My Favorite Gandhi...
I do not want to be reborn. But if I have to be reborn, I should be born an untouchable, so that I may share their sorrows, sufferings, and affronts levelled at them, in order that I may endeavor to free myself and them from that miserable condition
excerpted from,
All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections by Mohandas Gandhi, Krishna Kripalani -- (p.50)
More pearls:
On Soul Force 101: Jesus Christ, Daniel and Socrates represented the purest form of passive resistance or soul-force. All these teachers counted their bodies as nothing in comparison to their soul. Tolstoy was the best and brightest (modern) exponent of the doctrine. He not only expounded it, but lived according to it. In India, the doctrine was understood and commonly practised long before it came into vogue in Europe. It is easy to see that soul-force is infinitely superior to body-force. If people in order to secure redress of wrongs resort to soul-force, much of the present suffering will be avoided. (p. 90)
Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, 1933
Soul Force 102 Buddha fearlessly carried the war into the enemy's camp and brought down on its knees an arrogant priesthood. Christ drove out the moneychangers from the temple of Jerusalem and drew down curses from Heaven upon the hypocrites and the Pharisees. Both were for intensely direct action. But even as Buddha and Christ chastised, they showed unmistakable gentleness and love behind every act of theirs. They would not raise a finger against their enenmies, but would glady surrender themselves rather than the truth for which they lived. Buddha would have died resisting the priesthood, if the majesty of his love had not proved to be equal to the task of bending the priesthood. Christ died on the cross with a crown of thorns on his head defying the might of a whole empire. And if I raise resistances of a nonviolent character, I simply and humbly follow in the footsteps of the great teachers. (p. 90)
Young India, May 12, 1920
Let me explain what I mean by religion. It is not the Hindu religion which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one's very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly restless until it has found itself, known its Maker and appreciated the true correspondence between the Maker and itself. (p. 51)
Young India, May 12, 1920
I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
I believe that they are all God-given, and I believe that they were necessary
for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that, if only we could, all of us, read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the followers of those faiths; we should find that they were, at the bottom, all one and were helpful to one another.
There is a stage in life when a man does not need even to proclaim his thoughts much less to who them by outward action. Mere thoughts act. They attain that power. Then it can be said of him that his seeming inaction constitutes his action. ... My striving is in that direction. (Autobiographical-149)
Harijan, October 26, 1947
The truth requires constant and extensive demonstration. This I am now endeavouring to do to the best of my ability. What if the best of my ability is very little? May I not be living in a fool's paradise? Why should I ask the people to follow me in the fruitless search? These are pertinent questions. My answer is quite simple. I ask nobody to follow me. Everyone should follow his or here own inner voice. If he or she has not ears to listen to it, he or she should do the best he or she can. In no case, should he or she imitate others sheeplike. . . . Millions like me may fail to prove the truth in their own lives, that would be their failure, never of the eternal law. (Autobiographical-150)
Mahatma, VIII, June 15, 1947
To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face
one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a
man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of
life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of
politics; 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.
An Autobiography or,
the Story of My Experiments with Truth
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 destructions 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. (p.111)
Harijan, May 16, 1936
My study of history has taught me that hatred and violence used in howsoever noble a cause only breed their kind and instead of bringing peace jeopardize it. (Autobiography-151)
Mahatma Gandhi, The Last Phase, June 9, 1947
Complete renunciation of one's possessions is a thing which very few even among ordinary folk are capable of. All that can legitimately be expected of the wealthy class is that they should hold their riches and talents in trust and use them for the service of the society. To insist on more would be to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.. (p. 125)
Speech, April 11, 1945
I would favour the use of the most elaborate machinery if thereby India's pauperism and resulting idleness be avoided. I have suggested hand-spinning as the only ready means of driving away penury and making famine of work and wealth impossible. The spinning wheel itself is a piece of valuable machinery, and in my own humble way I have tried to secure improvements in it in keeping with the special conditions of India. (p. 51)
Young India, November 3, 1921
A starving man thinks first of satisfying his hunger before anything else. He will sell his liberty and all for the sake of getting a morsel of food. Such is the position of millions of the people of India. For them, liberty, God and all such words are merely letters put together without the slightest meaning. They jar upon them. If we want to give these people a sense of freedom we shall have to provide them with work which they can easily do in their desolate home and which would give them at least the barest living. This can only be done by the spinning wheel. And when they have become self-reliant and are able to support themselve, we are in a position to talk to them about freedom, about Congress, etc. Those, therefore, who bring them work and means of getting a crust of bread will be their deliverers and will be also the people who will make them hunger for liberty. (p. 116)
Young India, March 18, 1926
Those who own money now are asked to behave like the trustees holding their riches on behalf of the poor. You may say that trusteeship is a legal fiction. But, if people meditate over it constantly and try to act up to it, then life on earth would be governed far more by love than it is at present. Absolute trusteeship is an abstraction like Euclid's definition of a point, and is equally unattainable. But if we strive for it, we shall be able to go further in realizing a state of equality on earth than by any other method. (p. 51)
Young India, May 12, 1920
A votary of ahimsa [Truth and Nonviolence] 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 sill 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. The absolutist will even sacrifice himself. (p. 81)
Young India, December 9, 1926
The whole train of thought which underlies birth control is erroneous and dangerous. Its supporters claim that a man has not only the right, but it is his duty to satisfy the animal instinct, and that his development would be arrested if he did not discharge this duty. I think this claim is false. It is idle to expect self-restraint from one who takes to artificial methods. In fact birth control is advocated on the ground that restraint of animal passion is an impossibility. To say that such restraint is impossible or unnecessary or harmful is the negation of all religion. For the whole superstructure of religion rests on the foundations of self-control.
