with the divine. That is why I have said
that even a man who disowns religion cannot and does not live
without religion.

\par Now I come to the next thing, viz. that prayer is the very core
of man's life, as it is the most vital part of religion. Prayer is
either petitional or in its wider sense is inward communion. In
either case the ultimate result is the same. Even when it is
petitional, the petition should be for the cleansing and
purification of the soul, for freeing it from the layers of
ignorance and darkness that envelop it. He therefore who hungers for
the awakening of the divine in him must fall back on prayer. But
prayer is no mere exercise of words or of the ears, it is no mere
repetition of empty formula. Any amount of repetition of Ramanama is
futile if it fails to stir the soul. It is better in prayer to have
a heart without words than words without a heart. It must be in
clear response to the spirit which hungers for it. And even as a
hungry man relishes a hearty meal, a hungry soul will relish a
heartfelt prayer. And I am giving you a bit of my experience and
that of my companions when I say that he who has experienced the magic of
prayer may do without food for days together but not a single moment
without prayer. For without prayer there is no inward peace.

\par If that is the case, someone will say, we should be offering our
prayers every minute of our lives. There is no doubt about it, but
we erring mortals, who find it difficult to retire within ourselves
for inward communion even for a single moment, will find it
impossible to remain perpetually in communion with the divine. We
therefore fix some hours when we make a serious effort to throw off
the attachments of the world for a while, we make a serious
endeavour to remain, so to say, out of the flesh. You have heard
Surdas's hymn. It is the passionate cry of a soul hungering for
union with the divine. According to our standards he was a saint,
but according to his own he was a proclaimed sinner. Spiritually he
was miles ahead of us, but he felt the separation from the divine so
keenly that he has uttered that anguished cry\footnote{Texte in Hindi; ``Who is
so corrupt, wicked and lustful as I!''} in lothing and despair.

\par I have talked of the necessity for prayer, and there-through I
have dealt with the essence of prayer. We are born to serve our
fellowmen, and we cannot properly do so unless we are wide awake.
There is an eternal struggle raging in man's breast between the
powers of darkness and of light, and he who has not the sheet-anchor
of prayer to rely upon will be a victim to the powers of darkness.
The man of prayer will be at peace with himself and with the whole
world; the man who goes about the affairs of the world without a
prayerful heart will be miserable and will make the world also
miserable. Apart therefore from its bearing on man's condition
after death, prayer has incalculable value for man in this world of the living.
Prayer is the only means of bringing about orderliness and peace and repose in
our daily acts. Take care of the vital thing and other things will take
care of themselves. Rectify one angle of a square, and the other
angles will be automatically right.

\par Begin therefore your day with prayer, and make it so soulful
that it may remain with you until the evening. Close the day with
prayer so that you may have a peaceful night free from dreams and
nightmares. Do not worry about the form of prayer. Let it be any
form, it should be such as can put us into communion with the
divine. Only, whatever be the form, let not the spirit wander while
the words of prayer run on out of your mouth.

\par All things in the universe, including the sun and the moon and
the stars, obey certain laws. Without the restraining influence of
these laws the world would not go on for a single moment. You, whose
mission in life is service of your fellowmen, will go to pieces if
you do not impose on yourselves some sort of discipline, and prayer
is a necessary spiritual discipline. It is discipline and restraint
that separates us from the brute. If we will be men walking with our
heads erect and not walking on all fours, let us understand and put
ourselves under voluntary discipline and restraint.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 23-1-1930
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Why Pray?]{Why Pray?}

\par Why pray at all? Does not God, if there be One know what has
happened? Does He stand in need of prayer to enable Him to do His
duty?

\par No, God needs no reminder. He is within every one. Nothing
happens without His permission. Our prayer is a heart search. It is
a reminder to ourselves that we are helpless without His support. No
effort is complete without prayer,? without a definite recogintion
that the best human endeavour is of no effect if it has not God's
blessing behind it. Prayer is a call to humility. It is a call to
self purification, to inward search.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 8-6-1935
\end{flushright}

\par In my opinion, Rama, Rahaman, Ahurmazda, God or Krishna are all
attempts on the part of man to name that invisible force which is
the greatest of all forces. It is inherent in man, imperfect though
he be, ceaselessly to strive after perfection. In the attempt he
falls into reverie. And, just as a child tries to stand, falls down
again and again and ultimately learns how to walk, even so man, with
all his intelligence, is a mere infant as compared to the infinite
and ageless God. This may appear to be an exaggeration but is not.
Man can only describe God in his own poor language. The power we
call God defies description. Nor does that power stand in need of
any human effort to describe Him. It is man who requires the means
whereby he can descrive that power which is vaster than the ocean.
If this premise is accepted, there is no need to ask why we pray.
Man can only conceive God within the limitations of his own mind. If
God is vast and boundless as the ocean, how can a tiny drop like man
imagine what He is? He can only experience what the ocean is like,
if he falls into and is merged in it. This realiza-tion is beyond
description. In Madame Blavatsky's language man, in praying,
worships his own glorified self. He can truly pray, who has the
conviction that God is within him. He who has not, need not pray.
God will not be offended, but I can say from
experience that he who does not pray is certainly a loser. What matters
then whether one man worships God as a Person and another as Force? Both
do right according to their lights. Non knows and perhaps never will know
what is the absolutely proper way to pray. The ideal must always remain
the ideal. One need only remember that God is the Force among all the
forces. All other forces are material. But God is the vital force or
spirit which is all-pervading, all-embracing and therefore beyond human
ken.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 18-8-1946
\end{flushright}

\begin{center}
\section{A Dialogue with a Buddhist}
\end{center}

\par Dr. Fabri, a follower of Buddha, called on Gandhiji at Abbottabad,
and enquired:

\par ``Could the Divine Mind be changed by prayer? Could one find it out by
prayer?''

\par ``It is a difficult thing to explain fully what I do when I pray,''
said Gandhiji. ``But I must try to answer your question. The Divine Mind
is unchangeable, but that Divinity is in everyone and everything --- animate
and inanimate. The meaning of prayer is that I want to evoke that
Divinity within me. Now I may have that intellectual conviction, but not
a living touch. And so when I pray for Swaraj or Independence for India I
pray or wish for adequate power to gain that Swaraj or to make the
largest contribution I can towards winning it, and I maintain that I can
get that power in answer to prayer.''

\par ``Then you are not justified in calling it prayer; to pray means to
beg or demand,'' said Dr. Fabri.

\par ``Yes, indeed. You may say I beg it of myself, of my Higher self, the
Real self, the Real self with which I have not yet achieved complete
identification. You may, therefore, describe it as a continual longing to lose
oneself in the Divinity which comprises all.''

\par ``What about the people who cannot pray?'' asked Dr. Fabri.

\par ``Be humble,'' said Gandhiji, ``I would say to them, and do not
limit even the real Buddha by your own conception of Buddha. He
could not have ruled the lives of millions of men that he did and
does today if he was not humble enough to pray. There is something
infinitely higher than intellect that rules us and even the
sceptics. Their scepticism and philosophy does not help them in
critical periods of their lives. They need something better,
something outside them that can sustain them. And so if someone puts
a conundrum before me, I say to him, ``You are not going to know the
meaning of God or prayer unless you reduce yourself to a cipher. You
must be humble enough to see that in spite of your greatness and
gigantic intellect you are but a speck in the universe. A merely
intellectual conception of the things of life is not enough. It is
the spiritual conception which eludes the intellect, and which alone
can give one satisfaction. Even moneyed men have critical periods in
their lives. Though they are surrounded by everything that money can
buy and affection can give, they find themselves at certain moments
in their lives utterly distracted. It is in these moments that we
have a glimpse of God, a vision of Him who is guiding every one of
our steps in life. It is prayer.''

\par ``You mean what we might call a true religious experience which
is stronger than intellectual conception,'' said Dr. Fabri. ``Twice in
life I had that experience, but I have since lost it. But I now find
great comfort in one or two sayings of Buddha: ``Selfishness is the
cause of sorrow'', and ``Remember, monks, everything is fleeting''.
To think of these takes almost the place of belief.''

\par ``That is prayer,'' repeated Gandhiji with an insistence that
could not but have gone home.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 19-8-1939
\end{flushright}

\chapter[How, to whom and when to pray]{How, to whom and when to pray}

\par ``Often, Sir, do you ask us to worship God, to pray but never
tell us how to and to whom to do so. Will you kindly enlighten me?''
asks a reader of the Navajivan. Worshipping God is singing the
praise of God. Prayer is a confession of one's unworthiness and
weakness. God has a thousand names, or rather, He is Nameless. We
may worship or pray to Him by whichever name that pleases us. Some
call Him Rama, some Krishna, others call Him Rahim, and yet others
call Him God. All worship the same spirit, but as all foods do not
agree with all, all names do not appeal to all. Each chooses the
name according to his associations, and He being the In-Dweller,
All-Powerful and Omniscient knows our innermost feelings and
responds to us according to our deserts.

\par Worship or prayer, therefore, is not to be performed with the
lips, but with the heart. And that is why it can be performed
equally by the dumb and the stammerer, by the ignorant and the
stupid. And the prayers of those whose tongues are nectared but
whose hearts are full of poison are never heard. He, therefore, who
would pray to God, must cleanse his heart. Rama was not only on the
lips of Hanuman, He was enthroned in his heart. He gave Hanuman
exhaustless strength. In His strength he lifted the mountain and
crossed the ocean. It is faith that steers us through stormy seas,
faith that moves mountains and faith that jumps across the ocean.
That faith is nothing but a living, wideawake consciousness of God within. He
who has achieved that faith wants nothing. Bodily diseased he is spiritually
healthy, physically pure, he rolls in spiritual riches.

\par ``But how is the heart to be cleansed to this extent?'' one
might well ask. The language of the lips is easily taught; but who
can teach the language of the heart? Only the bhakta --- the true
devotee --- knows it and can teach it. The Gita has defined the bhakta
in three places and talked of him generally everywhere. But a
knowledge of the definition of a bhakta is hardly a sufficient
guide. They are rare on this earth. I have therefore suggested the
Religion of Service as the means. God of Himself seeks for His seat
the heart of him who serves his fellowmen. That is why Narasinha
Mehta who ``saw and knew'' sang ``He is a true Vaishnava who knows
to melt at other's woe.'' Such was Abu Ben Adhem. He served his
fellowmen, and therefore his name topped the list of those who
served God.

\par But who are the suffering and the woebegone? The suppressed and
the poverty-stricken. He who would be a bhakta, therefore, must
serve these by body, soul and mind. How can he who regards the
``suppressed'' classes as untouchables serve them by the body? He
who does not even condescend to exert his body to the extent of
spinning for the sake of the poor, and trots out lame excuses, does
not know the meaning of service. An able-bodied wretch deserves no
alms, but an appeal to work for his bread. Alms debase him. He who
spins before the poor inviting them to do likewise serves God as no
one else does. ``He who gives Me even a trifle such as a fruit or a
flower or even a leaf in the spirit of bhakti is My servant,'' says
the Lord in the Bhagawadgita. And He hath his footstool where live
the humble, the lowliest and the lost.'' Spinning, therefore, for
such is the greatest prayer, the greatest worship, the greatest
sacrifice.

\par Prayer, therefore, may be done by any name. A prayerful heart is
the vehicle and service makes the heart prayerful. Those Hindus who
in this age serve the untouchables from a full heart truly pray; the
Hindus and those others who spin prayerfully for the poor and the
indigent truly pray.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-9-1925
\end{flushright}

\par There can be no fixed rule laid down as to the time these
devotional acts should take. It depends upon individual temperament.
These are precious moments in one's daily life. The exercises are
intended to sober and humble us and enable us to realize that
nothing happens without His will and that we are but ``clay in the
hands of the Potter''. These are moments when one reviews one's
immediate past, confess one's weaknesses, asks for forgiveness and
strength to be and do better. One minute may enough for some,
twenty-four hours may be too little for others. For those who are
filled with the presence of God in them, to labour is to pray. Their
life is one continuous prayer or act of worship. For those others
who act only to sin, to indulge themselves, and live for self, no
time is too much. If they had patience and faith and the will to be
pure, they would pray till they feel the definite purifying presence
of God within them. For us ordinary mortals there must be a middle
path between these two extremes. We are not so exalted as to be able
to say that all our acts are a dedication, nor perhaps are we so far
gone as to be living purely for self. Hence have all religions set
apart times for general devotion. Unfortunately these have
now-a-days become merely mechanical and formal, where they are not
hypocritical. What is necessary is the correct attitude to accompany
these devotions.

\par For definite personal prayer in the sense of asking God for
something, it should certainly be in one's own tongue. Nothing can be grander
than to ask God to make us act justily towards every-thing that lives.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 10-6-1926
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Fasts]{Fasts}

\par A genuine fast cleanses body, mind and soul. It crucifies the
flesh and to that extent sets the soul free. A sincere prayer can
work wonders. It is an intense longing of the soul for its even
greater purity. Purity thus gained when it is utilized for a noble
purpose becomes a prayer. The mundane use of the Gayatri, its
repetition for healing the sick, illustrates the meaning we have
given to prayer. When the same Gayatri japa is performed with a
humble and concentrated mind in an intelligent manner in times of
national difficulties and calamities, it becomes a most potent
instrument for warding off danger. There can be no greater mistake
than to suppose that the recitation of the Gayatri, the Namaz or
Christian prayer are superstitions fit to be practised by the
ignorant and the credulous. Fasting and prayer therefore are a most
powerful process of purification and that which purifies necessarily
enable us the better to do our duty and to attain our goal. If
therefore fasting and prayer seem at times not to answer, it is not
because there is nothing in them but because the right spirit is not
behind them.

\par A man who fasts and gambles away the whole of the day as do so
many on Janmasthami day, naturally, not only obtains no result from
the fast in the shape of greater purity but such a dissolute fast
leaves him on the contrary degraded. A fast to be true must be
accompanied by rediness to receive pure thoughts and determination to resist
all Satan's temptations. Similarly a prayer to be true has to be
intelligible and definite. One has to identify oneself with it.
Counting beads with the name of Allah on one's lips whilst the mind
wanders in all directions is worse than useless.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-3-1920
\end{flushright}

\par Of course, it is not to be denied that fasts can be really
coercive. Such are fasts to attain a selfish object. A fast
undertaken to wring money from a person or for fulfilling some such
personal end would amount to the exercise of coercion or undue
influence. I would unhesitatingly advocate resistence of such undue
influence. I have myself successfully resisted it in the fasts that
have been under-taken or threatened against me. And if it is argued
that the dividing line between a selfish and an unselfish end is
often very thin, I would urge that a person who regards the end of a
fast to be selfish or otherwise base should resolutely refuse to
yield to it,even though the refusal may result in the death of the
fasting person. If people will cultivate the habit of disregarding
fasts which in their opinion are taken for unworthy ends, such fasts
will be robbed of the taint of coercion and undue influence. Like
all human institutions, fasting can be both legitimately and
illegitimately used. But as a great weapon in the armoury of
Satyagraha,it cannot be given up because of its possible abuse.
Satyagraha has been designated as an effective substitute for
violence. This use is in its infancy and, therefore, not yet
perfected. But as the author of modern Satyagraha I cannot give up
any of its manifold uses without forfeiting my claim to handle it in
the spirit of a humble seeker.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 9-9-1933
\end{flushright}

\begin{center}
\section{Christian Objections}
\end{center}

\par [With reference to a letter from C. F. Andrews expressing moral
repulsion amongst Christians in England against ``fasting unto
death'', Gandhiji wrote:]

\par Hindu religious literature is replete with instances of fasting,
and thousands of Hindus fast even today on the slightest pretext. It
is the one thing that does the least harm. There is no doubt that,
like everything that is good, fasts are abused. That is inevitable.
One cannot forbear to do good, because sometimes evil is done under
its cover.

\par My real difficulty is with my Christian Protestant friends, of
whom I have so many and whose friendship I value beyond measure. Let
me confess to them that, though from my very first contact with them
I have known their dislike for fasts, I have never been able to
understand it.

\par Mortification of the flesh has been held all the world over as a
condition of spiritual progress. There is no prayer without fasting,
taking fasting in its widest sense. A complete fast is a complete
and literal denial of self. It is the truest prayer. ``Take my life
and let it be always, only, all for Thee'' is not, should not be, a
mere lip or figurative expression. It has to be a reckless and
joyous giving without the least reservation. Abstention from food
and even water is but the mere beginning, the least part of the
surrender.

\par Whilst I was putting together my thoughts for this article, a
pamphlet written by Christians came into my hands wherein was a
chapter on the necessity of example rather than precept. In this
occurs a quotation from the 3rd Chapter of Jonah. The prophet had
foretold that Nineveh, the great city, was to be destroyed on the
fortieth day of his entering it:

\begin{quote}
\par ``So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on
sack-cloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came
unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his from his throne, and he laid
his robe from him, and covered him with sack-cloth, and sat in ashes. And he
caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the
king and the nobles saying, ``Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste
anything; let them not feed, nor drink water. But let man and beast be covered
with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from
his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God
will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented
of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.''
\end{quote}

\par Thus this was a ``fast unto death''. But every fast unto death is not
suicide. This fast of the king and the people of Nineveh was a great and humble
prayer to God for deliverance. It was to be either deliverance or death. Even
so was my fast, if I may compare it to the Biblical fast. This chapter from the
book of Jonah reads like an incident in the Ramayana.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 15-4-1933
\end{flushright}

\chapter[The Eternal Duel]{The Eternal Duel}

\par Man's destined purpose is to conquer old habits, to overcome the evil in
him and to restore good to its rightful place. If religion does not teach us
how to achieve this conquest, it teaches us nothing. But there is no royal road
to success in this the truest enterprise in life. Cowardice is
perhaps the greatest vice from which we suffer and is also possibly
the greatest violence, certainly for greater than bloodshed and the
like that generally go under the name of violence. For it comes from
want of faith in God and ignorance of His attributes\ldots But I can
give my own testimony and say that a heartfelt prayer is undoubtedly
the most potent instrument that man possesses for overcoming
cowardice and all other bad old habits. Prayer is an impossibility
without a living faith in the presence of God within.

\par Christianity and Islam describe the same process as a duel
between God and Satan, not outside but within; Zoroastrianism as a
duel between Ahurmazd and Ahriman; Hinduism is a duel between
forces of good and forces of evil. We have to make our choice
whether we should ally ourselves with the forces of evil or with the
forces of good. And to pray to God is nothing but that sacred
alliance between God and man whereby he attains his deliverance from
the clutches of the prince of darkness. But a heartfelt prayer is
not a recitation with the lips. It is a yearning from within which
expresses itself in every word, every act, nay, every thought of
man. When an evil thought successfully assails him, he may know that
he has offered but a lip prayer and similarly with regard to an evil
word escaping his lips or an evil act done by him. Real prayer is an
absolute shield and protection against this trinity of evils.
Success does not always attend the very first effort at such real
living prayer. We have to strive against ourselves, we have to
believe in spite of ourselves, because months are as our years. We
have therefore to cultivate illimitable patience if we will realize
the efficacy of prayer. There will be darkness, disappointment and even worse;
but we must have courage enough to battle against all these and not succumb to
cowardice. There is no such thing as retreat for a man of prayer.

