Seeing Truth in Fragments
Does not but God Himself appears
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
everyone 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. - YM, 4.
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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.* -YI, 23-9-26, 334.
________________________________________
Q. With regard to your Satyagraha
doctrine, so far as I understand it, it involves the pursuit of Truth and in
that
*Rebutting the charge that he was
undemocratic, Gandhiji once wrote: ‘I have never been able to subscribe to the
charge of obstinacy or autocracy. On the contrary, I pride myself on my
yielding nature in non-vital matters. I detest autocracy. Valuing my freedom
and independence I equally cherish them for others. I have no desire to carry a
single soul with me if I cannot appeal to his or her reason. My
unconventionality I carry to the point of rejecting the divinity of the oldest
Shastras if they cannot convince my reason. But I have found by experience
that, if I wish to live in society and still retain my independence, I must
limit the points of utter independence to matters of first rate importance. In
all others which do not involve a departure from one's personal religion or
moral code, one must yield to the majority. - YI, 14-7-20 (from Ganesan's
edition Vol. I, p. 207).
________________________________________
Pursuit you invite suffering on
yourself and do not cause violence to anybody else.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. However honestly a man may
strive in his search for Truth, his notions of Truth may be different from the
notions of others. Who then is to determine the Truth?
A. The individual himself would
determine that
Q. Different individuals would
have different views a to Truth. World that not lead to confusion?
A. I do not think so.
Q. Honestly striving after Truth
is different in every case?
A. That is why the nonviolence part
was a necessary corollary. Without that there would be confusion and worse. -
Tagore,29
Courtesy towards opponents and
eagerness to understand their view-point is the ABC of nonviolence. - HS,
20-7-44
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The very insistence on. Truth has
taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. It has often meant
endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends. But Truth is hard
as adamant and tender as a blossom. -Auto, i84.
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Propagation of Truth
Q. Should we not confine our
pursuit of Truth to ourselves and not press it upon the world, because we know
that it is ultimately limited in character?
A . You cannot so circumscribe
Truth even if you try. Every expression of Truth has in it the seeds of
propagation, even as the sun cannot hide its light. - MR, 1935, 413.
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Spiritual experiences are shared
by us whether we wish it or not - by our lives. Not by our speech, which is a
most imperfect vehicle of experience. Spiritual experiences are deeper even
than thought. - Sabarmati, 1928, 19.
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His Conception of the Law of life
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 changeless, 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.
And is this power benevolent or
malevolent? I see it as 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. - YI, 11-10-28, 340.
________________________________________
Though there is repulsion enough
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. - YI, 2-3-22, 130.
________________________________________
The fact that there are so many
men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms
but on the force of truth or love. Therefore, the greatest and most
unimpeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact
that, in spite of the wars of the world, it still lives on.
Thousands, indeed tens of
thousands, depend for their existence on a very active working of this force.
Little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before
the exercise of this force. Hundreds of nations live in peace. History dies not
and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of every
interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul. Two
brothers quarrel; one of them repents and re-awakens the love that was lying
dormant in him; the two again begin to live in peace; nobody takes note of
this. But if the two brothers, through the intervention of solicitors or some
other reason take up arms or go to law - which is another form of the
exhibition of brute force,their doings would be immediately noticed in the
press, they would be the talk of their neighbours and would probably go down to
history. And what is true of families and communities is true of nations. There
is no reason to believe that there is one law for families and another for
nations. History, then, is a record of an interruption of the course of nature.
Soul-force, being natural, is not noted in history. -IHR, 45.
________________________________________
His Philosophy of History
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. - YI,
12-.11-31, 355
________________________________________
Human society is a ceaseless
growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality. -YI,16-9-26, 324.