(p.104)
The Diary of Mahadev Desai -- March 28, 1936
I want to revert to the subject of birth control by contraceptives. It is dinned into one's ears that the gratification of the sex urge is a solemn obligation like the obligation of discharging debts lawfully incurred, and that not to do so would involve the penalty of intellectual decay. This sex urge has been isolated form the desire for progeny, and it is said by the protagonists of the use of contraceptives that the conception is an accident to be prevented except when the parties desire to have children. I venture to suggest that this is a most dangerous doctrine to preach anywhere; much more so in a country like India, where the middle-class male population has become imbecile through abuse of the creative function. If satisfaction of of the sex urge is a duty, the unnatural vice and several other ways of gratification would be commendable. The reader should know that even persons of note have been known to apporve of what is commonly known as sexual perversion. He may be shocked at the statement. But if it somehow or other gains the stamp of respectabliltiy, it will be the rage amongst boys and girls to satify their urge among the members of their own sex. For me, the use of contraceptives is not far removed form the means to which persons have hitherto resorted for the gratification of their sexual desire with the results that very few know. I know what havoc secret vice has played among schoolboys and scholgirls. The introduction of contraceptives under the name of science and the imprimature of known leaders of society has intensified the complication and made the task of the reformers who work for purity of social life wellnigh impossible for the moment. I betray no confidence when I inform the reader, that there are unmarried girls of impressionable age, studying in schools and colleges, who study birth control literature and magazines with avidity, and even possess contraceptsives. It is impossible to confine their use to married women. Marriage loses its sanctity when its purpose and highest use is conceived to be the satifaction of the animal passion without contemplating the natural result of such satisfaction. (p.105)
The Diary of Mahadev Desai -- March 28, 1936
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 (p. 164)
Harijan, February 19, 1938
It is wrong to call me an ascetic. The ideals that regulate my life are presented for acceptance by mankind in general. I have arrived at them by gradual evolution. Every step was thought out, well-considered, and taken with the greatest deliberation. Both my continence and nonviolence were derived from personal experience and became necessary in response to the calls of public duty. The isolated life I had to lead in South Africa whether as a householder, legal practitioner, social reformer or politician, required, for the due fulfillment of these duties, the strictest regulation of sexual life and a rigid practice of nonviolence and truth in human realations, whether with my own countrymen or with the Europeans. I claim to be no more than an averyage man with less than average ability. Nor can I claim any special merit for such nonviolence or continence as I have been able to reach with laborious research. (p.105)
Harijan, October 3, 1936
My mind is made up. On the lonesome way of God on which I have set out, I need no earthly companions. Let those who will, therefore, denounce me, if I am the impostor they imagine me to be, though they may not say so in so many words. It might disillusion millions who persist in regarding me as a Mahatma. I must confess, the prospect of being so debunked greatly pleases me. (p.104)
In conversation -- February 25, 1947
All so see online:
HIND SWARAJ OR INDIAN HOME RULE by Mohandas Gandhi
Electronic Version of this book is compiled and designed by Miss Hinal Kariya,
Nagpur at Institute of Advanced Studies, Krishna Kunj, Quetta Colony,
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