\par What I am relating is not a fairy tale. I have not drawn an imaginary
picture. I have summed up the testimony of men who have by prayer conquered
every difficulty in their upward progress, and I have added my own humble
testimony that the more I live the more I realize how much I owe to faith and
prayer which is one and the same thing for me. And I am quoting an experience
not limited to a few hours, or days or weeks, but extending over an unbroken
period of nearly 40 years. I have had my share of disappointments, uttermost
darkness, counsels of despair, counsels of caution, subtlest assaults of pride,
but I am able to say that my faith,?and I know that it is still little enough,
by no means as great as I want is to be, --- has ultimately conquered every one
of these difficulties up to now. If we have faith in us, if we have a prayerful
heart, we may not tempt God, may not make terms with Him\ldots Not until we have
reduced ourselves to nothingness can we conquer the evil in us. God demands
nothing less than complete self-surrender as the price for the only real
freedom that is worth having. And when a man thus loses himself, he immediately
finds himself in the service of all that lives. It becomes his delight and his
recreation. He is a new man never weary of spending himself in the service of
God's creation.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-12-1928
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Self-Purification]{Self-Purification}

\par Love and Ahimsa are matchless in their effect. But, in their play there is
no fuss, show, noise or placards. They presuppose self-confidence which in its
turn presupposes self-purification. Men of stainless character and
self-purification will easily inspire confidence and automatically purify the
atmosphere around them.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 6-9-1928
\end{flushright}

\par 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 of heart. Self-purification, therefore, must
mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being
highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the
purification of one's surroundings.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography, 1948; p.615
\end{flushright}

\par But the path of 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. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very
often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be
harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography, (1948); p. 616
\end{flushright}

\par Never own defeat in a sacred cause and make up your minds
henceforth that you will be pure and that you will find a response
from God. But God never answers the prayers of the arrogant, nor the
prayers of those who bargain with Him\ldots If you would ask Him to
help you, you would go to Him in all your nakedness, approach Him
without reservation, also without fear or doubts as to how He can
help a fallen being like you. He who helped millions
who have approached Him, is He going to desert you? He makes no
exceptions whatsoever and you will find that every one of your
prayers will be answered. The prayer of even the most impure will be
answered. I am telling you this out of my personal experience, I
have gone through the purgatory. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven
and everything will be added unto you.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 4-4-1929
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Value of Silence]{Value of Silence}

\par It has often occurred to me that a seeker after truth has to be
silent. I know the wonderful efficacy of silence. I visited a
Trappist monastery in South Africa. A beautiful place it was. Most
of the inmates of that place were under a vow of silence. I inquired
of the Father the motive of it and he said the motive is apparent:
``We are frail human beings. We do not know very often what we say.
If we want to listen to the still small Voice that is always
speaking within us, it will not be heard if we continually speak.''
I understood that precious lesson. I know the secret of silence.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 6-8-1925
\end{flushright}

\par Experience has taught me that silence is a part of the
spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate,
to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a
natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to
surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his
speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people
impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not
pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is
given the speaker generally exceeds the time limit, asks for more time, and
keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be
said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), p. 84
\end{flushright}

\par When one comes to think of it one cannot help feeling that
nearly half the misery of the world would disappear if we, fretting
mortals, knew the virtue of silence. Before modern civilization came
upon us, at least six to eight hours of silence out of twenty-four
were vouchsafed to us. Modern civilization has taught us to convert
night into day and golden silence into brazen din and noise. What a
great thing it would be if we in our busy lives could retire into
ourselves each day for at least a couple of hours and prepare our
minds to listen in to the Voice of the Great Silence. The Divine
Radio is always singing if we could only make ourselves ready to
listen to it, but it is impossible to listen without silence. St
Theresa has used a charming image to sum up the sweet result of
silence:

\begin{quote}
\par ``You will at once feel your senses gather themselves together; they seem
like bees which return to the hive and there shut themselves up to work without
effort or care on your part. God thus rewards the violence which your soul has
been doing to itself; and gives to it such a domination over the senses that a
sign is enough when it desires to recollect itself, for them to obey and so
gather themselves together. At the first call of the will they come back more
and more quickly. At last after many and many exercises of this kind God
disposes them to a state of absolute repose and of perfect contemplation.''
\end{quote}

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 24-9-1938
\end{flushright}

\par It (silence) has now become both a physical and spiritual
necessity for me. Originally it was taken to relieve the sense of
pressure. Then I wanted time for writing. After, however, I had
practised it for some time, I saw the spiritual value of it. It
suddenly flashed across my mind that that was the time when I could
best hold communion with God. And now I feel as though I was
naturally built for silence.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 10-12-1938
\end{flushright}

\par Silence is a great help to a seeker after truth like myself. In
the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light,
and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal
clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth, and the
soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 10-12-1938
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Equality of Religions]{Equality of Religions}

\par Religions are different roads converging to the same point.
What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as we
reach the same goal? In reality, there are as many religions as
there are individuals.

\begin{flushright}
Hind Swaraj (1946), p. 36
\end{flushright}

\par I believe that all the great religions of the world are true
more or less. I say ``more or less'' because I believe that every
thing that the human hand touches, by reason of the very fact that
human beings are imperfect, becomes imperfect. Perfection is the
exclusive attribute of God and it is undescribable, untranslatable
do believe that it is possible for every human being to become
perfect even as God is perfect. It is necessary for us all to aspire after
perfection, but when that blessed state is attained, it becomes
indescribable; indefinable. And, I, therefore, admit, in all
humility, that even the Vedas, the Koran and the Bible are imperfect
word of God and, imperfect beings that we are, swayed to and fro by
a multitude of passions, it is impossible for us even to understand
this word of God in its fulness.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 22-9-1927
\end{flushright}

\par Belief in one God is the corner-stone of all religions. But I
do not foresee a time when there would be only one religion on earth
in practice. In theory, since there is one God, there can be only
one religion. But in practice, no two persons I have known have had
the same identical conception of God. Therefore, there will,
perhaps, always be different religions answering to different
temperaments and climatic conditions.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 2-2-1934
\end{flushright}

\par The need of the moment is not one religion, but mutual respect
and tolerance of the devotees of the different religions. We want to
reach not the dead level, but unity in diversity. Any attempt to
root out traditions, effects of heredity, climate and other
surroundings is not only bound to fail but is a sacrilege. The soul
of religions is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms. The
latter will persist to the end of time. Wise men will ignore the
outward crust and see the same soul living under a variety of
crusts.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 25-9-1925
\end{flushright}

\par There is in Hinduism room enough for Jesus, as there is for
Mohammed, Zoroaster and Moses. For me the different religions are
beautiful flowers from the same garden, or they are branches of the
same majestic tree. Therefore they are equally true, though being received and
interpreted through human instruments equally imperfect. It is impossible for
me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on
in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the
greatest impediment to the world's progress towards peace. ``Warring
creeds'' is a blasphemous expression. And it fitly describes the state
of things in India, the mother, as I believe her to be, of Religion or
religions. If she is truly the mother, the motherhood is on trial. Why
should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity and vice
versa? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly
man? If the morals of a man are a matter of no concern, the form of
worship in a particular manner in a church, a mosque or a temple is an
empty formula; it may even be a hindrance to individual or social
growth, and insistence on a particular form or repetition of a credo
may be a potent cause of violent quarrels leading to bloodshed and
ending in utter disbelief in Religion, i.e. God Himself.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 30-1-1937
\end{flushright}

\par But it is no business of mine to criticize the scriptures of other
faiths, or to point out their defects. It is and should be, however, my
privilege to proclaim and practise the truths that there may be in
them. I may not, therefore, criticize or condemn things in the Koran or
the life of the Prophet that I cannot understand. But I welcome every
opportunity to express my admiration for such aspects of his life as I
have been able to appreciate and understand. As for things that present
difficulties, I am content to see them through the eyes of devout
Musulman friends, while I try to understand them with the help of the
writings of eminent Muslim expounders of Islam. It is only through such
a reverential approach to faith other than mine that I can realize the
principle of equality of all religions. But it is both my right and duty to
point out the defects in Hinduism in order to purify it and to keep it pure.
But when non-Hindu critics set about criticizing Hinduism and cataloguing its
faults they only blazon their own ignorance of Hinduism and their incapacity to
regard it from the Hindu view-point. It destorts their vision and vitiates
their judgment. Thus my own experience of the non-Hindu critics of Hinduism
brings home to me my limitations and teaches me to be wary of launching on a
criticism of Islam or Christianity and their founders.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 13-3-1937
\end{flushright}

\par The Allah of Islam is the same as the God of Christians and the
Ishwara of Hindus. Even as there are numerous names of God in
Hinduism, there are as many names of God in Islam. The names do not
indicate individuality but attributes, and little man has tried in
his humble way to describe mighty God by giving Him attributes,
though He is above all attributes, Indescribable, Inconceivable,
Immeasurable. Living faith in this God means acceptance of the
brotherhood of the mankind. It also means equal respect for all
religions.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 14-5-1938
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Tolerance]{Tolerance}

\par I do not like the word tolerance, but could not think of a
better one. Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption of the inferiority of
other faiths to one's own, whereas Ahimsa teaches us to entertain the same
respect for the religious faiths of others as we accord to our own, thus
admitting the imperfection of the latter. This admission will readily be made
by a seeker of Truth who follows the law of love. If we had attained the full
vision of Truth, we would no longer be seekers, but become one with God, for
Truth is God. But being only seekers, we prosecute our quest and are conscious
of our imperfection. And if we are imperfect ourselves, religion as conceived
by us must also be imperfect. We have not realized religion in its perfection,
even as we have not realized God. Religion of our conception, thus imperfect,
is always subject to a process of evolution and re-interpretation. Progress
towards Truth, towards God, is possible only because of such evolution. And if
all faiths outlined by men are imperfect, the question of comparative merit
does not arise. All faiths constitute a revelation of Truth, but all are
imperfect and liable to error. Reverence to other faiths need not blind us to
their faults. We must be keenly alive to the defects of our own faith, and
must not leave it on that account but try to overcome those defects. Looking
at all religions with an equal eye, we would not only not hesitate but would
think it our duty to adopt into our faith every acceptable feature of other
faiths.

\par The question then arises. Why should there be so many faiths? We know
that there are a large variety of them. The soul is one, but the bodies which
she animates are many. We cannot reduce the number of bodies; yet we recognize
the unity of the soul. Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches
and leaves, there is one Religion, but any number of faiths. All faiths are a
gift of God, but partake of human imperfection, as they pass through the
medium of humanity. God-given religion is beyond all speech. Imperfect men put
it into such language as they can command, and their words are interpreted by
other men equally imperfect. Whose interpretation must be held
to be the right one? Every one is right from his own standpoint,
but it is not impossible that every one is wrong. Hence the
necessity for tolerance, which does not mean indifference towards
one's own faith, but a more intelligent and purer love for it.
Tolerance gives us spiritual insight, which is as far from
fanaticism as the north pole is from the south. True knowledge of
religion breaks down the barriers between faith and faith and gives
rise to tolerance. Cultivation of tolerance for other faiths will
impart to us a truer understanding of our own.

\par Tolerance obviously does not disturb the distinction between
right and wrong, or good and evil. The reference here throughout has
been to the principal faiths of the world, which are all based on
identical fundamental principles, and which can all point to saintly
men and women who held them in the past and hold them now. In the
case of good and evil, we have to cultivate charity for the wicked
no less than for the good, the sinner no less than the saint, all
the while we cherish inveterate hatred towards wickedness and sin.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, (Bulletin), 2-10-1930
\end{flushright}

\par The golden rule of conduct, therefore, is mutual toleration,
seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall see Truth in
fragment and from different angles of vision. Conscience is not the
same thing for all. Whilst, therefore, it is a good guide for
individual conduct, imposition of that conduct upon all will be an
insufferable interference with everybody's freedom of conscience.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 23-9-1926
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Conversion]{Conversion}

\par [From an address to foreign missionaries:]

\par You, the missionaries, come to India thinking that you come to
a land of heathens, of idolaters, of men who do not know God. One of
the greatest of Christian Divines, Bishop Hebber, wrote the two
lines which have always left the sting with me: ``Where every
prospect pleases, and Man alone is vile''. I wish he had not written
them. My own experience in my travels throughout India has been to
the contrary. I have gone from one end of the country to the other,
without any prejudice in a relentless search after truth, and I am
not able to say that here in this fair land, watered by the great
Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Yamuna, man is vile. He is not vile.
He is as much a seeker after truth as you and I are, possibly more
so. This reminds me of a French book translated for me by a French
friend. It is an account of an imaginary expedition in search of
knowledge. One party landed in India and found Truth and God
personified, in a little Pariah's hut. I tell you there are many
such huts belonging to the untouchables where you will certainly
find God. They do not reason but they persist in the belief that God
is. They depend upon God for His assistance and find it too. There
are many stories told throughout the length and breadth of India
about these noble untouchables. Vile as some of them may be there
are noblest specimens of humanity in their midst. But does my
experience exhaust itself merely with the untouchables? No. I am
here to tell you that there are non-Brahmanas, there are Brahmanas who are as
fine specimens of humanity as you will find in any place on the earth.
There are Brahmanas today in India who are embodiments of
self-sacrifice, godliness and humility. There are Brahmanas who are
devoting themselves body and soul to the service of untouchables,
with no expectation of reward from the untouchables, but with
execration from orthodoxy. They do not mind it because in serving
Pariahs they are serving God. I can quote chapter and verse from my
experience. I place these facts before you in all humility for the
simple reason that you may know this land better, the land to which
you have come to serve. You are here to find out the distress of the
people of India and remove it. But I hope you are here also in a
receptive mood and if there is anything that India has to give, you
will not stop your ears, you will not close your eyes and steel your
hearts but open up your ears and most of all your hearts to receive
all that may be good in this land. I give you my assurance that
there is a great deal of good in India. Do not flatter yourselves
with the belief that a mere recital of that celebrated verse in St.
John makes a man a Christian. If I have read the Bible correctly, I
know many men who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ or have
even rejected the official interpretation of Christianity, who will,
probably, if Jesus came in our midst today in the flesh, be owned by
him more than many of us. I therefore ask you to approach the
problem before you with open-heartedness and humility.

\par I cannot help recalling to you the conversation I related in
Darjeeling at the Missionary Language School. Lord Salisbury was
waited upon by a deputation of missionaries in connection with China
and this deputation wanted protection. I cannot recall the exact
words but give you the purport of the answer Lord Salisbury gave. He
said, ``Gentlemen, if you want to go to China to preach the message of
Christianity, then do not ask for assistance of temporal power. Go with your
lives in your hands and if the people of China want to kill you, imagine that
you have been killed in the service of God.'' Lord Salisbury was right.
Christian missionaries come to India under the shadow, or, if you like, under
the protection of a temporal power, and it creates in impassable bar.

\par If you give me statistics that so many orphans have been reclaimed and
brought to the Christian faith, I would accept them but I do not feel convinced
thereby that it is your mission. In my opinion your mission is infinitely
superior to that. You want to find men in India and if you want to do that, you
have to go to the lowly cottages not to give them something, might be to take
something from them. A true friend as I claim to be of the missionaries of
India and of the Europeans, I speak to you what I feel from the bottom of my
heart. I miss receptiveness, humility, willingness on your part to identify
yourselves with the masses of India. I have talked straight from my heart. May
it find a response from your hearts.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 6-8-1925
\end{flushright}

\par I hold that proselytizing under the clock of humanitarian work is, to say
the least, unhealthy. It is most certainly resented by the people here.
Religion after all is a deeply personal matter, it touches the heart. Why
should I change my religion because a doctor who professes Christianity as his
religion has cured me of some disease or why should the doctor expect or
suggest such a change whilst I am under his influence? Is not medical relief
its own reward and satisfaction? Or why should I whilst I am in a missionary
educational institution have Christian teaching thrust upon me? In my opinion
these are not uplifting and give rise to suspicion if not even secret
hostility. The methods of conversion must be like Caesar's wife above
suspicion. Faith is not imparted like secular subjects. It is given
through the language of the heart. If a man has a living faith in
him, it spreads its aroma like the rose its scent. Because of its
invisibility, the extent of its influence is far wider than that of
the visible beauty of the colour of the petals.

\par I am, then, not against conversion. But I am against the modern
methods of it. Conversion nowadays has become a matter of business,
like any other. I remember having read a missionary report saying
how much it cost per head to convert and then presenting a budget
for ``the next harvest''.

\par Yes, I do maintain that India's great faiths are all-sufficing
for her. Apart from Christianity and Judaism, Hinduism and its
offshoots, Islam and Zoroastrianism are living faiths. No one faith
is perfect. All faiths are equally dear to their respective
votaries. What is wanted therefore is living friendly contact among
the followers of the great religions of the world and not a clash
among them in the fruitless attempt on the part of each community to
show the superiority of its faith over the rest. Through such
friendly contact it will be possible for us all to rid our
respective faiths of shortcomings and excrescences.

\par It follows from what I have said above that India is in no need
of conversion of the kind I have in mind. Conversion in the sense of
self-purification, self-realization is the crying need of the times.
That, however, is not what is ever meant by proselytizing. To those
who would convert India, might it not be said, ``Physician, heal
thyself''?

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 23-4-1931
\end{flushright}

\par When I was a youth I remember a Hindu having become a convert
to Christianity. The whole town understood that the initiation took the shape
of this well-bread Hindu partaking of beef and brandy in the name of Jesus
Christ and discarding his national costume. I learnt in later years, that such
a convert, as so many of my missionary friends put it, came to a life of
freedom out of a life of bondage, to a life of plenty out of one of penury. As
I wander about throughout the length and breadth of India I see many Christian
Indians almost ashamed of their birth, certainly of their ancestral religion,
and of their ancestral dress. The aping of Europeans on the part Anglo-Indians
is bad enough, but the aping of them by Indian converts is a violence done to
their country and, shall I say, even to their new religion. There is a verse in
the New Testament to bid Christians avoid meat if it would offend their
neighbours. Meat here, I presume, includes drink and dress. I can appreciate
uncompromising avoidance of all that is evil in the old, but where there is not
only no question of anything evil but where an ancient practice may be even
desirable, it would be a crime to part with it when one knows for certain that
the giving up would deeply hurt relatives and friends. Conversion must not mean
denationalization.  Conversion should mean a definite giving up of the evil of
the old, adoption of all the good of the new and a scrupulous avoidance of
everything evil in the new. Conversion, therefore, should mean a life of
greater dedication to one's own country, greater surrender to God, greater
self-purification\ldots Is it not truly deplorable that many Christian Indians
discard their own mother-tongue, bring up their children only to speak in
English? Do they not thereby completely cut themselves adrift from the nation
in whose midst they have to live?