________________________________________
If we turn our eyes to the time
of which history has any record down to our own time, we shall find that man
has been steadily progressing towards ahimsa. Our remote ancestors were
cannibals. Then came a time when they were fed up with cannibalism and they
began to live on chase. Next came a stage when man was ashamed of leading the
life of a wandering hunter. He therefore took to agriculture and depended
principally on mother earth for his food. Thus from being a nomad he settled
down to civilized stable life, founded villages and towns, and from member of a
family he became member of a community and a nation. All these are signs of
progressive ahimsa and diminishing Himsa. Had it been otherwise, the human
species should have been extinct by now, even as many of the lower species have
disappeared.
Prophets and avatars have also
taught the lesson of ahimsa more or less. Not one of them has professed to
teach Himsa. And how should it be otherwise? Himsa does not need to be taught.
Man as animal is violent, but as Spirit is nonviolent. The moment he awakes to
the Spirit within, he cannot remain violent. Either he progresses towards
ahimsa or rushes to his doom. That is why the prophets and avatars have taught
the lessons of truth, harmony, brotherhood, justice, etc. - all attributes of
ahimsa.
And yet violence seems to persist,
even to the extent of thinking people like the correspondent regarding it as
the final weapon. But as I have shown history and experience are against him.
If we believe that mankind has
steadily progressed towards ahimsa, it follows that it has to progress towards
it still further. Nothing in this world is static, everything is kinetic. If
there id no progression, then there is inevitable retrogression. No one can
remain without the eternal cycle, unless it be God Himself. - H, 11-8-40, 245.
________________________________________
Consequence of the Recognition of
that Law
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. Whenever 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.
It is not that I am incapable of
anger, for instance, but I succeed on almost all occasions to keep my feelings
under control. Whatever may be the result, there is always fin me conscious
struggle for following the law of non-violence deliberately and ceaselessly.
Such a struggle leaves one stronger for fit. The more I work at this law, the
more I feel the delight in life, the delight in the scheme of the universe. It
gives me a peace and a meaning of the mysteries of nature that I have no power
to describe. -YI, 1-10-31, 286.
________________________________________
When an appeal to man is made to
copy or study nature, he is not invited to follow what the reptiles do or even
the king of the forest does. He has to study man's nature at its best, i.e. I
presume his regenerate nature, whatever it may be. Perhaps it requires
considerable effort to know what regenerate nature is. -H, 4-4-36,. 61
________________________________________
Q. Why can't see that whilst
there is possession it must be defended against all odds? Therefore your
insistence that violence should be eschewed in all circumstances is utterly
unworkable and absurd. I think nonviolence is possible only for select
individuals.
A. This question has been
answered often enough in some form or other in these columns as also in those
of Young India. But it is an evergreen. I must answer it as often as it is put
especially when it comes from an earnest seeker as this one does. I claim that
even now, though the social structure is not based on a conscious acceptance of
nonviolence, all the world over mankind lives and men retain their possessions
on the sufferance of one another. If they had not done so, only the fewest and
the most ferocious would have survived. But such is not the case. Families are
bound together by ties of love, and so are groups in the so-called civilized
society called nations. Only they do not recognize the supremacy of the law of
nonviolence. It follows, therefore, that they have not investigated its vast
possibilities. Hitherto out of sheer inertia, shall I say, we have taken it for
granted that complete nonviolence is possible only for the few who take the vow
of non-possession and the allied abstinences. Whilst it is true that the
votaries alone can carry on research work and declare from time to time the new
possibilities of the great eternal law governing man, if it is a law, it must
hold good for all. The many failures we see are not of the law but of the followers,
many of whom do not even know that they are under that law willy nilly. When a
mother dies for her child she unknowingly obeys the law. I have been pleading
for the past fifty years for a conscious acceptance of the law and its zealous
practice even in the face of failures. Fifty years work has shown marvelous
results and strengthened my faith. I do claim that by constant practice we
shall come to a state of things when lawful possession will command universal
and voluntary respect. No doubt such possession will not be tainted. It will
not be an insolent demonstration of the inequalities that surround us
everywhere. Nor need the problem of unjust and unlawful possessions appall the
votary of nonviolence. He has at his disposal the nonviolent weapon of
satyagraha and non-co-operation which hitherto has been found to be a complete
substitute of violence whenever it has been applied honestly in sufficient
measure. I have never claimed to present the complete science of nonviolence.
It does not lend itself to such treatment. So far as I know no single physical
science does not even the very exact science of mathematics. I am but a seeker
and I have fellow seekers like the questioner whom I invite to accompany me in
the very difficult but equally fascinating search. -H,22-2-42, 48.
________________________________________
Life is Unity
I claim that human mind or human
society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political
and religious. All act and react upon one another. - YI,2-3-22,131.
________________________________________
I do not believe that the
spiritual law works on a field of its own. On the contrary, it expresses itself
only through the ordinary activities of life. It thus affects the economic, the
social and the political fields. - YI, -3-9-25, 304.
________________________________________
Several correspondents had
complained to him that he was utilizing his prayer meetings for the propagation
of his favourite political ideas. But the speaker never suffered from any
feeling of guilt on that account. Human life being and undivided whole, no line
could ever be drawn between its different compartments, nor between ethics and
politics. A trader who earned his wealth by deception only succeeded in
deceiving himself when he thought that his sins could be washed away by
spending some amount of his ill-gotten gains on so-called religious purposes.
One's everyday life was never capable of being separated from his spiritual
being. Both acted and reacted upon one another. - H, 30-3-47,85.
________________________________________
Service to God and Man
Man's ultimate aim is the
realization of God, and all his activities, social, political, religious, have
to be guided by the ultimate him 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 resource less, so inert
that I must concentrate myself on serving them. If I could persuade myself that
I should find Him in a Himalayan cave I would proceed there immediately. But I
know that I cannot find Him apart from humanity. - H, 29-8-36, 226.
________________________________________
My creed is service of God and
therefore of humanity. - YI, 23-I0-24, 350.
________________________________________
To serve without desire is to
favour not others, but ourselves, even as in discharging a debt we serve only
ourselves, lighten our burden and fulfill our duty. Again, not only the good,
but all of us are bound to place our resources at the disposal of humanity. The
duty of renunciation differentiates mankind from the beast. - YM, 81.
________________________________________
Man becomes great exactly in the
degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men. - ER, 56.
________________________________________
The Oneness of Man
I believe in absolute oneness of
God and therefore also of humanity. What though we have many bodies? We have
but one soul. The rays of the sun are many through refraction. But they have
the same source. - YI, 25-9-24, 313.
________________________________________
I do not believe that an
individual may gain spiritually and those that 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. - YI, 4-I2-24, 398.
________________________________________
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 moral 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. - ER, 55.
________________________________________
I subscribe to the belief or the
philosophy that all life in its essence is one, and that the humans are working
consciously or unconsciously towards the realization of that identity. This
belief requires a living faith in a living God who is the ultimate arbiter of
our fate. Without Him not a blade of grass moves. - GC,88.
________________________________________
Individualism
The individual is the supreme
consideration. -YI, 13-11-24, 378.
________________________________________
I look upon an increase of the
power of the state with the greatest fear, because, although while apparently
doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by
destroying individuality which lies at the root of all progress. - MR, 1935,
413.
________________________________________
A small body of determined
spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of
history. - H,19-11-38, 343
________________________________________
Man above Institutions
Man and his deed are two distinct
things. It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and
attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself. For we are
all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator,
and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human
being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being
but with him the whole world. -Auto, 337.
________________________________________
I have discovered, that man is
superior to the system he propounded. And so I fell, that Englishmen as
individuals, are infinitely better than the system they have evolved as a
corporation. -YI, 13-7-21,221. CF. 224.
________________________________________
Faith in Man
I refuse to suspect human nature.
It will, is bound to respond to any noble and friendly action. - YI, 4-8-20,
Tagore, 559.