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-8-1925
\end{flushright}

\par To live the gospel is the most effective way\ldots most effective in the
beginning, in the middle and in the end. Preaching jars on me and makes no
appeal to me, and I get suspicious of missionaries who preach. But I love those
who never preach but live the life according to their lights. Their lives are
silent, yet most effective, testimonies. Therefore I cannot say what to
preach, but I can say that a life of service and uttermost simplicity is the
best preaching. A rose does not need to preach. It simply spreads
its fragrance. The fragrance is its own sermon. If it had human
understanding and if it could engage a number of preachers, the
preachers would not be able to sell more rose than the fragrance
itself could do. The fragrance of religious and spiritual life is
much finer and subtler than that of the rose.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-3-1935
\end{flushright}

\par I could no more think of asking a Christian or a Musulman or a
Parsi or a Jew to change his faith than I would think of changing my
own. This makes me no more oblivious of the limitations of the
professors of those faiths, than it makes me of the grave
limitations of the professors of mine. And seeing that it takes all
my resources in trying to bring my practice to the level of my faith
and in preaching the same to my co-religionists, I do not dream of
preaching to the followers of other faiths. ``Judge not lest ye be
judged'' is a sound maxim for one's conduct. It is a conviction
daily growing upon me that the great and rich Christian missions
will render true service to India, if they can persuade themselves
to confine their activities to humanitarian service without the
ulterior motive of converting India or at least her unsophisticated
villagers to Christianity, or destroying their social
superstructure, which not withstanding its many defects has stood
now from time immemorial the onslaughts upon it from within and from
without. Whether they? the missionaries --- and we wish it or not, what
is true in the Hindu faith will abide, what is
untrue will fall to pieces. Every living faith must have within itself
the power of rejuvenation if it is to live.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 28-9-1935
\end{flushright}

\begin{center}
\section{Shuddhi and Tabligh}
\end{center}

\par In my opinion there is no such thing as proselytism in Hinduism as
it is understood in Christianity or to a lesser extent in Islam. The
Arya Samaj has, I think, copied the Christians in planning its
propaganda. The modern method does not appeal to me. It has done more
harm than good. Though regarded as a matter of the heart purely and one
between the Maker and oneself, it has degenerated into an appeal to the
selhsh instinct\ldots My Hindu instinct tells me that all religions are
more or less true. All proceed from the same God but all are imperfect
because they have come down to us through imperfect human
instrumentality. The real Shuddhi movement should consist in each one
trying to arrive at perfection in his or her own faith. In such a plan
character should be the only test. What is the use of crossing from one
compartment to another, if it does not mean a moral rise? What is the
meaning of my trying to convert to the service of God (for that must be
the implication of Shuddhi or Tabligh) when those who are in my fold are
everyday denying God by their actions? ``Physician, heal thyself'' is more
true in matters religious than mundane.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 29-5-1924
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Why I am a Hindu]{Why I am a Hindu}

\par Believing as I do in the influence of heredity, being born in a
Hindu family, I have remained a Hindu. I should reject it, if I found it
inconsistent with my moral sense or
my spiritual growth. On examination I have found it to be the most
tolerant of all religions known to me. Its freedom from dogma makes
a forcible appeal to me inasmuch as it gives the votary the largest
scope for self expression. Not being an exclusive religion, it
enables the followers of that faith not merely to respect all the
other religions, but it also enables them to admire and assimilate
whatever may be good in the other faiths. Non-violence is common to
all religions, but it has found the highest expression and
application in Hinduism. (I do not regard Jainism or Buddhism as
separate from Hinduism.) Hinduism believes in the oneness not of
merely all human life but in the oneness of all that lives. Its
worship of the cow is, in my opinion, its unique contribution to the
evolution of humanitarianism. It is a practical application of the
belief in the oneness and, therefore, sacredness, of all life. The
great belief in transmigration is a direct consequence of that
belief. Finally the discovery of the law of Varnashrama is a
magnificent result of the ceaseless search for truth.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-10-1927
\end{flushright}

\par I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because,

\begin{enumerate}
\item I believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and all that goes by
the name of Hindu scriptures, and therefore in Avataras and rebirth;

\item I believe in the Varnashrama Dharma in a sense, in my opinion, strictly
Vedic but not in its present popular and crude sense;

\item I believe in the protection of the cow in its much larger sense than the
popular;

\item I do not disbelieve in idol-worship.
\end{enumerate}

\par The reader will note that I have purposely refrained from using
the word divine origin in reference to the Vedas or any other
scriptures. For I do not believe in the exclusive divinity of the Vedas. I
believe the Bible, the Koran, and the Zend Avesta to be as much divinely
inspired as the Vedas. My belief in the Hindu scriptures does not require me to
accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired. Nor do I claim to have
any first-hand knowledge of these wonderful books. But I do claim to
know and feel the truths of the essential teaching of the
scriptures. I decline to be bound by any interpretation, however
learned it may be, if it is repugnant to reason or moral sense. I do
not emphatically repudiate the claim (if they advance any such) of
the present Shankaracharyas and Shastris to give a correct
interpretation of the Hindu scriptures. On the contrary I believe
that our present knowledge of these books is in a most chaotic
state. I believe implicitly in the Hindu aphorism, that no one truly
knows the Shastras who has not attained perfection in Innocence
(Ahimsa), Truth (Satya) and Self-control (Brahmacharya) and who has
not renounced all acquisition or possession of wealth. I believe in
the institution of Gurus, but in this age millions must go without a
Guru, because it is a rare thing to find a combination of perfect
purity and perfect learning. But one need not despair of ever
knowing the truth of one's religion, because the fundamentals of
Hinduism, as of every great religion, are unchangeable and easily
understood. Every Hindu believes in God and His oneness, in rebirth
and salvation\ldots I am a reformer through and through. But my zeal
never takes me to the rejection of any of the essential things of
Hinduism. I have said I do not disbelieve in idol-worship. An idol
does not excite any feeling of veneration in me. But I think that
idol-worship is part of human nature. We hanker after symbolism. Why
should one be more composed in a church than elsewhere? Images are
an aid to worship. No Hindu considers an image to be God. I do not
consider idol-worship a sin.

\par It is clear from the foregoing that Hinduism is not an exclusive
religion. In it there is room for the worship of all the prophets of
the world. It is not a missionary religion in the ordinary sense of
the term. It has no doubt absorbed many tribes in its fold, but this
absorption has been of an evolutionary, imperceptible character.
Hinduism tells everyone to worship God according to his own faith of
Dharma, and so it lives at peace with all the religions.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 6-10-1921
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Buddhism, Christianity and Islam]{Buddhism, Christianity and Islam}

\par I have heard it contended times without number and I have read
in books also claiming to express the spirit of Buddhism that Buddha
did not believe in God. In my humble opinion such a belief
contradicts the very central fact of Buddha's teaching\ldots The
confusion has arisen over his rejection and just rejection of all
the base things that passed in his generation under the name of God.
He undoubtedly rejected the notion that a being called God was
actuated by malice, could repent of his actions, and like the kings
of the earth could possibly be open to temptations and bribes and
could possibly have favourites. His whole souls rose in mighty
indignation against the belief that a being called God required for
his satisfaction the living blood of animals in order that he might
be pleased --- animals who were his own creation. He, therefore,
reinstated God in the right place and dethroned the usurper who for
the time being seemed to occupy that White Throne. He emphasized and
redeclared the eternal and unalterable existence of the moral
government of this universe. He unhesitatingly said that the law was
God himself.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-11-1927
\end{flushright}

\par God's laws are eternal and unalterable and not separable from God
Himself. It is an indispensable condition of His very perfection. And
hence the great confusion that Buddha disbelieved in God and simply
believed in the moral law, and because of this confusion about God
Himself, arose word Nirvana. Nirvana is undoubtedly not utter
extinction. So far as I have been able to understand the central fact
of Buddha's life, Nirvana is utter extinction of all that is base in
us, all that is vicious in us, all that is corrupt and curruptible in
us. Nirvana is not like the black, dead peace of the grave, but the
living peace, the living happiness of a soul which is conscious of
itself, and conscious of having found its own abode in the heart of the
Eternal.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-11-1927
\end{flushright}

\par Great as Buddha's contribution to humanity was in restoring God
to His eternal place, in my humble opinion, greater still was his
contribution to humanity in his exacting regard of all life, be it ever
so low.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-1-1927
\end{flushright}

\par I may say that I have never been interested in a historical Jesus.
I should not care if it was proved by someone that the man called Jesus
never lived, and that (what) was narrated in the Gospels was a fragment
of the writer's imagination. For the Sermom on the Mount would still
be true for me.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 31-12-1931
\end{flushright}

\par I cannot ascribe exclusive divinity to Jesus. He is as divine as
Krishna or Rama or Muhammad or Zoroaster. Similarly I do not regard
every word of the Bible as the inspired word of God even as I do not
regard every word of the Vedas or the Koran as inspired. The sum total of each
of these books is certainly inspired, but I miss that inspiration in many of
the things taken individually. The Bible is as much a book
of religion with me as the Gita and the Koran.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 6-3-1937
\end{flushright}

\par What\ldots does Jesus mean to me? To me, He was one of the
greatest teachers humanity has ever had. To His believers, He was
God's only begotten Son. Could the fact that I do or do not accept
this belief make Jesus have any more or less influence in my life?
Is all the grandeur of His teaching and of His doctrine to be
forbidden to me? I cannot believe so.

\begin{flushright}
The Modern Review, October, 1941
\end{flushright}

\par I believe that it is impossible to estimate the merits of the
various religions of the world, and, moreover, I believe that it is
unnecessary and harmful even to attempt it. But each one of them, in
my judgement, embodies a common motivating force: the desire to
uplift man's life and give it purpose. And because the life of
Jesus has the significance and the transcendency to which I have
alluded, I believe that He belongs not solely to Christianity, but
to the entire world, to all races and people --- it matters little under
what flag, name or doctrine they may work, profess a faith or
worship a god inherited from their ancestors.

\begin{flushright}
The Modern Review, October, 1941
\end{flushright}

\par I have not been able to see any difference between the Sermon
on the Mount and the Bhagavad Gita. What the Sermon describes in a
graphic manner, the Bhagavad Gita reduces to a scientific formula.
It may not be a scientific book in the accepted sense of the term,
but it has argued out the law of love --- the law of abandon as I would
call it? in a scientific manner. The Sermon on the Mount gives
the same law in wonderful language. The New Testament gave me comfort
and boundless joy, as it came after the repulsion that parts of the Old
had given me. Today supposing I was deprived of the Gita and forgot all
its contents but had a copy of the Sermon, I should derive the same joy
from it as I do from the Gita.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 22-12-1927
\end{flushright}

\par I do regard Islam to be a religion of peace in the same sense as
Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism are. No doubt there are differences
in degrees, but the object of these religions is peace.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-1-1927
\end{flushright}

\par Islam's distinctive contribution to India's national culture is
its unadulterated belief in the oneness of God and a practical
application of the truth of the brotherhood of man for those who are
nominally within its fold. I call these two distinctive contributions.
For in Hinduism the spirit of brotherhood has become too much
philosophized. Similarly though philosophical Hinduism has no other god
but God, it cannot be denied that practical Hinduism is not so
emphatically uncompromising as Islam.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 21-3-1929
\end{flushright}

\chapter[God and Gods]{God and Gods}

\par ``If Hinduism become monotheistic,'' suggested the Father,
``Christianity and Hinduism can serve India in co-operation.''

\par ``I would love to see the co-operation happen,'' said Gandhiji, ``but
it cannot if the present day Christian Missions persist in holding up
Hinduism to ridicule and saying that no one can go to heaven unless he
renounces and denounces Hinduism. But I can conceive a good Christian,
silently working away, and shedding the sweet aroma of his life on Hindu
communities, like the rose which does not need any speech to spread
its fragrance but spreads it because it must. Even so a truly
spiritual life`. Then surely there would be peace on earth and
goodwill among men. But not so long as there is militant or
``muscular'' Christianity. This is not to be found in the Bible. But
you find it in Germany and other countries.

\par ``But if Indians begin to believe in one God and give up
idolatry, don't you think the whole difficulty will be solved?''

\par ``Will the Christians be satisfied with it? Are they all united?''

\par ``Of course all the Christian sects are not united,'' said the
Catholic Father.

\par ``Then you are asking only a theoretical question. And may I ask
you, is there any amalgamation between Islam and Christianity,
though both are said to believe in one God? If these two have not
amalgamated, there is less hope of amalgamation of Christians and
Hindus along the lines you suggest. I have my own solution; but in
the first instance, I dispute the description that Hindus believe in
many gods and are idolaters. They do say there are many gods, but
they also declare unmistakably that there is ONE GOD, the GOD of
gods. It is, therefore, not proper to suggest that Hindus believe in
many Gods. They certainly believe in many worlds. Just as there is a
world inhabited by men, and another by beasts, so also is there one
inhabited by superior beings called gods whom we do not see but who
nevertheless exist. The whole mischief is created by the English
rendering of the word ªñÌã or ªñÌã¦ãã (Deva or Devata) for which you
have not found a better term
than ``god''. But God is Ishwara, Devadhideva, God of gods. So you see
it is the word ``god'' used to describe different divine beings that
has given rise to such confusion. I believe that I am a thorough Hindu
but I never believe in many gods. Never even in my childhood did I hold
that belief, and no one ever taught me to do so.

\begin{center}
\section{Idolatry}
\end{center}

\par ``As for idol-worship,you cannot do without it in some form or
other. Why does a Musulman give his life for defending a mosque which
he calls a house of God? And why does a Christian go to a church, and
when he is required to take an oath he swears by the Bible? Not that I
see any objection to it. And what is it if not idolatry to give untold
riches for building mosques and tombs? And what do the Roman Catholics
do when they kneel before Virgin Mary and before saints --- quite
imaginary figures in stone or painted on canvas or glass?''

\par ``But,'' objected the Catholic Father, ``I keep my mother's photo and
kiss it in veneration of her. But I do not worship it, nor do I worship
saints. When I worship God, I acknowledge Him as Creator and greater
than any human being.''

\par ``Even so, it is not the stone we worship, but it is God we worship
in images of stone or metal however rude they may be.''

\par ``But villagers worship stones as God.''

\par ``No, I tell you they do not worship anything that is less than God.
When you kneel before Virgin Mary and ask for her intercession, what do
you do? You ask to establish contact with God through her. Even so a
Hindu seeks to establish contact with God through a stone image. I can
understand your asking for the Virgin's intercession. Why
are Musulmans filled with awe and exultation when they enter a
mosque? Why, is not the whole universe a mosque? And what about
the magnificent canopy of heaven that spreads over you? Is it any
less than a mosque? But I understand and sympathize with the
Muslims. It is their way of approach to God. The Hindus have their
own way of approach to the same Eternal Being. Our media of approach
are different, but that does not make Him different.''

\par ``But the Catholics believe that God revealed to them the true
way.''

\par ``But why do you say that the will of God is expressed only in
one book called the Bible and not in others? Why do you
circumscribe the power of God?''

\par ``But Jesus proved that he had received the word of God through
miracles.''

\par ``But that is Mohammed's claim too. If you accept Christian
testimony you must accept Muslim testimony and Hindu testimony too.''

\par ``But Mohammed said he could not do miracles.''

\par ``No. He did not want to prove the existence of God by miracles.
But he claimed to receive messages from God.''

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 13-3-1937
\end{flushright}

\begin{center}
\section{Incarnation}
\end{center}

\par God is not a person. To affirm that He descends to earth every
now and again in the form of a human being is a partial truth which
merely signifies that such a person lives near to God. Inasmuch as
God is omnipresent, He dwells within every human being and all may,
therefore, be said to be incarnations of Him. But this leads us
nowhere. Rama, Krishna, etc. are called incarnations of God because
we attribute divine qualities to them. In truth they
are creations of man's imagination. Whether they actually lived or
not does not affect the picture of them in men's minds. The Rama and
Krishna of history often present difficulties which have to be
overcome by all manner of arguments.

\par The truth is that God is the force. He is the essence of life. He
is pure and undefined consciousness. He is eternal. And yet, strangely
enough, all are not able to derive either benefit from or shelter in
the all pervading living presence.

\par Electricity is a powerful force. Not all can benefit from it. It
can only be produced by following certain laws. It is a lifeless
force. Man can utilize it if he labours hard enough to acquire the
knowledge of its laws.

\par The living force which we call God can similarly be found if we
know and follow His law leading to the discovery of Him in us.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 22-6-1947
\end{flushright}

\par Hindu Dharma is like a boundless ocean teeming with priceless
gems. The deeper you dive, the more treasures you find. In Hindu
religion, God is known by various names. Thousands of people look
doubtless upon Rama and Krishna as historical figures and literally
believe that God came down in person on earth in the form of Rama, the
son of Dasharatha, and by worshipping him one can attain salvation.
The same thing holds good about Krishna. History, imagination and
truth have got so inextricably mixed up. It is next to impossible to
disentangle them. I have accepted all the names and forms attributed
to God as symbols connoting one formless omnipresent Rama. To me,
therefore, Rama described as the lord of Sita, son of Dasharatha, is
the all-powerful essence whose name inscribed in the heart, removes
all suffering --- mental, moral and physical.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 2-6-1946
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Temples and Idols]{Temples and Idols}

\par I do not regard the existence of a temple as a sin or
superstition. Some form of common worship, and a common place of
worship appear to be a human necessity. Whether the temples should
contain images or not is a matter of temperament and taste. I do not
regard a Hindu or a Roman Catholic place of worship containing
images as necessarily bad or superstitious, and a mosque or a
Protestant place of worship as good or free of superstition merely
because of their exclusion of images. A symbol such as a Cross or a
book may easily become idolatrous, and therefore superstitious. And
the worship of the image of Child Krishna or Virgin Mary may become
ennobling and free of all superstition. It depends upon the attitude
of the heart of the worshipper.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 5-11-1925
\end{flushright}

\par We the human family are not all philosophers. We are of the
earth very earthy, and we are not satisfied with contemplating the
Invisible God. Somehow or other we want something which we can
touch, something which we can see, something before which we can
kneel down. It does not matter whether it is a book, or an empty
stone building, or a stone building inhabited by numerous figures. A
book will satisfy some, an empty building will satisfy some others,
and many others will not be satisfied unless they see something
inhabiting these empty buildings. Then I ask you to approach these
temples not as if they represented a body of superstitions. If you
will approach these temples with faith in them, you will know that each time
you visit them you will come away from them purified and with your faith
more and more in the living God.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 23-1-1937
\end{flushright}

\par Temple-going is for the purification of the soul. The worshipper
draws the best out of himself. In greeting a living being, he may draw
the best out of the person greeted, if the greeting is selfless. A
living being is more or less fallible like one-self. But in the
temple, one worships the living God, perfect beyond imagination.
Letters written to living persons often end in heart-breaking, even
when they are answered, and there is no guarantee of their being
always answered. Letters to God who, according to the devotee's
imagination, resides in temples, require neither pen nor ink nor
paper, not even speech. Mere mute worship constitutes the letter which
brings its own unfailing answer. The whole function is a beautiful
exercise of faith. Here there is no waste of effort, no
heart-breaking, no danger of being misunderstood. The writer must try
to understand the simple philosophy lying behind the worship in
temples or mosques or churches. He will understand my meaning better
if he will realize that I make no distinction between these different
abodes of God. They are what faith has made them. They are an answer
to man's craving somehow to reach the UNSEEN.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 18-3-1933
\end{flushright}

\par I am both an idolater and an iconoclast in what I conceive to be
the true senses of the terms. I value the spirit behind idol-worship.
It plays a most important part in the uplift of the human race. And I
would like to possess the ability to defend with my life the thousands
of holy temples which sanctify this land of ours.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 28-8-1924
\end{flushright}

\par I am an iconoclast in the sense that I break down the subtle
form of idolatry in the shape of fanaticism that refuses to see any
virtue in any other form of worshipping the Deity save one's own.
This form of idolatry is more deadly for being more fine and evasive
than the tangible and gross form of worship that identifies the
Deity with a little bit of a stone or a golden image.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 28-8-1924
\end{flushright}

\par Temples, churches and mosques very often show corruption, more
often deterioration. Nevertheless, it would be impossible to prove
that all priests are bad or have been bad and that all churches,
temples and mosques are hot-beds of curruption and superstition. Nor
does the arguement take note of this fundamental fact that no faith
has done without a habitation; and I go further that in the very
nature of things it cannot exist, so long as man remains as he is
constituted. His very body has been rightly called the temple of the
Holy Ghost, though innumerable such temples belie fact and are
hot-beds of corruption used for dissoluteness. And I presume that it
will be accepted as a conclusive answer to a sweeping suggestion
that all bodies should be destroyed for the corruption of many, if
it can be shown, as it can be, that there are some bodies which are
proper temples of the Holy Ghost. The cause for the corruption of
many bodies will have to be sought elsewhere. Temples of stone and
mortar are nothing else than a natural extension of these human
temples and though they were in their conception undoubtedly
habitations of God like human temples, they have been subject to the
same law of decay as the latter.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 11-3-1933
\end{flushright}

\par I know of no religion or sect that has done or is doing without
its House of God, variously described as a temple, a mosque, a
church, a synagogue or an Agiari. Nor is it
certain that any of the great reformers including Jesus destroyed or discarded
temples altogether. All of them sought to banish corruption from temples as
well as from society. Some of them, if not all, appear to have preached from
temples. I have ceased to visit temples for years, but I do not regard myself
on that account as a better person than before. My mother never missed going to
the temple when she was in a fit state to go there. Probably her faith was far
greater than mine, though I do not visit temples. There are millions whose
faith is sustained through these temples, churches and mosques. They are not
all blind followers of a superstition, nor are they fanatics. Superstition and
fanaticism are not their monopoly. These vices have their root in our hearts
and minds.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 11-3-1933
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Tree-Worship]{Tree-Worship}

\par A correspondent writes:

\par ``It is a common enough sight in this country to see men and women offering
worship to stocks and stones and trees, but I was surprised to find, that even
educated women belonging to the families of enthusiastic social workers were
not above this practice. Some of these sisters and friends defend the practice
by saying, that since it is founded on pure reverence for the divine in nature
and no false beliefs, it cannot be classed as superstition, and they cite the
names of Satyavan and Savitri whose memory, they say, they commemorate in that
way. The argument does not convince me. May I request you to throw some light
on the matter?''

\par I like this question. It raises the old, old question of
image-worship. I am both a supporter and opponent of image-worship.
When image-worship degenerates into idolatry and becomes encrusted
with false beliefs and doctrines, it becomes a necessity to combat
it as a gross social evil. On the other hand, image-worship in the
sense of investing one's ideal with a concrete shape is inherent in
man's nature, and even valuable as an aid to devotion. Thus we
worship an image when we offer homage to a book which we regard as
holy or sacred. We worship an image when we visit a temple or a
mosque with a feeling of sanctity or reverence. Nor do I see any
harm in all this. On the contrary, endowed as man is with a finite,
limited understanding, he can hardly do otherwise. Even so far from
seeing anything inherently evil or harmful in tree-worship, I find
in it a thing instinct with a deep pathos and poetic beauty. It
symbolizes true reverence for the entire vegetable kingdom, which
with its endless panorama of beautiful shapes and forms, declares to
us as it were with a million tongues the greatness and glory of God.
Without vegetation our planet would not be able to support life even
for a moment. It such a country especially, therefore, in which
there is a scarcity of trees, tree-worship assumes a profound
economic significance.

\par I therefore see no necessity for leading a crusade against
tree-worship. It is true, that the poor simple-minded women who
offer worship to trees have no reasoned understanding of the
implications of their act. Possibly they would not be able to give
any explanation as to why they perform it. They act in the purity
and utter simplicity of their faith. Such faith is not a thing to be
despised; it is a great and powerful force that we should treasure.

\par Far different, however, is the case of vows and prayers which
votaries offer before trees. The offering of vows and prayers for selfish ends,
whether offered in churches, mosques, temples or before trees and shrines, is a
thing not to be encouraged. Making of selfish requests of offering vows is not
related to image-worship as effect and cause. A personal selfish prayer is bad
whether made before an image or an unseen God.

\par Let no one, however, from this understand me to mean that I advocate
tree-worship in general. I do not defend tree-worship because I consider
it to be a necessary aid to devotion, but only because I recognize that
God manifests Himself in innumerable forms in this universe, and every
such manifestation commands my spontaneous reverence.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 26-9-1929
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Reason and Faith]{Reason and Faith}

\par Experience has humbled me enough to let me realize the specific
limitations of reason. Just as matter misplaced becomes dirt, reason
misused becomes lunacy.

\begin{flushright}
Young India,14-10-1926
\end{flushright}

\par Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster
when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to
reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone
believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but for
a due recognition of that in us which sanctifies reason.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 19-10-1926
\end{flushright}

\par There are subjects where reason cannot take us far and we have to
accept things on faith. Faith then does not contradict reason but
transcends it. Faith is a kind of sixth sense which works in cases which are
without the purview of reason.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 6-3-1937
\end{flushright}

\par It is faith that steers us through stormy seas, faith that
moves mountains and faith that jumps across the ocean. That faith is
nothing but a living, wide-awake consciousness of God within. He who
has achieved that faith wants nothing. Bodily diseased, he is
spiritually healthy; physically poor, he rolls in spiritual riches.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-9-1925
\end{flushright}

\par Without faith this world would come to naught in a moment. True
faith is appropriation of the reasoned experience of people whom we
believe to have lived a life purified by prayer and penance. Belief,
therefore, in prophets or incarnations who have lived in remote ages
is not an idle superstition but a satisfaction of an inmost
spiritual want.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 14-4-1927
\end{flushright}

\par Everyone has faith in God through everyone does not know it.
For, everyone has faith in himself and that multiplied to the nth
degree is God. The sum total of all that lives is God. We may not be
God but we are of God --- even as a little drop of water is of the
ocean. Imagine it torn away from the ocean and flung millions of
miles away. It becomes helpless torn from its surroundings and
cannot feel the might and majesty of the ocean. But if some one
could point out to it that it is of the ocean, its faith would
revive, it would dance with joy and the whole of the might and
majesty of the ocean would be reflected in it.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 3-6-1939
\end{flushright}

\par Seeing God face to face is to feel that He is enthroned in our
hearts even as a child feels a mother's affection without needing
any demonstration. Does a child reason
out the existence of a mother's love? Can he prove it to others? He
triumphantly declares, ``It is''. So must it be with the existence of God. He
defies reason. But He is experienced. Let us not reject the experience of
Tulsidas, Chaitanya, Ramdas and a host of other spiritual teachers even as we
do not reject that of mundane teachers.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 9-7-1925
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Scriptures]{Scriptures}

\par Mr. Basil Mathews: Where do you find the seat of authority?

\par Gandhiji: It lies here (pointing to his breast). I exercise my judgment
about every scripture, including the Gita. I cannot let a scriptural text
supersede my reason. Whilst I believe that the principal books are inspired,
they suffer from a process of double distillation. Firstly they come through a
human prophet, and then through the commentaries of interpreters. Nothing in
them comes from God directly. Mathew may give one version of one text and John
may give another. I cannot surrender my reason whilst I subscribe to divine
revelation. And above all, ``the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life.'' But
you must not misunderstand my position. I believe in faith also, in things
where reason has no place, e.g. the existence of God. No argument can move me
from that faith, and like that little girl who repeated against all reason
``yet we are seven'' I would like to repeat, on being baffled in argument by a
very superior intellect, ``Yet there is God.''

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 5-12-1936
\end{flushright}

\par Divine knowledge is not borrowed from books. It has to be
realized in oneself. Books are at best an aid, often even a
hindrance.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 17-7-1924
\end{flushright}

\par An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied
propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 26-2-1925
\end{flushright}

\par I would reject all authority if it is in conflict with sober
reason or the dictates of the heart. Authority sustains and ennobles
the weak when it is the handiwork of reason, but it degrades them
when it supplants reason, sanctioned by the still small Voice
within.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 8-12-1920
\end{flushright}

\par I am not a literalist. Therefore I try to understand the spirit
of the various scriptures of the world. I apply the test of Truth
and Ahimsa laid down by these very scriptures for interpretation. I
reject what is inconsistent with that test, and I appropriate all
that is consistent with it. The story of a Shudra having been
punished by Ramachandra for daring to learn the Vedas I reject as an
interpolation. And in any event, I worship Rama, the perfect being
of my conception, not a historical person facts about whose life may
very with the progress of new historical discoveries and researches.
Tulsidas had nothing to do with the Rama of history. Judged by
historical test, his Ramayana would be fit for the scrap-heap. As a
spiritual experience, his book is almost unrivalled at least for me.
And then, too, I do not swear by every word that is to be found in
so many editions published as the Ramayana of Tulsidas. It is the
spirit running through the book that holds me spell-bound.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 27-8-1925
\end{flushright}

\par I have no knowledge that the Krishna of Mahabharata ever lived. My
Krishna has nothing to do with any historical person. I would refuse to bow
my head to the Krishna who wiould kill because his pride is hurt, or the
Krishna whom the non-Hindus portray as a dissolute youth. I believe in
Krishna of my imagination as a perfect incarnation, spotless in every sense
of the world, the inspirer of the Gita and the inspirer of the lives of
millions of human beings. But if it was proved to me that the Mahabharata is
history in the sense that modern historical books are, that every word of
the Mahabharata is authentic and the Krishna of the Mahabharata actually did
some of the acts attributed to him, even at the risk of being banished from
the Hindu fold I should not hesitate to reject that Krishna as God
incarnate. But to me the Mahabharata is a profoundly religious book, largely
allegorical, in no way meant to be a historical record. It is the
description of the eternal duel going on within ourselves, given so vividly
as to make us think for the time being that the deeds described therein were
actually done by the human beings. Nor do I regard the Mahabharata as we
have it now as a faultless copy of the original. On the contrary I consider
that it has undergone many amendations.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 1-10-1925
\end{flushright}

\par A prayerful study and experience are essential for a correct
interpretation of the scriptures. The injunction that a Shudra may not study
the scriptures is not entirely without meaning. A Shudra means a spiritually
uncultured, ignorant man. He is more likely than not to misinterpret the
Vedas and other scriptures. Everyone cannot solve an algebraical equation.
Some preliminary study is a sine qua non. How ill the grand truth ``I am
Brahman'' lie in the month of a man steeped in sin! To what ignoble
purposes would he turn it! What a distortion it would suffer at his hands!

\par A man, therefore, who would interpret the scriptures must have
the spiritual discipline. He must practise the Yamas and Niyamas --- the
eternal guides of conduct. A superficial practice thereof is
useless. The Shastras have enjoyed the necessity of a Guru. But a
Guru being rare in these days, a study of modern books inculcating
bhakti has been suggested by the sages. Those who are lacking in
bhakti, lacking in faith, are all qualified to interpret the
scriptures. The learned may draw an elaborately learned
interpretation out of them, but that will not be the true
interpretation. Only the experienced will arrive at the true
interpretation of the scriptures.

\par But even for the inexperienced there are certain canons. That
interpretation is not true which conflicts with Truth. To one who
doubts even Truth, the scriptures have no meaning. No one can
contend with him.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 12-11-1925
\end{flushright}

\chapter[The Message of the Gita]{The Message of the Gita}

\begin{enumerate}
\item Even in 1888-89, when I first became acquainted with the
Gita, I felt that it was not a historical work, but that under the
guise of physical warfare, it described the duel that perpetually
went on in the hearts of mankind, and that physical warfare was
brought in merely to make the description of the internal duel more
alluring. This preliminary intuition became more confirmed on a
closer study of religion and the Gita. A study of the Mahabharata
gave it added confirmation. I do not regard the Mahabharata as a
historical work in the accepted sense. The Adiparva contains
powerful evidence in support of my opinion. By ascribing to the
chief actors superhuman or subhuman origins, the great Vyasa made short work of
the history of kings and their peoples. The persons therein described may be
historical, but the author of the Mahabharata has used them merely to drive
home his religious theme.

\item The author of the Mahabharata has not established the
necessity of physical warfare; on the contrary he has proved its
futility. He has made the victors shed tears of sorrow and
repentance, and has left them nothing but a legacy of miseries.

\item In this great work the Gita is the crown. Its second
chapter, instead of teaching the rules of physical warfare, tells us
how a perfected man is to be known. In the characteristics of the
perfected man of the Gita, I do not see any to correspond to
physical warfare. Its whole design is inconsistent with the rules of
conduct governing the relations between warring parties.

\item Krishna of the Gita is perfection and right knowledge
personified; but the picture is imaginary. That does not mean that
Krishna, the adored of his people, never lived. But perfection is
imagined. The idea of a perfect incarnation is an aftergrowth.

\item In Hinduism, incarnation is ascribed to one who has
performed some extraordinary service of mankind. All embodied life
is in reality an incarnation of God, but it is not usual to consider
every living being an incarnation. Future generations pay this
homage to one who, in his own generation, has extraordinarily
religious in his conduct. I can see nothing wrong in this procedure;
it takes nothing from God's greatness, and there is no violence
done to Truth. There is an Urdu saying which means, ``Adam is not God
but he is a spark of the Divine.'' And therefore he who is the most
religiously behaved has most of the divine spark in him. It is in accordance
with this train of thought that Krishna enjoys, in Hinduism, the status of the
most perfect incarnation.

\item This belief in incarnation is a testimony of man's lofty
spiritual ambition. Man is not at peace with himself till he has
become like unto God. The endeavour to reach this state is the
supreme, the only ambition worth having. And this is
self-realization. This self-realization is the subject of the Gita,
as it is of all scriptures. But its author surely did not write it
to establish that doctrine. The object of the Gita appears to me to
be that of showing the most excellent way to attain self-realization. That
which is to be found, more or less clearly, spread
out here and there in Hindu religious books, has been brought out in
the clearest possible language in the Gita even at the risk of
repetition.

\item That matchless remedy is renunciation of the fruits of action.

\item This is the centre round which the Gita is woven. This
renunciation is the central sun, round which devotion, knowledge and
the rest revolve like planets. The body has been likened to a
prison. There must be action where there is body. Not one embodied
being is exempted from labour. And yet all religions proclaim that
it is possible for man by treating the body as the temple of God, to
attain freedom. Every action is tainted, be it ever so trivial. How
can the body be made the temple of God? In other words how can one
be free from action, i.e. from the taint of sin? The Gita has
answered the question in decisive language: ``By desireless action;
by renouncing the fruits of action; by dedicating all activities to
God, i.e. by surrendering oneself to Him body and soul.''

\item But desirelessness or renunciation does not come for the
mere talking about it. It is not attained by an intellectual feat. It is
attainable only by a constant heart-churn. Right
knowledge is necessary for attaining renunciation. Learned men possess a
knowledge of a kind. They may recite the Vedas from memory, yet they may
be steeped in self-indulgence. In order that knowledge may not run riot,
the author of the Gita has insisted on devotion accompanying it and has
given it the first place. Knowledge without devotion will be like a
misfire. Therefore, says the Gita, ``Have devotion, and knowledge will
follow.'' This devotion is not mere lip-worship, it is a wrestling with
death. Hence the Gita's assessment of the devotee's qualities is similar
to that of the sage's.

\item Thus the devotion required by the Gita is no soft-hearted
effusiveness. It certainly is not blind faith. The devotee may use, if he
likes, rosaries, forehead marks, make offerings, but these things are no
test of his devotion. He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a
fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike
cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always
contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to
God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from
exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet
remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats
friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is
not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of
him, who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such
devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong
attachments.

\item We thus see, that to be a real devotee is to realize oneself.
Self-realization is not something apart. One rupee can purchase for us
poison or nectar, but knowledge or
devotion cannot buy us either salvation or bondage. These are not
media of exchange. They are themselves the thing we want. In other
words if the means and the end are not identical, they are almost
so. The extreme of means is salvation. Salvation of the Gita is perfect peace.

\item But such knowledge and devotion, to be true, have to stand
the test of renunciation of fruits of action. Mere knowledge of
right and wrong will not make one fit for salvation. According to
common notions, a mere learned man will pass as a Pandit. He need
not perform any service. He will regard it as bondage even to lift a
little lota. Where one test of knowledge is non-liability for
service, there is no room for such mundane work as the lifting of a
lota.

\item Or take bhakti. The popular notion of bhakti is
soft-heartedness, telling breads and the like and disdaining to do
even a loving service, lest the telling of beads etc. might be
interrupted. This bhakta therefore leaves the rosary only for
eating, drinking and the like, never for grinding corn or nursing
patients.

\item But the Gita says: ``No one has attained his goal without
action. Even men like Janaka attained salvation through action. Even
if I were lazily to cease working, the world world perish. How much
more necessary then for the people at large to engage in action?''

\item While on the one hand it is beyond dispute that all action
binds, on the other hand it is equally true that all living beings
have to do some work whether they will or no. Here all activity,
whether mental or physical, is to be included in the term action.
Then how is one to be free from the bondage of action, even though
he may be acting? The manner in which the Gita has solved the
problem is, to my knowledge, unique. The Gita says: ``Do your
allotted work but renounce its fruit --- be detached and work --- have no desire
for reward and work.''

\par This is the unmistakable teaching of the Gita. He who gives up
action falls. He who gives up only the reward rises. But renunciation
of fruit in no way means indifference to the result. In regard to
every action one must know the result that is expected to follow, the
means thereto, and the capacity for it. He, who, being thus equipped,
is without desire for the result, and is yet wholly engrossed in the
due fulfilment of the task before him, is said to have renounced the
fruits of his action.

\item Again, let no one consider renunciation to mean want of
fruit for the renouncer. The Gita reading does not warrant such a
meaning. Renunciation means absence of hankering after fruit. As a
matter of fact, he who renounces reaps a thousandfold. The
renunciation of the Gita is the acid test of faith. He who is ever
brooding over result often loses nerve in the performance of his
duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to
do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action, never remaining
faithful to any. He who broods over results like a man given to
objects of senses; he is ever distracted, he says goodbye to all
scruples, everything is right in his estimation and he therefore
resorts to means fair and foul to attain his end.

\item From the bitter experiences of desire for fruit the author
of the Gita discovered the path of renunciation of fruit, and put it
before the world in a most convincing manner. The common belief is
that religion is always opposed to material good. ``One cannot act
religiously in mercantile and such other matters. There is no place
for religion in such pursuits; religion is only for attainment of
salvation,'' we hear many worldly-wise people say. In my opinion the
author of the Gita has dispelled this delusion. He has drawn no line
of demarcation between salvation and wordly pursuits. On the
contrary, he has shown that religion must rule even our wordly
pursuits. I have felt that the Gita teaches us that what cannot be
followed out in day-do-day practice cannot be called religion. Thus,
according to the Gita, all acts that are incapable of being
performed without attachment are taboo. This golden rule saves
mankind from many a pitfall. According to this interpretation
murder, lying, dissoluteness and the like must be regarded as sinful
and therefore taboo. Man's life then becomes simple, and from that
simpleness springs peace.