________________________________________
My proposal for British
withdrawal is as much in Britain's interest as India's. Your difficulty arises
from your disinclination to believe that Britain can never do justice
voluntarily. My belief in the capacity of nonviolence rejects the theory of
permanent inelasticity of human nature. -H, 7-6-42, 177.
________________________________________
In the application of the method
of nonviolence, one must believe in the possibility of every person, however
depraved, being reformed under humane and skilled treatment - H, 22-2-42, 49.
________________________________________
When I was a little child, there
used to be two blind performers in Rajkot. One of them was a musician. When he
played on his instrument, his fingers swept the strings with an unerring
instinct and everybody listened spell-bound to his playing. Similarly there are
chords in every human heart. If we only know how to strike the right chord, we
bring out the music. - H, 27-5-39, 136.
________________________________________
Reason and the Heart
Every formula of every religion
has in this age of reason, to submit to the test of reason and universal
assent. -YI, 26-2-25-, 74.
________________________________________
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. -YI, 14-10-26, 359.
________________________________________
I have come to this fundamental
conclusion that if you want something really important to be done, you must not
merely satisfy reason, you must move the heart also. The appeal of reason is
more to the head but the penetration of the heart comes from suffering. It
opens up the inner understanding in man. - YI, 5-11-31, 341.
________________________________________
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. YI, 11-10-28, 340.
________________________________________
No room for Unintelligence any
where
Man alone can worship God with
knowledge and understanding. Where devotion to God is void of understanding,
there can be no true salvation, and without salvation there can be no true happiness.
GH, 129.
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Truth and nonviolence are not for
the dense. Pursuit of them is bound to result in an all-round growth of the
body, mind and heart. If this does not follow, either truth and nonviolence are
untrue or we are untrue, and since the former is impossible, the latter will be
the only conclusion.- H, 8-5-37, 98.
________________________________________
You must know that a true
practice of ahimsa means also in one who practices it the keenest intelligence
and wide-awake conscience.- H, 8-9-40, 274.
________________________________________
Swaraj is for the awakened, not
for the sleepy and the ignorant.- H, 28-1-39, 437.
________________________________________
In every branch of reform
constant study giving one a mastery over one's subject is necessary. Ignorance
is at the root of failures, partial or complete, of al reform movements whose
merits are admitted, for every project masquerading under the name of reform is
not necessarily worthy of being so designated.- H, 24-4-37, 84.
________________________________________
A handicraft plied merely
mechanically can be as cramping to the mind and soul as any other pursuit taken
up mechanically. An unintelligent effort is like a corpse from which the spirit
has departed. - H, 3-7-37, 161.
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Idealism
The virtue of an ideal consists
in its boundlessness. But although religious ideals must thus from their very
nature remain unattainable by imperfect human beings, although by virtue of
their boundlessness they may seem ever to recede farther and farther 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 our
own physical being. This faith in one's ideals constitutes true life, in fact,
it is man's all in all. -YI, 22-11-28, 391.
________________________________________
The goal ever recedes from us.
The greater the progress the greater the recognition of our unworthiness. Satisfaction
lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory. -YI,
9-3-22, 141.
________________________________________
We need not be afraid of ideals or of reducing
them to practice to the uttermost. -Nat, 355.
________________________________________
I was in the midst of a
population which would not kill wild animals that daily destroy their crops.
Before the Sardar threw the whole of his tremendous influence into the campaign
of the destruction of rats and fleas, the people of the Borsad Taluka had knot
destroyed a single rat or flea. (These were plague stricken - N.K.B.). But they
could not resist the Sardar to whom they owed much, and Dr. Bhaskar Patel was
allowed to carry on wholesale destruction of rats and fleas. I was in daily
touch with what was going on in Borsad.