\item Thinking along these lines, I have felt that in trying to
enforce in one's life the central teaching of the Gita, one is
bound to follow truth and Ahimsa. When there is no desire for fruit,
there is no temptation for untruth or Himsa. Take any instance of
untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back was the
desire to attain the cherished end. But it may be freely admitted
that the Gita was not written to establish Ahimsa. It was an
accepted and primary duty even before the Gita age. The Gita had to
deliver the message of renunciation of fruit. This is clearly
brought out so early as the second chapter.

\item But if the Gita believed in Ahimsa or it was included in
desirelessness, why did the author take a warlike illustration?
When the Gita was written, although people believed in Ahimsa, wars
were not only not taboo but nobody observed the contradiction
between them and Ahimsa.

\item In assessing the implications of renunciation of fruit, we
are not required to probe the mind of the author of the Gita as to
his limitations of Ahimsa and the like. Because a poet puts a
particular truth before the world, it does not necessarily follow
that he has known or worked
out all its great consequences, or that having done so, he is able
always to express them fully. In this perhaps lies the greatness of
the poem and the poet. A poet's meaning is limitless. Like man, the
meaning of great writings suffers evolution. On examining the
history of languages, we notice that the meaning of important words
has changed or expanded. This is true of the Gita. The author has
himself extended the meanings of some of the current words. We are
able to discover this even on a superficial examination. It is
possible, that in the age prior to that of the Gita, offering of
animals in sacrifice was permissible. But there is not a trace of it
in the sacrifice in the Gita sense. In the Gita continuous
concentration on God is the king of sacrifices. The third chapter
seems to show that sacrifice chiefly means body-labour for service.
The third and the fourth chapters read together will give us other
meanings for sacrifice but never animal-sacrifice. Similarly has the
meaning of the word Sannyasa undergone, in the Gita, a
transformation. The Sannyasa of the Gita will not tolerate complete
cessation of all activity. The Sannyasa of the Gita is all work and
yet no work. Thus the author of the Gita by extending meanings of
words has taught us to imitate him. Let it be granted, that
according to the letter of the Gita it is possible to say that
warfare is consistent with renunciation of fruit. But after 40
years'' unremitting endeavour fully to enforce the teaching of the
Gita in my own life, I have, in all humility, felt that perfect
renunciation is impossible without perfect observance of Ahimsa in
every shape and form.

\item The Gita is not a aphoristic work; it is a great religious
poem. The deeper you dive into it, the richer the meanings you get.
It being meant for the people at large, there is pleasing
repetition. With every age the important words will carry new and
expanding meanings. But its central teaching will never vary. The seeker is at
liberty to extract from this treasure any meaning he likes so as to enable him
to enforce in his life the central teaching.

\item Nor is the Gita a collection of Do's and Don'ts. What is
lawful for one may be unlawful for another. What may be permissible
at one time, or in one peace, may not be so at another time, and in
another place. Desire for fruit is the only universal prohibition.
Desirelessness is obligatory.

\item The Gita has sung the praises of knowledge, but it is beyond
the mere intellect; it is essentially addressed to the heart and
capable of being understood by the heart. Therefore the Gita is not
for those who have no faith. The author makes Krishna say:

\begin{quote}
\par ``Do not entrust this treasure to him who is without sacrifice, without
devotion, without the desire for this teaching and who denies Me. On the other
hand those who will give this precious treasure to my devotees will by the fact
of this service assuredly reach Me. And those who, being free from malice will
with faith absorb this teaching, shall, having attained freedom, live where
people of true merit go after death.''
\end{quote}
\end{enumerate}

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 6-8-1931
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Beauty in Truth]{Beauty in Truth}

\par There are two aspects of thing --- the outward and the inward. It is
purely a matter of emphasis with me. The outward has no meaning
except in so far as it helps the inward. All true art is thus the
expression of the soul. The outward forms have value only in so far
as they are the expression of the inner spirit in man. Art of that nature has
the greatest possible appeal for me. But I know that many call themselves
artists, and are recognized as such, and yet in their works there is absolutely
no trace of the soul's upward urge and unrest.

\par All true art must help the soul to realize its inner self. In my own case,
I find that I can do entirely without external forms in my soul's realization.
I can claim, therefore, that there is truly efficient art in my life, though
you might not see what you call works of art about me. My room may have blank
walls; and I may even dispense with the roof, so that I may gaze out at the
starry heavens overhead that stretch in an unending expanse of beauty. What
conscious art of man can give me the panoramic scenes that open out before me,
when I look up to the sky above with all its shining stars? This, however,
does not mean that I refuse to accept the value of production of arts,
generally accepted as such, but only that I personally feel how inadequate
these are compared with the eternal symbols of beauty in Nature. These
productions of man's art have their value only in so far as they help the soul
onward towards self-realization.

\par I see and find beauty in Truth or through Truth. All Truths, not merely
true ideas, but truthful pictures, or songs are highly beautiful. People
generally fail to see Beauty in Truth, the ordinary man runs away from and
becomes blind to the beauty in it. Whenever men begin to see Beauty in Truth,
then true art will arise.

\par To a true artist only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its
exterior, shines with the Truth within the soul. There is\ldots no Beauty apart
from Truth. On the other hand, Truth may manifest itself in forms which may not
be outwardly beautiful at all. Socrates, we are told, was the most truthful man
of his time, and yet his features are said to have been the ugliest in Greece.
To my mind he was beautiful because all his life was a striving after Truth,
and you may remember that this outward form did not prevent Phidias from
appreciating the beauty of Truth in him, though as an artist he was
accustomed to see Beauty in outward forms also.

\par Truth and untruth often co-exist; good and evil are often found
together. In an artist also, not seldom, the right perception of
things and the wrong co-exist. Truly beautiful creations come when
right perception is at work. If these moments are rare in life they
are also rare in art.

\par These beauties (``a sunset or a crescent moon that shines amid
the stars at night'') are truthful, inasmuch as they make me think
of the Creator at the back of them. How else could these be
beautiful, but for the Truth that is in the centre of creation?
When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my
soul expands in worship of the Creator. I try to see Him and His
mercies in all these creations. But even the sunsets and sunrises
would be mere hindrances if they did not help me to think of Him.
Anything, which is a hindrance to the flight of the soul, is a
delusion and a snare; even like the body, which often does actually
hinder you in the path of salvation.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 13-11-1924
\end{flushright}

\par Truth is the first thing to be sought for, and Beauty and
Goodness will then be added unto you. That is what Christ really
taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was, to my mind, a supreme
artist because he saw and expressed Truth; and so was Muhammad, the
Koran being the most perfect composition in all Arabic literature --- at
any rate, that is what scholars say. It is because both of them
strove first for Truth that the grace of expression naturally came
in and yet neither Jesus nor Muhammad wrote on art. That is the Truth and
Beauty I crave for, live for, and would die for.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-11-1924
\end{flushright}

\par Here too, just as elsewhere, I must think in terms of the millions. And to
the millions we cannot give that training to acquire a perception of Beauty in
such a way as to see Truth in it. Show them Truth first and they will see
Beauty afterwards\ldots Whatever can be useful to\ldots starving millions is
beautiful to my mind. Let us give today first the vital things of life and all
the graces and ornaments of life will follow.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-11-1924
\end{flushright}

\par True art takes note not merely of form but also of what lies behind. There
is an art that kills and an art that gives life. True art must be evidence of
happiness, contentment and purity of its authors.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 11-8-1921
\end{flushright}

\par We have somehow accustomed ourselves to the belief that art is independent
of the purity of private life. I can say with all the experience at my command
that nothing could be more untrue. As I am nearing the end of my earthly life I
can say that purity of life is the highest and truest art. The art of producing
good music from a cultivated voice can be achieved by many, but the art of
producing that music from the harmony of a pure life is achieved very rarely.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 19-2-1938.
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Ramanama]{Ramanama}

\par Though my reason and heart long ago realized the highest
attribute and name of God as Truth, I recognize truth by the name of
Rama. In the darkest hour of my trial, that one name has saved me
and is still saving me. It may be the association of childhood, it
may be the fascination that Tulsidas has wrought on me. But the
potent fact is there, and as I write these lines, my memory revives
the scenes of my childhood when I used daily to visit the Ramji
Mandir adjacent to my ancestral home. My Rama then resided there. He
saved me from many fears and sins. It was no superstition for me.
The custodian of the idol may have been a bad man. I know nothing
against him. Misdeeds might have gone on in the temple. Again I know
nothing of them. Therefore, they would not affect me. What was and
is true of me is true of millions of Hindus.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 18-3-1933
\end{flushright}

\par I laugh within myself when someone objects that Rama or the
chanting of Ramanama is for the Hindus only, how can Musulmans
therefore take part in it? Is there one God for the Musulmans and
another for the Hindus, Parsis, or Christians? No, there is only
one omnipotent and omnipresent God. He is named variously and we
remember Him by the name which is most familiar to us.

\par My Rama, the Rama of our prayers is not the historical Rama, the
son of Dasharatha, the King of Ayodhya. He is the eternal, the
unborn, the one without a second.
Him alone I worship. His aid alone I seek, and so should you. He belongs
equally to all. I, therefore, see no reason why a Musulman or anybody should
object to taking His name. But he is in no way bound to recognize God as
Ramanama. He may utter to himself Allah or Khuda so as not to mar the harmony
of the sound.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 28-4-1946
\end{flushright}

\par I myself have been a devotee of Tulsidas from my childhood and have,
therefore, always worshipped God as Rama. But I know that if, beginning with
Omkar, one goes through the entire gamut of God's names current in all
climes, all countries and languages, the result is the same. He and His Law
are one. To observe His Law is, therefore, the best form of worship. A man who
becomes one with the Law does not stand in need of vocal recitation of the
name. In other words, an individual with whom contemplation on God has become
as natural as breathing is so filled with God's spirit that knowledge of
observance of the Law becomes second nature, as it were, with him. Such a one
needs no other treatment.

\par The question then arises as to why, in spite of having this prince of
remedies at hand, we know so little about it and why even those who know, do
not remember Him or remember Him only by lip-service, not from the heart.
Parrot-like repetition of God's name signifies failure to recognize Him as
the panacea for all ills.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 24-3-1946
\end{flushright}

\par A devotee of Rama may be said to be the same as the steadfast one
(Sthitaprajnya) of the Gita. If one goes a little deeper it will be seen that
a true devotee of God faithfully obeys the five elemental forces of Nature. If
he so obeys, he will not fall ill. If perchance he does, he will cure himself
with the aid of the elements. It is not for the dweller
in the body to get the body cured anyhow --- he who believes that he is
nothing but body will naturally wander to the ends of the earth in
order to cure the body of its ills. But he who realizes that the
soul is something apart from, though in the body that it is
imperishable in contrast to the perishable body, will not be
perturbed nor mourn if the elements fail. On the contrary he will
welcome death as a friend. He will become his own healer instead of
seeking for medical men. He will live in the consciousness of the
soul within and look to the care, first and last, of the indweller.

\par Such a man will take God's name with every breath. His Rama
will be awake even whilst the body is asleep. Rama will always be
with him in whatever he does. The real death for such a devoted man
will be the loss of this sacred companionship.

\par As an aid to keeping his Rama with him, he will take what the
five elementals have to give him. That is to say he will employ the
simplest and easiest way of deriving all the benefit he can from
earth, air, water, sunlight and ether. This aid is not complementary
to Ramanama. It is but a means of its realization. Ramanama does not
in fact require any aid. But to claim belief in Ramanama and at the
same time to run to doctors do not go hand in hand.

\par Just as the body cannot exist without blood, so the soul needs
the matchless and pure strength of faith. This strength can renovate
the weakness of all man's physical organs. That is why it is said
that when Ramanama is enshrined in the heart, it means the rebirth
of man. This law applies to the young, the old, man and woman alike.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-6-1947
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Nature Cure]{Nature Cure}

\par Nature cure treatment means that treatment which befits man. By
``man'' is meant not merely man as animal but as creature possessing,
in addition to his body, both mind and soul. For such a being
Ramanama is the truest Nature Cure treatment. It is an unfailing
remedy. The expression Ramabana or infallible cure is derived from
it. Nature, too indicates that for man it is the worthy remedy. No
matter what the ailment from which a man may be suffering,
recitation of Ramanama from the heart is the sure cure. God has many
names. Each person can choose the name that appeals most to him.
Ishwara, Allah, Khuda, God mean the same. But the recitation must
not be parrot-like, it must be born of faith of which endeavour will
be some evidence. What should the endeavour consist of? Man should
seek out and be content to confine the means of cure to the five
elements of which the body is composed, i.e. earth, water, akash,
sun and air. Of course, Ramanama must be the invariable
accompaniment. If in spite of this, death supervenes, we may not
mind. On the contrary, it should be welcomed. Science has not so far
discovered any recipe for making the body immortal. Immortality is
an attribute of the soul. That is certainly imperishable, but it is
man's duty to try to express its purity.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 3-3-1946
\end{flushright}

\par If we accept the above reasoning, it will automatically limit
the means permissible under Nature Cure. And man is thereby saved
from all the paraphernalia of big hospitals and eminent doctors etc. The large
majority of persons in the world can never afford these. Why, then, should the
few desire what the many cannot have?

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 3-3-1946
\end{flushright}

\par The potency of Ramanama is, however, subject to certain
conditions and limitations. Ramanama is not like black magic. If
someone suffers from surfeit and wants to be cured of its
after-effects so that he can again indulge himself at the table,
Ramanama is not for him. Ramanama can be used only for a good, not
for an evil end, or else thieves and robbers would be the greatest
devotees. Ramanama is for the pure in heart and for those who want
to attain purity and remain pure. It can never be a means for
self-indulgence. The remedy for surfeit is fasting, not prayer.
Prayer can come in only when fasting has done its work. It can make
fasting easy and bearable. Similarly, the taking of Ramanama will be
a meaningless force when at the same time you are drugging your
system with medicines. A doctor who uses his talent to pander to the
vices of his patient degrades himself and his patient. What worse
degradation can there be for man than that instead of regarding his
body as an instrument of worshipping his Maker, he should make it
the object of adoration and waste money like water to keep it going
anyhow? Ramanama, on the other hand, purifies while it cures, and,
therefore, it elevates. Therein lies its use as well as its
limitation.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 7-4-1946
\end{flushright}

\par An apt question is as to why a man who recites Ramanama
regularly and leads a pure life should ever fall ill. Man is by
nature imperfect. A thoughtful man strives after perfection, but
never attains it. He stumbles on the way, however, unwittingly. The
whole of God's law is embodied
in a pure life. The first thing is to realize one's limitations. It should
be obvious that the moment one transgresses those limits one falls ill.
Thus a balanced diet eaten in accordance with needs gives one freedom from
disease. How is one to know what is the proper diet for one? Many such
enigmas can be imagined. The purport of it all is that every one should be
his own doctor and find out his limitations. The man who does so will
surely live up to 125.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 19-5-1946
\end{flushright}

\par My love of Nature Cure and of indigenous systems does not blind me to
the advance that Western medicine has made in spite of the fact that I have
stigmatized it as black magic. I have used the harsh term and I do not
withdraw it, because of the fact, that it has countenanced vivisection and
all the awfulness it means and because it will stop at no practice, however
bad it may be, if it prolongs the life of the body and because it ignores
the immortal soul which resides in the body. I cling to Nature Cure in
spite of its great limitations and in spite of the lazy pretensions of
Nature curists. Above all, in Nature Cure, everybody can be his or her own
doctor, not so in the various systems of medicine.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 11-8-1946
\end{flushright}

\par Spiritual force is like any other force at the service of man. Apart
from the fact that it has been used for physical ailments for ages, with
more or less success, it would be intrinsically wrong not to use it, if it
can be successfully used for the cure of physical ailments. For, man is
both matter and spirit, each acting on and affecting the other. If you get
rid of malaria by taking quinine, without thinking of the millions who do
not get it, why should you refuse to use the remedy which is within you,
because millions will not use it through their ignorance? May you not be
clean and well because millions of others will not be so, ignorantly
or, may be, even cussedly? If you will not be clean out of false
notions of philanthropy, you will deny yourselves the duty of
serving the very millions by remaining dirty and ill. Surely refusal
to be spiritually well or clean is worse than the refusal to be
physically clean and well.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 1-9-1946
\end{flushright}

\par Salvation is nothing more and nothing less than being well in
every way. Why should you deny it for yourselves, if thereby you
show the way to others and beyond showing it, actually serve them in
addition by reason of your fitness?

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 1-9-1946
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Unity of All Life]{Unity of All Life}

\par My ethics not only permit me to claim but require me to own
kinship with not merely the ape but the horse and the sheep, the
lion and the leopard, the snake and the scorpion. (Not so need these
kinsfolk regard themselves.) The hard ethics which rule my life, and
I hold ought to rule that of every man and woman, imposes this
unilateral obligation upon us. And it is so imposed because man
alone is made in the image of God. That some of us do not recognize
that status of ours, makes no difference, except that then we do not
get the benefit of the status, even as a lion brought up in the
company of sheep may not know his own status and, therefore, does
not receive its benefits; but it belongs to him nevertheless, and,
the moment he realizes it, he begins to exercise his dominion over
the sheep. But no sheep masquerading as a lion can ever attain the
leonine status. And, to prove the proposition, that man is made in the image of
God, it is surely unnecessary to show that all men admittedly exhibit that
image in their own persons. It is enough to show that one man at least has done
so. And, will it be denied that the great religious teachers of mankind have
exhibited the image of God in their own persons?

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 8-7-1926
\end{flushright}

\par I do not want to live at the cost of the life even of a snake. I should
let him bite me to death rather than kill him. But it is likely that if God
puts me to that cruel test and permits a snake to assault me, I may not have
the courage to die, but that the beast in me may assert itself and I may seek
to kill the snake in defending this perishable body. I admit that my belief
has not become so incarnate in me as to warrant my stating emphatically that I
have shed all fear of snakes so as to befriend them as I would like to be able
to. It is my implicit belief that snakes, tigers, etc., are God's answer to
the poisonous, wicked, evil thoughts we harbour\ldots I believe that all life
is one. Thoughts take definite forms. Tigers and snakes have kinship with us.
They are a warning to us to avoid harbouring evil, wicked, lustful thoughts.
If I want to rid the earth of venomous beasts and reptiles, I must rid myself
of all venomous thoughts. I shall not do so if in my impatient ignorance and
in my desire to prolong the existence of the body I seek to kill the so-called
venomous beasts and reptiles. If in not seeking to defend myself against such
noxious animals, I die, I should rise again a better and fuller man. With that
faith in me how should I seek to kill a fellow being in a snake?

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 14-4-1927
\end{flushright}

\par We are living in the midst of death trying to grope our way to Truth.
Perhaps it is as well that we are beast
with danger at every point in our life, for, in spite of our
knowledge of the danger and of our precarious existence, our
indifference to the source of all life is excelled only by our
amazing arrogance.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 7-7-1927
\end{flushright}

\par All life in the flesh exists by some Himsa. Hence the highest
religion has been defined by a negative word Ahimsa. The world is
bound in a chain of destruction. In other words Himsa is an inherent
necessity for life in the body. That is why a votary of Ahimsa
always prays for ultimate deliverance from the bondage of the flesh.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 4-10-1928
\end{flushright}

\par I am painfully aware of the fact that my desire to continue
life in the body involves me in constant Himsa. That is why I am
becoming growingly indifferent to this physical body of mine. For
instance, I know that in the act of respiration I destroy
innumerable invisible germs floating in the air. But I do not stop
breathing. The consumption of vegetables involves Himsa, but I find
that I cannot give them up. Again, there is Himsa in the use of
antiseptics, yet I cannot bring myself to discard the use of
disinfectants like kerosene, etc. to rid myself of the mosquito pest
and the like. I suffer snakes to be killed in the Ashram when it is
impossible to catch them and put them out of harm's way. I even
tolerate the use of the stick to drive the bullocks in the Ashram.
Thus there is no end to Himsa which I directly and indirectly
commit. If, as a result of this humble confession of mine, friends
choose to give me up as lost, I would be sorry, but nothing will
induce me to try to conceal my imperfections in the practice of
Ahimsa. All I claim for myself is that I am ceaselessly trying to
understand the implications of great ideals like Ahimsa and to
practise them in thought, word and
deed and that not without a certain measure of success as I think. But I
know that I have a long distance yet to cover in this direction.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 1-11-1928
\end{flushright}

\par I believe myself to be saturated with Ahimsa --- non-violence. Ahimsa and
Truth are as my two lungs. I cannot live without them. But I see every
moment, with more and more clearness, the immense power of Ahimsa and the
littleness of man. Even the forest dweller cannot be entirely free from
violence, in spite of his limitless compassion. With every breath he
commits a certain amount of violence. The body itself is a house of
slaughter, and, therefore, Moksha and Eternal Bliss consist in perfect
deliverance from the body, and therefore, all pleasure, save the joy of
Moksha, is evanescent, imperfect. That being the case, we have to drink, in
daily life, many a bitter draught of violence.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 21-10-1926
\end{flushright}

\par I verily believe that man's habit of killing man on the slightest
pretext has darkened his reason and he gives himself liberties with other
life which he would shudder to take if he really believed that God was a
God of Love and Mercy. Anyway thought for fear of death I may kill tigers,
snakes, fleas, mosquitoes and the like, I ever pray for illumination that
will shed all fear of death and thus refusing to take life know the better
way, for:

\begin{quote}
Taught by the Power that pities me\\
I learn to pity them.
\end{quote}

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 9-1-1937
\end{flushright}

\begin{center}
\section{The Cow}
\end{center}

\par The cow is the purest type of sub-human life. She pleads before us on
behalf of the whole of the subhuman species for justice to it at the hands
of man, the first among all that lives. She seems to speak to us through her
eye: ``You are not appointed over us to kill us and eat our flesh or
otherwise ill-treat us, but to be our friend and guardian.''

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 26-6-1924
\end{flushright}

\par It is for me a poem of pity. I worship it and I shall defend
its worship against the whole world.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 1-1-1925
\end{flushright}

\chapter[What is Brahmacharya]{What is Brahmacharya}

\par A friend asks: ``What is Brahmacharya? Is it possible to
practise it to perfection? If possible, do you do so?''

\par The full and proper meaning of Brahmacharya is search of
Brahman. Brahman pervades every being and can therefore be searched
by diving into and realizing the inner self. This realization is
impossible without complete control of the senses. Brahmacharya thus
means control in thought, word and action of all the senses at all
times and in all places.

\par A man or woman completely practising Brahmacharya is absolutely
free from passion. Such a one therefore lives nigh unto God, is
Godlike.

\par I have no doubt that it is possible to practise such
Brahmacharya in thought, word and action to the fullest extent.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 5-6-1924
\end{flushright}

\par The man, who is wedded to Truth and worships Truth alone,
proves unfaithful to her, if he applies his talents to anything
else. How then can he minister to the senses? A man, whose
activities are wholly consecrated to the realization of Truth, which requires
utter selflessness, can have no time for
the selfish purpose of begetting children and running a household.
Realization of Truth through self-gratification should, after what has
been said before, appear a contradiction in terms.

\par If we look at it from the standpoint of Ahimsa (non-violence), we find
that the fulfilment of Ahimsa is impossible without utter selflessness.
Ahimsa means universal love. If a man gives his love to one woman,or a
woman to one man, what is there left for all the world besides? It simply
means, ``We two first, and the devil take all the rest of them.'' As a
faithful wife must be prepared to sacrifice her all for the sake of her
husband, and a faithful husband for the sake of his wife, it is clear that
such persons cannot rise to the height of universal love, or look upon all
mankind as kith and kin. For they have created a boundary wall round their
love. The larger their family, the farther are they from universal love.
Hence one who would obey the law of Ahimsa cannot marry, not to speak of
gratification outside the martial bond.

\par Then what about people who are already married? Will they never be
able to realize Truth? Can they never offer up their all at the altar of
humanity? There is a way out for them. They can behave as it they were
not married. Those who have enjoyed this happy condition will be able to
bear me out. Many have to my knowledge successfully tried the experiment.
If the married couple can think of each other as brother and sister, they
are freed for universal service. The very thought that all women in the
world are one's sisters, mothers or daughters will at once ennoble a man
and snap his chains. The husband and wife do not lose anything here, but
only add to their resources and even to their family. Their love becomes
free from the impurity of lust and so grows stronger. With the disappearance of
this impurity, they can serve each other better, and
the occasions for quarrel fewer. There are more occasions for
quarrel, where the love is selfish and bounded.

\par If the foregoing argument is appreciated, a consideration of the
physical benefits of chastity becomes a matter of secondary
importance. How foolish it is intentionally to dissipate vital
energy in sensual enjoyment! It is a grave misuse to fritter away
for physical gratification that which is given to man and woman for
the full development of their bodily and mental powers. Such misuse
is the root cause of many a disease.

\par Brahmacharya, like all other observances, must be observed in
thought, word and deed. We are told in the Gita, and experience will
corroborate the statement, that the foolish man, who appears to
control his body but is nursing evil thoughts in his mind, makes a
vain effort. It may be harmful to suppress the body, if the mind is
at the same time allowed to go astray. Where the mind wanders, the
body must follow sooner or later.

\par It is necessary here to appreciate a distinction. It is one
thing to allow the mind to harbour impure thoughts; it is a
different thing altogether if it strays among them in spite of
ourselves. Victory will be ours in the end, if we non-co-operate
with the mind in its evil wanderings.

\par We experience every moment of our lives that often while the
body is subject to our control, the mind is not. This physical
control should never be relaxed, and in addition we must put forth a
constant endeavour to bring the mind under control. We can do
nothing more, nothing less. If we give way to the mind, the body and
the mind will pull different ways, and we shall be false to
ourselves. Body and mind may be said to go together, so long as we
continue to resist the approach of every evil thought.

\par The observance of Brahmacharya has been believed to be very
difficult, almost impossible. In trying to find a reason for this
belief, we see that the term Brahmacharya has been taken in a narrow
sense. Mere control of animal passion has been thought to be
tantamount to observing Brahmacharya. I feel that this conception is
incomplete and wrong. Brahmacharya means control of all the organs
of sense. He, who attempts to control only one organ and allows all
the others free play, is bound to find his effort futile. To hear
suggestive stories with the ears, to see suggestive sights with the
eyes, to taste stimulating food with the tongue, to touch exiting
things with the hands, and then at the same time expect to control
the only remaining organ, is like putting one's hands in a fire,
and then expecting to escape being burnt. He, therefore, who is
resolved to control the one must be likewise determined to control
the rest. I have always felt that much harm has been done by the
narrow definition of Brahmacharya. If we practise simultaneous
self-control in all directions, the attempt will be scientific and
possible of success. Perhaps the palate is the chief sinner. That is
why in the Ashram we have assigned to control of the palate a
separate place among our observances.

\par Let us remember the root meaning of Brahmacharya. Charya means
course of conduct; Brahmacharya conduct adapted to the search of
Brahma, i.e. Truth. From this etymological meaning, arises the
special meaning, viz., control of all the senses. We must entirely
forget the incomplete definition which restricts itself to the
sexual aspect only.

\begin{flushright}
From Yeravda Mandir, Chapter III
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Steps to Brahmacharya]{Steps to Brahmacharya}

\par The first step is the realization of its necessity.

\par The next is gradual control of the senses. A Brahmachari must
needs control his palate. He must eat to live and not for enjoyment.
He must see only clean things and close his eyes before anything
unclean. It is thus a sign of polite breeding to walk with one's
eyes towards the ground and not wandering about from object to
object. A Brahmachari will likewise hear nothing obscene or unclean,
smell no strong, stimulating things. The smell of clean earth is far
sweeter than the fragrance of artificial scents and essences. Let
the aspirant to Brahmacharya also keep his hands and feet engaged in
all the waking hours in healthful activity. Let him also fast
occasionally.

\par The third step is to have clean companions --- clean friends and
clean books.

\par The last and not the least is prayer. Let him repeat Ramanama
with all his heart regularly everyday, and ask for divine grace.

\par None of these things are difficult for an average man or woman.
They are simplicity itself. But their very simplicity is
embarrassing. Where there is a will, the way is simple enough. Men
have not the will for it and hence vainly grope. The fact that the
world rests on the observance, more or less, of Brahmacharya or
restraint, means that it is necessary and practicable.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 29-4-1926
\end{flushright}

\par Many aspirants after Brahmacharya fail, because in the use of their
other senses they want to carry on as those who are not Brahmacharis. Their
effort is therefore identical with the effort to experience the bracing
cold of winter in the scorching summer months. There should be a clear line
between the life of Brahmachari and of one who is not. The resemblance that
there is between the two is only apparent. The distinction ought to be
clear as daylight. Both use their eyesight, but whereas the Brahmachari
uses it to see the glories of God, the other uses it to see the frivolity
around him. Both use their ears, but whereas the one hears nothing but
praises of God, the other feasts his ears upon ribaldry. Both often keep
late hours, but whereas the one devotes them to prayer, the other fritters
them away in wild and wasteful mirth. Both feed the inner man, but the one
does so only to keep the temple of God in good repair, while the other
gorges himself and makes the sacred vessel a stinking gutter. Thus both
live as the poles apart, and the distance between them will grow and not
diminish with the passage of time.

\par Brahmacharya means control of the senses in thought, word and deed.
Everyday I have been realizing more and more the necessity for restraints
of the kind I have detailed above. There is no limit to the possibilities
of renunciation, even as there is none to those of Brahmacharya. Such
Brahmacharya is impossible of attainment by limited effort. For many, it
must remain only as an ideal. An aspirant after Brahmacharya will always be
conscious of his shortcomings, will seek out the passions lingering in the
innermost recesses of his heart, and will incessantly strive to get rid of
them. So long as thought is not under complete control of the will,
Brahmacharya in its fulness is absent. Involuntary thought is an affection
of the mind; and curbing of thought means curbing of the mind which
is even more difficult to curb than the wind. Nevertheless the
existence of God within makes even control of the mind possible. Let
no one think that it is impossible because it is difficult. It is
the highest goal, and it is no wonder that the highest effort should
be necessary to attain it.

\par But it was after coming to India that I realized that such
Brahmacharya was impossible to attain merely by human effort. Until
then I had been labouring under the delusion that fruit diet alone
would enable me to eradicate all passions, and I had flattered
myself with the belief that I had nothing more to do.

\par But I must not anticipate the chapter of my struggles. Meanwhile
let me make it clear that those who desire to observe Brahmacharya
with a view to realizing God need not despair, provided their faith
in God is equal to their confidence in their own effort:

ãäÌãÓã¾ãã ãäÌããä¶ãÌã¦ãö¦ãñ ãä¶
ãÀãÖãÀԾ㠪ñãäÖ¶ã: ý

ÀÔãÌã?ãÄ ÀÔããñç¹¾ãԾ㠹ãÀâ ªðÓ?
áÌãã ãä¶ãÌã¦ãæãñ ýý

\par (The sense-objects turn away from an abstemious soul, leaving
the relish behind. The relish also disappears with the realization
of the Highest.)

\par Therefore His name and His grace are the last resources of the
aspirant after Moksha. This truth came to me only after my return to
India.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), pp. 258-60
\end{flushright}

\par For me the observance of even bodily Brahmacharya has been full
of difficulties. Today I say that I feel myself fairly safe, but I
have yet to achieve complete mastery over thought, which is so
essential. Not that the will or effort is lacking, but it is yet a
problem to me wherefrom undesirable thoughts spring their insidious
invasions. I have no doubt that there is a key to lock out undesirable
thoughts, but every one has to find it out for himself. Saints and seers have
left their experiences for us, but they have given us no infallible
and universal prescription. For perfection or freedom from error
comes only from grace, and so seekers after God have left us Mantras,
such as Ramanama, hallowed by their own austerities and charged with
their purity. Without an unreserved surrender to His grace, complete
mastery over thought is impossible. This is the teaching of every
great book of religion, and I am realizing the truth of it every
moment of my striving after that perfect Brahmacharya.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), p. 388
\end{flushright}

\par I must confess that the observance of the law of continence is
impossible without a living faith in God which is living Truth. It is
the fashion nowadays to dismiss God from life altogther and insist on
the possibility of reaching the highest kind of life without the
necessity of a living faith in a living God. I must confess my
inability to drive the truth of the law home to those who have no
faith in and no need for a Power infinitely higher than themselves.
My own experience has led me to the knowledge that fullest life is
impossible without an immovable belief in a living law in obedience
to which the whole universe moves. A man without that faith is like a
drop thrown out of the ocean bound to perish. Even drop in the ocean
shares its majesty and has the honour of giving us the ozone of life.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 25-4-1936
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Marriage, a Sacrament]{Marriage, a Sacrament}

\par Man is, undoubtedly, an artist and creator. Undoubtedly he must
have beauty and, therefore, colour. His artistic and creative nature
at its best taught him to discriminate, and to know that any
conglomeration of colours was no mark of beauty, nor every sense of
enjoyment good in itself. His eye for art taught man to seek
enjoyment in usefulness. Thus, he learnt at an early stage of his
evolution that he was to eat not for its own sake, as some of us
still do, but he should eat to enable him to live. At a later stage,
he learnt further that there was neither beauty nor joy in living
for its own sake, but that he must live to serve his fellow
creatures and through them his Maker. Similarly, when he pondered
over the phenomenon of the pleasurableness of sexual union, he
discovered that like every other organ of sense this one of
generation had its use and abuse. And he saw that its true function,
its right use, was to restrict it to generation. Any other use he
saw was ugly, and he saw further that it was fraught with very
serious consequences, as well to the individual as to the race.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 4-4-1936
\end{flushright}

\par Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of
spirituality. If so, it must be based on ever increasing restraint
upon the demands of the flesh. Thus, marriage must be considered to
be a sacrament imposing discipline upon the partners, restricting
them to the physical union only among themselves and for the purpose
only of procreation when both the partners desire and are prepared for it.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 16-9-1926
\end{flushright}

\par There can be no two opinions about the necessity of birth-control. But the
only method handed down from ages past is self-control or Brahmacharya. It is
an infallible sovereign remedy doing good to those who practise it. And medical
men will earn the gratitude of mankind,if instead of devising artificial means
of birth-control they will find out the means of self-control.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 12-3-1925
\end{flushright}

\par Artificial methods are like putting a premium upon vice. They make man and
woman reckless. And respectability that is being given to the methods must
hasten the dissolution of the restraints that public opinion puts upon one.
Adoption of artificial methods must result in imbecility and nervous
prostration. The remedy will be found to be worse than the disease.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 12-3-1925
\end{flushright}

\par It is wrong and immortal to seek to escape the consequences of one's
acts. It is good for a person who overeats to have an ache and a fast. It is
bad for him to indulge his appetite and then escape the consequence by taking
tonics or other medicine. It is still worse for a person to indulge in his
animal passions and escape the consequences of his acts. Nature is relentless
and will have full revenge for any such violation of her laws. Moral results
can only be produced by moral restraints. All other restraints defeat the very
purpose for which they are intended.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 12-3-1925
\end{flushright}

\par The world depends for its existence on the act of generation, and as the
world is the playground of God and a reflection of His glory, the act of
generation should be controlled for the ordered growth of the world.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), p. 251
\end{flushright}

\par Sex urge is a fine and noble thing. There is nothing to be
ashamed of in it. But it is meant only for the act of creation. Any
other use of it is a sin against God and humanity.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 28-3-1946
\end{flushright}

\par It is a sin to bring forth unwanted children, but I think it is
a greater sin to avoid the consequences of one's own action. It
simply unmans man.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 7-9-1935
\end{flushright}

\par Man must choose either of the two courses, the upward or the
downward; but as he has the brute in him, he will more easily choose
the downward course than the upward, especially when the downward
course is presented to him in a beautiful garb. Man easily
capitulates when sin is presented in the garb of virtue, and that is
what Marie Stopes and others are doing.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 31-1-1935
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Gospel of Non-Possession]{Gospel of Non-Possession}

\par A seeker after Truth, a follower of the Law of Love, cannot
hold anything against tomorrow. God never provides for the morrow.
He never creates more than what is strictly needed from day to day.
If, therefore, we repose faith in His Providence, we should rest
assured that he will give us every day our daily bread, meaning
everything that we require\ldots Our ignorance or negligence of the
Divine Law, which gives to man from day to day his daily bread and
no more, has given rise to inequalities with all
the miseries attendant upon them. The rich have a superfluous store
of things which they do not need and which are, therefore, neglected
and wasted; while millions starve and are frozen to death for want
of them. If each retained possession only of what he needed, no one
would be in want and all would live in contentment. As it is, the
rich are discontented no less than the poor. The poor man would fain
become a millionaire and the millionaire a multi-millionaire. The
poor are often not satisfied when they get just enough to fill their
stomaches; but they are clearly entitled to it and society should
make it a point to see that they get it. The rich must take an
initiative in the matter with a view to a universal diffusion of the
spirit of contentment. If only they keep their own property within
moderate limits the poor will be easily fed; and will learn the
lesson of contentment along with the rich. Perfect fulfilment of the
ideal of non-possession requires that man should, like the birds,
have no roof over his head, no clothing and no stock of food for the
morrow. He will, indeed, need his daily bread, but it will be God's
business, and not his to provide for it. Only a very few rare soul
can attain this ideal, however. We ordinary seekers can only keep it
constantly in view, and in the light thereof, critically examine our
property and try to reduce it every day. Civilization in the real
sense of the term consists not in the multiplication but in the
deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants, which promotes real
happiness and contentment and increases the capacity for service. One
can reduce one's wants by perseverance, and the reduction of wants
makes for happiness --- a healthy body and a peaceful mind. From the
standpoint of pure truth, the body too is property acquired by the
soul. By means of a desire for enjoyment we have created and continue
to maintain this encumbrance in the shape of the body. When this.
desire vanishes, there remains no further need for the body, and man
is free from the vicious cycle of births and deaths. The soul is
omnipresent; why should she care to be confined within the cagelike
body, or do evil and even kill for the sake of that cage? We thus
arrive at the ideal of total renunciation and learn to use the body
for the purposes of service so long as it exists, so much so that
service and not bread becomes with us the staff of life. We eat and
drink, sleep and awake for service alone. This brings us real
happiness, and the beatific vision in the fulness of time. Let us
all examine our possession from this standpoint.