The Sardar had invited me
naturally to endorse what had been done. For the work had still to continue,
though henceforth with the people's own unaided effort. Therefore, in order to
emphasize my endorsement, I redeclared in the clearest possible terms my
implicit belief in ahimsa, i. e. sacredness and kinship of all life.
But why this contradiction
between belief and action? Contradiction is undoubtedly there. Life is an
aspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection which is
self-realization. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses or
imperfections. I am painfully conscious of both in me. The silent cry goes out
to Truth to help me to remove these weaknesses and imperfections of mine. I own
my fear of snakes, scorpions, lions, tigers, plague stricken rats and fleas,
even as I must own fear of evil-looking robbers and murderers. I know that I
ought not to fear any of them. But this is no intellectual feat. It is a feat
of the heart. It needs more than a heart of oak to shed all fear except the
fear of God. I could not in my weakness ask the people of Borsad not to Kill
deadly rats and fleas. But I knew that it was a concession to human weakness.
Nevertheless there is that
difference between a belief in ahimsa and a belief in himsa which there is
between north and south, life and death. One who hooks his fortunes to ahimsa,
the law of love, daily lessens the circle of destruction and to that extent
promotes life and love; he who swears by himsa, the law of hate, daily widens
the circle of destruction and to that extent promotes death and hate. Though,
before the people of Borsad, I endorsed the destruction of rats and fleas, my
own kith and kin, I preached to them without adulteration the grand doctrine of
the eternal Law of Love of all Life. Though I may fail to carry it out to the
full in this life, my faith in it shall abide. Every failure brings me nearer
the realization. - H, 22-6-35, 148.
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The Age of Miracles
It is open to anyone to say that
human nature has not been known to rise to such height. But if we have made
unexpected progress in physical sciences, why may we do less in the science of
the soul? - H, 14-5-38, 114.
________________________________________
In this age of wonders no one
will say that a thing or idea is worthless because it is new. To way it is
impossible because it is difficult, is again not in consonance with the spirit
of the age. Things undreamt of are daily being seen, the impossible is ever
becoming possible. We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing
discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of
and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.-
H, 25-8-40, 260.
________________________________________
Hatred can never yield Good
Brute force has been the ruling
factor din 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 can come out of
darkness, then alone can love emerge from hatred. - SA, 289.
________________________________________
It is my firm conviction that
nothing enduring can be built upon violence. -YI, 15-11-28, 381.
________________________________________
Nonviolence
(1) Nonviolence implies as
complete self-purification as is humanly possible.(2) Man for man the strength
of nonviolence is in exact proportion to the ability, not the will, of the
nonviolent person to inflict violence. (3) Non-violence is without exception
superior to violence, i. e., the power at the disposal of a nonviolent person
is always greater than he would have if he was violent. (4) There is no such
thing as defeat in non-violence. The end of violence is surest defeat. (5) The
ultimate end of nonviolence is surest victory if such a term may be used of
nonviolence. In reality where there is no sense of defeat, there is no sense of
victory. -H, 12-10-35, 276.
________________________________________
The only condition of a
successful use of this force is a recognition of the existence of the soul as
apart from the body and its permanent nature. And this recognition must amount
to a living faith and not mere intellectual grasp. -Nat, I66.
________________________________________
Consequences of Nonviolence
Q. Is love or nonviolence
compatible with possession or exploitation in any shape or from?A. Love and
exclusive possession can never go together. -MR, 1935, 412.
________________________________________
Military force is inconsistent
with soul-force. Frightfulness, exploitation of the weak, immoral gains,
insatiable pursuit after enjoyments of the flesh are utterly inconsistent with
soul-force. - YI, 6-5-26, 164.
________________________________________
The principle of non-violence
necessitates complete abstention from exploitation in any form. - (27I)
________________________________________
Rural economy as I have conceived
it eschews exploitation altogether, and exploitation is the essence of
violence. -H, 4-11-39, 331.
________________________________________
No man could be actively
nonviolent and not rise against social injustice no matter where it occurred.