\par We should remember that non-possession is a principle applicable
to thoughts as well as to things. One who fills his brain with
useless knowledge violates that inestimable principle. Thoghts which
turn us away from God or do not turn us towards Him constitute
impediments which one must soon get rid of. In this connection we
may consider the definition of knowledge contained in the 13th
Chapter of the Gita. We are there told that humility (Amanitvam),
etc., constitute knowledge, and all the rest is ignorance. If this
is true --- and there is no doubt that it is true --- much that we hug today
as knowledge is ignorance pure and simple and, therefore, only does
us harm instead of conferring any benefit. It makes the mind wander
and even reduces it to a vacuity, and discontent flourishes in
endless ramifications of evil. Needless to say, this is not a plea
for inertia. Every moment of our lives should be filled with
activity, but that activity should be Sattvika tending to truth. One
who has concecrated his life to service cannot be idle for a single
moment. But one has to learn to distinguish between good activity
and evil activity. This discernment goes naturally with a
single-minded devotion to service.

\begin{flushright}
From Yeravda Mandir, Chapter VI
\end{flushright}

\par Therefore, renounce all and dedicate it to God and then live. The right of
living is thus derived from renunciation. It does not say, ``When all do their
part of the work I too will do it.'' It says, ``Don't bother about others, do
your job first, and leave the rest to Him.''

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 6-3-1937
\end{flushright}

\par Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Nanak, Kabir, Chaitanya, Shankara, Dayananda,
Ramakrishna were men who exercised an immense influence over and moulded the
character of thousands of men. The world is the richer for their having lived
in it. And they were all men who deliberately embraced poverty as their lot.

\begin{flushright}
Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, (1933), p. 353
\end{flushright}

\par The golden rule\ldots is resolutely to refuse to have what millions cannot.
This ability to refuse will not descend upon us all of a sudden. The first
thing is to cultivate the mental attitude that will not have possessions or
facilities denied to millions, and the next immediate thing is to re-arrange
our lives as fast as possible in accordance with that mentality.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-6-1926
\end{flushright}

\par If we will take care of today, God will take care of tomorrow.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 13-10-1921
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Work is Worship]{Work is Worship}

\par ``Brahma created His people with the duty of sacrifice laid upon them, and
said: ``By this do you flourish. Let it be the fulfiller of all your desires.''
``He who eats without performing this sacrifice, eats stolen bread,'' --- thus
says the Gita. ``Earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow,'' says the Bible.
Sacrifices may be of many kinds. One of them may well be bread
labour. If all laboured for their bread and no more, then there
would be enough food and enough leisure for all. Then there would be
no cry of over-population, no disease, and no such misery as we see
around. Such labour will be the highest form of sacrifice. Men will
no doubt do many other things, either through their bodies or
through their minds, but all this will be labour of love, for the
common good. There will then be no rich and no poor, none high and
none low, no touchable and no untouchable.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-6-1935
\end{flushright}

\par This may be an unattainable ideal. But we need not, therefore,
cease to strive for it. Even if, without fulfilling the whole law of
sacrifice, that is, the law of our being, we performed physical
labour enough for our daily bread, we should go a long way towards
the ideal.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-6-1935
\end{flushright}

\par If we did so, our wants would be minimized, our food would be
simple. We should then eat to live, not live to eat. Let anyone who
doubts the accuracy of this proposition try to sweat for his bread,
he will derive the greatest relish from the productions of his
labour, improve his health, and discover that many things he took
were superfluities.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-6-1935
\end{flushright}

\par May not men earn their bread by intellectual labour? No. The
needs of the body must be supplied by the body. ``Render unto Caesar
that which is Caesar's'' perhaps applies here as well. Mere mental,
that is, intellectual labour is for the soul and is its own
satisfaction. It should never demand payment. In the ideal State,
doctors, lawyers and the like will work solely for the benefit of
society, not for self.

\par Obedience to the law of bread labour will bring about a silent revolution
in the structure of society. Men's triumph will consist in substituting the
struggle for existence by the struggle for mutual service. The law of the
brute will be replaced by the law of man.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-6-1935
\end{flushright}

\par Return to the villages means a definite voluntary recognition of the duty
of bread labour and all it connotes.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 29-6-1935
\end{flushright}

\par God of Himself seeks for His seat the heart of him who serves his
fellowmen. Such was Abu Ben Adhem. He served his fellowmen and therefore his
name topped the list of those who served God.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-9-1925
\end{flushright}

\par But who are the suffering and the woe-begone? The suppressed and the
poverty-stricken. He who would be a bhakta, therefore, must serve these by
body, soul and mind. He who does not even condescend to exert his body to the
extent of spinning for the sake of the poor and trots out lame excuses does
not know the meaning of service. He who spins before the poor inviting them to
do likewise serves God as no one else does. ``He who gives Me even a trifle as
a fruit or a flower or even a leaf in the spirit of bhakti is my servant'',
says the Lord in the Bhagavadgita. And He hath His footstool where live ``the
humble, the lowliest and lost''. Spinning, therefore, for such is the greatest
prayer, the greatest worship, the greatest sacrifice.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 24-9-1925
\end{flushright}

\par Q: Would it not be better for a man to give the time he spends on the
worship of God to the service of the poor? And should not true service make
devotional worship unnecessary for such a man?

\par A: I sense mental laziness as also agnosticism in this
question. The biggest of Karmayogis never give up devotional songs
or worship. Idealistically it may be said that true service of
others is itself worship and that such devotees do not need to spend
any time in songs, etc. As a matter of fact, Bhajans, etc. are a
help to true service and keep the remembrance of God fresh in the
heart of the devotee.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 13-10-1946
\end{flushright}

\par No work that is done in His name and dedicated to Him is small.
All work when so done assumes equal merit. A scavenger who works in
His service shares equal distinction with a king who uses his gifts
in His name and as a mere trustee.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 25-11-1926
\end{flushright}

\par I cannot imagine anything nobler or more national than that
for, say, one hour in the day, we should all do the labour that the
poor must do, and thus identify ourselves with them and through them
with all mankind. I cannot imagine better worship of God than that
in His name I should labour for the poor even as they do.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-10-1921
\end{flushright}

\par There can never be too much emphasis placed on work. I am
simply repeating the gospel taught by the Gita where the Lord says,
``If I did not remain ever at work sleeplessly, I should set a wrong
example to mankind.''

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 2-11-1935
\end{flushright}

\par We should be ashamed of resting or having a square meal so long
as there is one able-bodied man or woman without work or food.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 6-10-1921
\end{flushright}

\par Service is not possible unless it is rooted in love or Ahimsa.
True love is boundless like the ocean and rising
and swelling within one spreads itself out and crossing all boundaries and
frontiers envelops the whole world. This service is again impossible without
bread labour, otherwise described in the Gita as Yajna. It is only when a man
or woman has done bodily labour for the sake of service that he or she has the
right to live.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-9-1928
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Sarvodaya]{Sarvodaya}

\par This body\ldots has been given to us only in order that we may serve all
Creation with it. And, therefore, says the Gita, he who eats without offering
Yajna eats stolen food. Every single act of one who would lead a life of purity
should be in the nature of Yajna\footnote{What Yajna means has been explained
by Gandhiji in an earlier paragraph. He says: ``Yajna means an act directed to
the welfare of others, done without desiring any return for it, whether of a
temporal of spiritual nature. ``Act'' here must be taken in its widest sense,
and includes thought and word, as well as deed. ``Others'' embraces not only
humanity, but all life. Therefore, and from the standpoint of Ahimsa it is not
a Yajna to sacrifice lower animals even with a view to the service of
humanity.''}. Yajna having come to us with our birth, we are debtors all our
lives, and thus for ever bound to serve the universe. And even as bondslave
receives food, clothing and so on from the master whom he serves, so should we
gratefully accept such gifts as may be assigned to us by the Lord of the
universe. What we receive must be called a gift; for as debtors we are entitled
to no consideration for the discharge of our obligations. Therefore we may not
blame the Master, if we fail to get it. Our body is His to be cherished or cast
away according to His will. This is not a matter for complaint or even pity; on
the contrary, it is a natural and even a pleasant and desirable state, if only
we realize our proper place in God's scheme. We do indeed need strong faith, if
we would experience this supreme bliss. ``Do not worry in the least about
yourself, leave all worry to God,'' \ldots this appears to be the commandment
in all religions.

\par This need not frighten any one. He who devotes himself to
service with a clear conscience will day by day grasp the necessity
for it in greater measure, and will continually grow richer in
faith. The path of service can hardly be trodden by one, who is not
prepared to renounce self-interest, and to recognize the conditions
of his birth. Consciously or unconsciously every one of us does
render some service or other. If we cultivate this habit of doing
this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow
stronger, and will make not only for our own happiness but that of
the world at large.

\begin{flushright}
From Yeravda Mandir, Chapter XIV
\end{flushright}

\par A votary of Ahimsa cannot subscribe to the utilitarian formula
(of the greatest good of the greatest number). He will strive for
the greatest good of all and die in the attempt to realize the
ideal. He will, therefore, be willing to die, so that the others may
live. He will serve himself with the rest, by himself dying. The
greatest good of all inevitably includes the good of the greatest
number, and therefore, he and the utilitarian will converge in many
points in their career but there does come a time when they must
part company,and even work in opposite directions. The utilitarian
to be logical will never sacrifice himself.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 9-12-1926
\end{flushright}

\par I do not believe\ldots that an individual may gain spiritually and those
who surround him suffer. I believe in Advaita. I believe in the essential unity
of man and, for that matter, of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if
one man gains spiritually, the whole world gains with him and, if one man
falls, the whole world falls to that extent.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 4-12-1924
\end{flushright}

\par There is not a single virtue which aims at, or is content with, the
welfare of the individual alone. Conversely, there is not a single offence
which does not, directly or indirectly, affect many others besides the actual
offender. Hence, whether an individual is good or bad is not merely his own
concern, but really the concern of the whole community, nay, of the whole
world.

\begin{flushright}
Ethical Religion (1927), p. 55
\end{flushright}

\par A life of service must be one of humility. He, who would sacrifice his
life for others, has hardly time to reserve for himself a place in the sun.
Inertia must not be mistaken for humility, as it has been in Hinduism. True
humility means most strenuous and constant endeavour entirely directed to the
service of humanity. God is continuously in action without resting for a single
moment. If we would serve Him or become one with Him, or activity must be as
unwearied as His.

\begin{flushright}
From Yeravda Mandir, Chapter XII
\end{flushright}

\par There may be momentary rest in store for the drop which is separated from
the ocean, but not for the drop in the ocean, which knows no rest. The same is
the case with ourselves. As soon as we become one with the ocean in the shape
of God, there is no more rest for us, nor indeed do we need rest any longer.
Our very sleep is action. For we sleep with the thought of God in our hearts.
This restlessness constitutes true rest. This never-ceasing agitation
holds the key to peace ineffable. This supreme state of total
surrender is difficult to describe, but not beyond the bounds of
human experience. It has been attained by many dedicated souls, and
may be attained by ourselves as well.

\begin{flushright}
From Yeravda Mandir, Ch. XII
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Ethics of the Atom Bomb]{Ethics of the Atom Bomb}

\par It has been suggested by American friends that the atom bomb will bring in
Ahimsa as nothing else can. It will, if it is meant that its destructive power
will so disgust the world that it will turn it away from violence for the time
being. This is very like a man glutting himself with dainties to the point of
nausea and turning away from them only to return with redoubled zeal after the
effect of nausea is well over. Precisely in the same manner will the world
return to violence with renewed zeal after the effect of disgust is worn out.

\par Often does good come out of evil. But that is God's, not man's
plan. Man knows that only evil can come out of evil, as good out of good.

\par That atomic energy, though harnessed by American scientists and army men
for destructive purposes, may be utilized by other scientists for humanitarian
purposes is undoubtedly within the realm of possibility. But that is not what
was meant by my American friends. They were not so simple as to put a question
which connoted an obvious truth. An incendiary uses fire for his destructive
and nefarious purpose, a housewife makes daily use of it in preparing
nourishing food for mankind.

\par So far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that
has sustained mankind for ages. There used to be the so-called laws of war
which made it tolerable. Now we know the naked truth. War knows no law except
that of might. The atom bomb brought an empty victory to the Allied arms but it
resulted for the time being in destroying the soul of Japan. What has happened
to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see. Forces of Nature
act in a mysterious manner.  We can but solve the mystery by deducing the
unknown result from the known results of similar events. A slave holder cannot
hold a slave without putting himself or his deputy in the cage holding the
slave. Let no one run away with the idea that I wish to put in a defence of
Japanese misdeeds in pursuance of Japan's unworthy ambiton. The difference was
only one of degree. I assume that Japan's greed was more unworthy. But the
greater unworthiness conferred no right on the less unworthy of destroying
without mercy men, women and children of Japan in particular area.

\par The moral to be legitimately drawn from the supreme tragedy of the bomb is
that it will not be destroyed by counter-bombs even as violence cannot be by
counter-violence. Mankind has to get out of violence only through
non-violence. Harted can be overcome only by love. Counter-hatred only
increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred. I am aware that I am
repeating what I have many times stated before and practised to the best of my
ability and capacity. What I first stated was itself nothing new. It was as
old as the hills. Only I recited no copy-book maxim but definitely announced
what I believed in every fibre of my being. Sixty years of practice in various
walks of life has only enriched the belief which experience of friends has
fortified. It is, however, the central truth by which one can stand alone
without flinching. I believe in what Max Muller said years ago, namely, that
truth needed to be repeated as along as there were men who disbelieved it.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 7-7-1946
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Peace on Earth]{Peace on Earth}

\par It is my firm opinion that Europe today represents not the
spirit of God or Christianity but the spirit of Satan. And Satan's
successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on
his lips. Europe is today only nominally Christian. It is really
worshipping Mammon. ``It is easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom.'' Thus
really spoke Jesus Christ. His so-called followers measure their
moral progress by their material possessions.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 8-9-1920
\end{flushright}

\par By all means drink deep of the fountains that are given to you
in the Sermon on the Mount, but then you will have to take sackcloth
and ashes. The teaching of the Sermon was meant for each and every
one of us. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. God the
Compassionate and the Merciful, Tolerance incarnate, allows Mammon
to have his nine days'' wonder. But I say to you\ldots fly from that
self-destroying but destructive show of Mammon.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 8-12-1927
\end{flushright}

\par A time is coming when those, who are in the mad rush today of
multiplying their wants, vainly thinking that they add to the real
substance, real knowledge of the world, will retrace their steps and
say: ``What have we done?'' Civilizations have come and gone, and
in spite of all our vaunted progress I am tempted to ask again and again ``To
what purpose?'' Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin, has said the same thing.
Fifty years of brilliant inventions and discoveries, he has said, have not
added one inch to the moral height of mankind. So said a dreamer and
visionary if you will --- Tolstoy. So said Jesus, and Buddha, and
Muhammad, whose religion is being denied and falsified in my own
country today.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 8-12-1927
\end{flushright}

\par Not to believe in the possibility of permanent peace is to
disbelieve in the Godliness of human nature. Methods hitherto adopted
have failed because rock-bottom sincerity on the part of those who
have striven has been lacking. Not that they have realized this lack.
Peace is unattained by part performance of conditions, even as a
chemical combination is impossible without complete fulfilment of the
conditions of attainment thereof. If the recognized leaders of mankind
who have control over the engines of destruction were wholly to
renounce their use, with full knowledge of its implications, permanent
peace can be obtained. This is clearly impossible without the great
powers of the earth renouncing their imperialistic design. This again
seems impossible without great nations ceasing to believe in
soul-destroying competition and to desire to multiply wants and,
therefore, increase their material possessions. It is my conviction
that the root of the evil is want of a living faith in a living God.
It is a first-class human tragedy that peoples of the earth who claim
to believe in the message of Jesus whom they describe as the Prince of
Peace show little of that belief in actual practice. It is painful to
see sincere Christian divines limiting the scope of Jesus'' message to
select individuals. I have been taught from my childhood and tested
the truth by experience that the primary virtues
of mankind are possible of cultivation by the meanest of the human
spices. It is this undoubted universal possibility that
distinguishes the humans from the rest of God's creation. If even
one nation were unconditionally to perform the supreme act of
renunciation, many of us would see in our lifetime visible peace
established on earth.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 18-6-1938
\end{flushright}

\par If the best minds of the world have not imbibed the spirit of
non-violence, they would have to meet gangsterism in the orthodox
way. But that would only show that we have not gone far beyond the
law of the jungle, that we have not yet learnt to appreciate the
heritage that God has given us, that, in spite of the teaching of
Christianity which is 1,900 years old and of Hinduism and Buddhism
which are older, and even of Islam, we have not made much headway as
human beings. But whilst I would understand the use of force by
those who have not the spirit of non-violence in them I would have
those who know non-violence to throw their whole weight in
demonstrating that even gangsterism has to be met with non-violence.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 10-12-1938
\end{flushright}

\par Brute force has been the ruling factor in the world for
thousands of years, and mankind has been reaping its bitter harvest
all along, as he who runs may read. There is little hope of anything
good coming out of it in the future. If light came out of darkness,
then alone can love emerge from hatred.

\begin{flushright}
Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 289
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Obiter Dicta]{Obiter Dicta}

\subsection{Death}

\par Why should we be upset when children or young men or old men
die? Not a moment passes when some one is not born or is not dead
in this world. We should feel the stupidity of rejoicing in a birth
and lamenting a death. Those who believe in the soul --- and what Hindu,
Musulman or Parsee is there who does not --- know that the soul
never dies. The souls of the living as well as of the dead are all
one. The eternal processes of creation and destruction are going on
ceaselessly. There is nothing in it for which we might give
ourselves up to joy or sorrow. Even if we extend the idea of
relationship only to our countrymen and take all the births in the
country as taking place in our family, how many births shall we
celebrate? If we weep for all the deaths in our country, the tears
in our eyes whould never dry. This train of thought should help us
to get rid of all fear of death.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 13-10-1921
\end{flushright}

\par Birth and death are not two different states, but they are
different aspects of the same state. There is as little reason to
deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the other.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 20-11-1924
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Immortality}

\par I believe in the immortality of the soul. I would like to give
you the analogy of the ocean. The ocean is composed
of drops of water, each drop is an entity and yet it is part of the
whole, ``the one and the many''. In this ocean of life we are all
little drops. We doctrine means that I must identify myself with
life, with everything that lives that I must share the majesty of
life in the presence of God. The sum of total of this life is God.

\begin{flushright}
India's Case for Swaraj (1932), p. 245
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Insurance}

\par I had thought that life insurance implied fear and want of
faith in God\ldots In getting my life insured I had robbed my wife
and children of their self-reliance. Why should they be not expected
to take care of themselves? What happened to the families of the
numberless poor in the world? Why should I not count myself as one
of them? What reason had I to assume that death would claim me
earlier than the others? After all the real protector was neither I
nor my brother but God Almighty.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), pp. 320-21
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Means and Ends}

\par They say, ``means are after all means.'' I would say, ``means
are after all everything.'' As the means so the end. There is no
wall of separation between the means and the end. Indeed the Creator
has given us control (and that too very limited) over means, none
over the end. Realization of the goal is in exact proportion to that
of the means. This is a proposition that admits of no exception.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 17-7-1924
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Politics}

\par 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. This is why my devotion of Truth has drawn me into the field of
politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all
humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do
not know what religion means.

\begin{flushright}
Autobiography (1948), p. 615
\end{flushright}

\par For me, politics bereft of religion are absolute dirt, ever to be shunned.
Politics concern nations and that which concerns the welfare of nations must be
one of the concerns of a man who is religiously inclined, in other words a
seeker after God and Truth. For me God and Truth are convertible terms, and if
anyone told me that God was a God of untruth or a God of torture I would
decline to worship Him. Therefore, in politics also we have to establish the
Kingdom of Heaven.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 18-6-1925
\end{flushright}

\par I could not be leading a religious life unless I identified myself with
the whole of mankind, and that I could not do unless I took part in politics.
The whole gamut of man's activities today constitutes as indivisible whole.
You cannot divide social, economic, political and purely religious work into
watertight compartments. I do not know any religion apart from human activity.
It provides a moral basis to all other activities which they would otherwise
lack, reducing life to a maze of ``sound and fury signifying nothing''.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 24-12-1938
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Predestination}

\par Q: Are the time, place and manner of death predestined by the Almighty
for each individual? If so, why worry even if we are ill?

\par A: I do not know whether time, place and the manner of death are
predestined. All I do know is that ``not a blade of grass moves but by His
will''. This too I know hazily. What is hazy today will be clear tomorrow or
the day after by prayerful waiting. Let this however be quite clear. The
Almighty is not a person like us. He or it is the greatest living Force or Law
in the world. Accordingly He does not act by caprice, nor does that Law admit
of any amendment or improvement. His will is fixed and changeless, everything
else changes every second. Surely, it does not follow from the doctrine of
predestination that we may not ``worry'' in the care of ourselves even if we
are ill. Indifference to illness is a crime greater than that of falling ill.
There is no end to the effort to do better today than yesterday. We have to
``worry'' and find out why we are or have become ill. Health, not ``illth'', is
the law of nature. Let us investigate the law of nature and obey it, if we will
not be ill or, if having fallen ill, will be restored.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 28-7-1946
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Progress}

\par Evolution is always experimental. All progress is gained through mistakes
and their rectification. No good comes fully fashioned, out of God's hand, but
has to be carved out through repeated experiments and repeated failures by
ourselves. This is the law of individual growth. The same law controls social
and political evolution also. The right to err, which means the freedom to try
experiments, is the universal condition of all progress.

\begin{flushright}
Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (1933), p. 245
\end{flushright}

\par The nations have progressed both by evolution and revolution. The one is
as necessary as the other. Death, which is an eternal verity, is revolution as
birth and after is slow and steady evolution. Death is as necessary for man's
growth as life itself. God is the greatest revolutionary the world has ever
known or will know. He sends storms where a moment ago there was calm. He
levels down mountains which He builds with exquisite care and infinite
patience. I do watch the sky and it fills me with awe and wonder. In the serene
blue sky, both of India and England, I have seen clouds gathering and bursting
with a fury which has struck me dumb. History is more a record of wonderful
revolutions than the so-called ordered progress\ldots

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 2-2-1922
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Rebirth}

\par I am a believer in previous births and rebirths. All our relationships
are the result of the Sanskaras we carry from previous births. God's laws are
inscrutable and are the subject of endless search. No one will fathom them.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 18-8-1940.
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Religious Education}

\par I do not believe that the State can concern itself or cope with religious
instruction. I believe that religious education must be the sole concern of
religious associations. Do not mix up religion and ethics. I believe that
fundamental ethics is common to all religions. Teaching of fundamental ethics
is undoubtedly a function of the State. By religion I have not in mind
fundamental ethics but what goes by the name of denominationalism. We have
suffered enough from State-aided religion and a State-church. A society or
group, which depends partly or wholly on State aid for the existence of its
religion, does not deserve or, better still, does not have any religion worth
the name.  I do not need to give any illustrations in support of this obvious
truth as it is to me.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 31-8-1947
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Religious Ideal}

\par \ldots The very virtue of a religious ideal lies in the fact
that it cannot be completely realized in the flesh. For a religious
ideal must be proved by faith, and how can faith have play if
perfection could be attained by the spirit while it was still
surrounded by its ``earthly vesture of decay''? Where there be scope
for its infinite expansion which is its essential characteristic?
Where would be room for that constant striving, that ceaseless quest
after the ideal that is the basis of all spiritual progress, if
mortals could reach the perfect state while still in the body? If
such easy perfection in the body was possible, all we would have to
do would be simply to follow a cut and dry model. Similarly if a
perfect code of conduct were possible for all there would be no room
for a diversity of faiths and religions because there would be only
one standard religion which everybody would have to follow.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 22-11-1928
\end{flushright}

\par The virtue of an ideal consists in its boundlessness. But
although religious ideals must thus, from their nature, remain
unattainable by imperfect human beings, although by virtue of their
boundlessness they may seem ever to recede further away from us, the
nearer we go to them, still they are closer to us than our very
hands and feet because we are more certain of their reality and
truth than even of our own physical being. This faith in one's
ideals alone constitutes true life, in fact, it is man's all in all.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 22-11-1928
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Rights}

\par The true source of rights is duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights
will not be far to seek. If leaving duties unperformed we run after rights,
they will escape us like a will-of-the-wisp. The more we pursue them, the
farther will they fly. The same teaching has been embodied by Krishna in the
immortal words: ``Action alone is thine. Leave thou the fruit severely
alone.'' Action is duty; fruit is the right.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 8-1-1925
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Secrecy}

\par I have come to regard secrecy as a sin\ldots If we realized the presence
of God as witness to all we say and do, we would not have anything to conceal
from any body on earth. For we would not think unclean thoughts before our
Maker, much less speak them. It is uncleanness that seeks secrecy and darkness.
The tendency of human nature is to hide dirt; we do not want to see or touch
dirty things; we want to put them out of sight. And so must it be with our
speech. I would suggest that we should avoid even thinking thoughts we would
hide from the world.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 22-12-1920
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Sin}

\par I do not seek redemption from the consequences of my sin; I seek to be
redeemed from sin itself or rather from the very thought of sin. Until I have
attained that end I shall be content to be restless.

\begin{flushright}
Mahatma Gandhi's Ideas (1930), p. 70
\end{flushright}

\par A sinner is equal to the saint in the eye of God. Both will have equal
justice, and both an equal opportunity either to go forward or to go backward.
Both are His children, His creation. A saint who considers himself superior to
a sinner forfeits his sainthood and becomes worse than the sinner, who,
unlike the proud saint, knows not what he is doing.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 14-10-1933
\end{flushright}

\par I have made the frankest admission of my many sins. But I do
not carry their burden on my shoulders. If I am journeying Godward,
as I feel I am, it is safe with me. For I feel the warmth of the
sunshine of His presence. My austerities, fastings and prayers are,
I know, of no value, if I rely upon them for reforming me. But they
have an inestimable value, if they represent, as I hope they do, the
yearnings of a soul striving to lay his weary head in the lap of his
Maker.

\begin{flushright}
Harijan, 18-4-1936
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Spiritualism}

\par I never receive communications from the spirits of the dead. I
have no evidence warranting a disbelief in the possibility of such
communications. But I do strongly disapprove of the practice of
holding or attempting to hold such communications. They are often
deceptive and are products of the imagination. The practice is
harmful both to the medium and the spirits, assuming the possibility
of such communications. It attracts and ties to the earth the spirit
so invoked whereas its effort should be to detach itself from the
earth, and rise higher. A spirit is not necessarily purer because it
is disembodied. It takes with it most of the frailties to which it
was liable when on earth. Information or advice, therefore, given by
it need not be true or sound. That the spirit likes communications with those
on earth is no matter for pleasure. On the contrary it should be weaned from
such unlawful attachment. So much for the harm done to the spirits.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 12-9-1929
\end{flushright}

\par As for the medium, it is a matter of positive knowledge with me that all
those within my experience have been deranged or weak-brained and disabled for
practical work whilst they were holding, or thought they were holding, such
communications. I can recall no friend of mine who having held such
communications had benefited in any way.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 12-9-1929
\end{flushright}

\subsection{Superstition}

\par Superstitions and undesirable things go as soon as we begin to live the
correct life. I concern myself not with belief but with asking to do the right
thing. As soon as they do it, their belief rights itself.

\begin{flushright}
Young India, 11-8-1927
\end{flushright}

\chapter[Non English words with their meanings]{Non English words\\ with their meanings}

\textit{Abhyasa}: repetition; practice; study

\textit{Abu Ben Adhem}: a saintly Muslim character, the creation of Leigh
Hunt's poetic imagination, who is represented as one who, though he
was content to be known merely as a lover of his fellowmen, found
his name in the recording angel's book leading the list of those
who loved the Lord.

\textit{Adi Parva}: first book of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata

\textit{Advaita}: Hindu philosophy of Non-dualism

\textit{Advaitist}: a believer in non-dualism

\textit{Agiari}: Zoroastrian fire-temple

\textit{Ahimsa}: non-violence

\textit{Ahriman}: Spirit of Evil, in Zoroastrian religion

\textit{Ahurmazd}: Zoroastrian name of God

\textit{Akash}: ether; sky

\textit{Allah}: Muslim name of God

\textit{Amanitvam}: humility

\textit{Ananda}: joy

\textit{Anekantavada}: belief in many doctrines; scepticism

\textit{Anekantavadi}: a believer in many doctrines; a sceptic

\textit{Arya Samaj}: a Hindu reformist organization founded by Swami Dayananda
Saraswati in the last century

\textit{Ashram}: a bode of a spiritual teacher; hermitage; one of the four
stages of life according to Hinduism

\textit{Avatara}: incarnation of God

\textit{Ayodhya}: capital of the kingdom of Rama, the epic hero

\textit{Bansi}: flute

\textit{Bhagavadgita}: The Song Celestial, a highly philosophical poem of 700
verses which occurs in the Mahabharata and in which Krishna, incarnate God,
discourses on eternal verities.

\textit{Bhajan}: hymn; singing of hymns

\textit{Bhakta}: a devotee

\textit{Bhakti}: devotion

\textit{Brahma}: Hindu name of God, the Creator

\textit{Brahmachari}: a celibate; one who lives a life of self-restraint

\textit{Brahmacharya}: celibacy; continence; life of self-restraint

\textit{Brahman}: God

\textit{Brahmana}: member of the first (priestly) caste among Hindus

\textit{Brahmaputra}: a river of north-eastern India

\textit{Chaitanya}: Bengali religious reformer of the 15th century A.D. who
preached Bhakti or devotion to God

\textit{Chapati}: thin, flat cake made of floor

\textit{Charya}: conduct; practice

\textit{Chit}: knowledge

\textit{Dada Hormazda}: Zoroastrian name of God

\textit{Daridranarayana}: God in the form of the poor

\textit{Dasharatha}: King of Ayodhya and father of Rama, the epic hero

\textit{Dayananda}: Swami Dayananda Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj

\textit{Devadhideva}: God of Gods

\textit{Dava, Devata}: god

\textit{Dharma}: religion; law of one's being; duty

\textit{Dvaaita}: Hindu philosophy of Dualism

\textit{Dvaitism}: doctrine of Dualism

\textit{Ganga}: well-known sacred river of northern India

\textit{Gayatri}: sacred Vedic Mantra (or formula) which is recited by orthodox Hindus in their daily worship

\textit{Gita}: same as Bhagavadgita

\textit{Guru}: teacher; religious preceptor

\textit{Hanuman}: monkey-chief of the epic Ramayana, whom Hindus venerate as a divinity

\textit{Harishchandra}: an ancient Hindu king who sacrificed his all for the sake of truth

\textit{Himsa}: violence

\textit{Imam Hasan and Imam Husain}: saintly sons of Hazrat Ali, son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad

\textit{Ishwara}: Hindu name for God

\textit{Islam}: religion founded by Prophet Muhammad

\textit{Jainism}: an ancient religion of India propagated by 24 Tirthankars or
Saviours, the first of whom was Rishabha and the last Mahavira, who
was a contemporary of Buddha in the 6th century B.C. One of the
cardinal doctrines of Jainism is Ahimsa or Non-violence.

\textit{Janaka}: an ancient Hindu king who was a great philosopher

\textit{Janmashtami}: birthday of Shri Krishna, Hindu incarnation of God, to
whom the Bhagvadgita or The Song Celestial is ascribed

\textit{Japa}: silent repetition

\textit{Jehova}: Herbrew name of God

\textit{Judaism}: the religion of the Jews

\textit{Kabir}: poet-saint of northern India who lived in the 15th century
A.D. and who preached the essential unity of the Godhead and harmony
of all religions

\textit{Kalma}: a Muslim formula of prayer

\textit{Karmayogi}: a follower of the path of selfless action

\textit{Khuda}: Muslim name for God

\textit{Koran}: Book of Revelation of Islam

\textit{Krishna}: central figure of the epic, Mahabharata, who is venerated by
Hindus as God incarnate

\textit{Lila}: play

\textit{Mahabharata}: Hindu epic of about 1,00,000 verses, the central theme
of which is the great war between the Pandavas and their cousins the
Kauravas, who were rival claimants to the throne of Hastinapur
(ancient Delhi)

\textit{Mandir}: Hindu temple

\textit{Mantra}: a sacred text or formula

\textit{Manu}: ancient Hindu law-giver

\textit{Maya}: illusion; divine power

\textit{Moksha}:  liberation; freedom from birth and death

\textit{Namaz}: daily prayer of Muslims

\textit{Nanak}: founder of Sikhism (1469-1538 or 1539 A. D. )

\textit{Narasinha Mehta}: poet-saint of Gujarat who lived in the 15th century

\textit{Nirvana}: final emancipation from sway of passions; Buddhist goal of
life

\textit{Niyamas}: rules of conduct

\textit{Omkar}: the sacred and mystic syllable Om

\textit{Paramatma}: the Supreme Self or God

\textit{Pariahs}: ``untouchables'' among Hindus

\textit{Prahlad}: son of mythological demon-king and devotee of God Vishnu,
who faced dreadful ordeals in defence of his faith, remaining
steadfast to the end

\textit{Puranas}: Hindu mythological books

\textit{Rahaman}: Muslim name of God

\textit{Rahim}: Muslim name of God

\textit{Rama, Ramachandra}: hero of the epic, Ramayana, who is regarded as an
incarnation of God by Hindus

\textit{Ramakrishna}: Bengali saint (1836-86 A.D.) who taught the oneness of
the Godhead and the basic harmony of all religions. The Ramakrishna
Mission is named after him

\textit{Ramanama}: name of Rama (i.e. God)

\textit{Ramayana}: Hindu epic which relates the story of the abduction of
Sita, wife of Rama, prince of Ayodhya, by Ravana, demon-king of
Lanka, and her rescue by Rama after the destruction of the demon.

\textit{Ramanuja}: Hindu philosopher-saint of the 11th centrury A. D. who was
an exponent of Vishishtadvaita or qualified Monism

\textit{Sanatani}: a follower of orthodox Hinduism

\textit{Sannyasa}: renunciation of worldly ties

\textit{Sanskaras}: innate tendencies inherited from past lives

\textit{Sarvodaya}: welfare of all

\textit{Sat}: truth; that which exists

\textit{Sat-Chit-Ananda}: Truth-Knowledge-Bliss

\textit{Sattvika}: endowed with goodness; virtuous

\textit{Satya}: truth

\textit{Satyagraha}: recourse to truth-fore or soul-force

\textit{Satyavan}: husband of Savitri, heroine of well-known mythological
episode. She wins back his life from Yama, the god of death

\textit{Savitri}: heroine of the Satyavan-Savitri episode

\textit{Shankara}: Hindu philosopher of the 8th century A. D. who was an
exponent of Advaita or Absolute Non-Dualism; a name of the Deity

\textit{Shankaracharya}: same as Shankara; also a member of the order of
monks founded by Shankara

\textit{Shastra}: Hindu scripture

\textit{Shastri}: one versed in scriptures

\textit{Shuddhi}: lit. ``purification''; conversion to Hindu faith

\textit{Shudra}: member of the fourth of menial caste among Hindus

\textit{Sthitaprajna}: one who is firmly established in transcendental
knowledge

\textit{Surdas}: blind Hindi poet-saint of northern India who lived in the
16th century A.D.

\textit{Syadvada}: philosophy of ``probability'' in matters of perception by the
senses; a form of scepticism. Which is professed by a section of
Jain thinkers.

\textit{Syadvadi}: a believer in Syadvada

\textit{Tabligh}: propaganda and conversion to Islam

\textit{Tapas}: penance; religious austerity

\textit{Trappist}: an order of Christian monks who observe the vow of silence

\textit{Tulsidas}: Hindi poet of northern India who lived in the 16th century
A.D. and whose work Ramcharitamanasa, recounting the story of the
epic hero, Rama, has become universally popular with Hindus

\textit{Upanishads}: ancient philosophical treatises which are believed by
Hindus to contain revealed truth

\textit{Vairagya}: aversion to worldly life

\textit{Vaishnava}: a devotee of God Vishnu, the ``Preserver'' among the Hindu
Trinity

\textit{Varnashrama}: four-fold division of Hindu society

\textit{Vedas}: most ancient scriptures of Hindus which are believed to embody
revealed truth

\textit{Vedic}: belonging to Vedas

\textit{Vishnu}: the ``Preserver'' among Hindu Trinity

\textit{Vyasa}: compiler of the Vedas and author of the Mahabharata

\textit{Yajna}: sacrifice

\textit{Yamuna}: a river of northern India, hallowed by its associations with
Krishna, the Hindu incarnation

\textit{Zend Avesta}: Zoroastrian scripture

\textit{Zoroaster}: founder of Zoroastrian religion which is professed by the
Parsees of India. He is also known as Zarathustra or Zerdusht

\chapter[Sources]{Sources}

\textit{An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth} by M.
K. Gandhi. Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad-14, Edi. 1948.

\textit{The Bombay Chronicle}, daily newspaper published at Bombay

\textit{Ethical Religion} by Mahatma Gandhi. S. Ganesan, Madras, 1927

\textit{From Yeravda Mandir} by M. K. Gandhi. Navajivan Publishing House,
Ahmedabad-14, Edi. 1945.

\textit{Harijan}, weekly journal, formerly edited by Mahatma Gandhi and
others. Now defunct. Published at Navajivan Publishing House,
Ahmedabad-14.

\textit{Hind Swaraj or India Home Rule} by M. K. Gandhi. Navajivan Publishing
House, Ahmedabad-14, Edi. 1946.

\textit{Mahatma Gandhi}, Ganesh \& Co., Madras, 1918

\textit{Mahatma Gandhi's Ideas} by C. F. Andrews, Allen and Unwin, London,
1930

\textit{The Modern Review}, monthly journal published at Calcutta

\textit{The Nation's Voice}, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad-14, Edi.
1947.

\textit{Satyagraha in South Africa} by M. K. Gandhi. Navajivan Publishing
House, Ahmedabad-14.

\textit{Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi}, G. A. Natesan, Madras, (4h
Edi.), 1933

\textit{Young India}, weekly journal, was edited by Mahatma Gandhi
(1919-1932) and published at Ahmedabad.

\end{document}