-H, 20-4-40, 97.
________________________________________
Nonviolence always Applicable and
in all Spheres of Life129. Non-violence is a universal principle and its
operation is not limited by a hostile environment. Indeed, its efficacy can be
tested only when it acts in the midst of and in spite of opposition. Our
non-violence would be a hollow thing and nothing worth, if it depended for its
success on the goodwill of the authorities. (Here, reference is made to the
British Government in India). H, 12-11-38, 326.
________________________________________
Truth and non-violence are no
cloistered virtues but applicable as much in the forum and the legislatures and
the market place. -H 8-37,98.
________________________________________
Some friends have told me that
truth and nonviolence have no place in politics and worldly affairs. I do not
agree. I have no use for them as a means of individual salvation. Their
introduction and application in everyday life has been my experiment all along.
-ABP, 30-6-44.
________________________________________
We have to make truth and
nonviolence, not matters for mere individual practice but for practice by
groups and communities and nations. That at any rate is my dream. I shall live
and die in trying to realize it. My faith helps me to discover new truths every
day. Ahimsa is the attribute of the soul, and therefore, to be practiced by
everybody in all the affairs of life. If it cannot be practical in all
departments, it has no practical value. H, 2-3-40,23
________________________________________
The Meaning of Non-resistance
Hitherto the word ‘revolution'
has been connected with violence and has as such been condemned by established
authority. But the movement of Non-co-operation, if it may be considered a
revolution, is not an armed revolt; it is an evolutionary revolution, it is a
bloodless revolution. The movement is a revolution of thought, of spirit.
Non-co-operation is a process of purification, and, as such it constitutes a
revolution in one's ideas. Its suppression, therefore, would amount to
co-operation by coercion. Orders to kill the movement will be orders to
destroy, or interfere with, the introduction of the spinning wheel, to prohibit
the campaign of temperance, and an incitement, therefore, to violence. For any
attempt to compel people by indirect methods to war foreign clothes, to
patronize drink-shops would certainly exasperate them. But our success will be
assured when we stand even this exasperation and incitement. We must not
retort. Inaction on our part will kill Government madness. For violence flourishes
on response, either by submission to the will of the violator, or by counter
violence. My strong advice to every worker is to segregate this evil Government
by strict non-co-operation, not even to talk or speak about it, but having
recognized the evil, to cease to pay homage to it by co-operation.-YI, 30-3-21,
97.
________________________________________
Passive resistance is a method of
securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms.
When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, I use
soul-force. For instance, the Government of the day has passed a law, which is
applicable to me. I do not like it. If by using violence I force the Government
to repeal the law, I am employing what may be termed body-force. If I do not
obey the law and accept the penalty for is breach, I use soul-force. It
involves sacrifice of self. Everybody admits that sacrifice self is infinitely
superior to sacrifice of other. Moreover, if this kind of force is used in a
cause that is just, only the person using it suffers. He does not make others
suffers for his mistakes. Men have before now done many things which were
subsequently found to have been wrong. No man can claim that he is absolutely
in the right or that a particular thing is wrong because h thinks so, but it is
wrong for him so long as that is his deliberate judgment. It is therefore meet
that he should not do that which he knows to be wrong, and suffer the
consequence whatever it may be. This is the key to the use of soul-force. -IHR,
45.
________________________________________
The method of passive resistance
adopted to combat the clearest and safest, because, if the cause is not true,
it is the resisters, and they alone, who suffer. -Nat, 305.
________________________________________
That is the way of Satyagraha or
the way of non-resistance top evil. It is the aseptic method in which the
physician allows the poison to work itself out by setting in motion all the
natural forces and letting them have full play. * -H, 9-7-38, I73.
________________________________________
I accept the interpretation of
ahimsa, namely, that it is not merely a negative state of harmlessness but it
is a positive state of love, of doing good even to the evil-doer. But it does
not mean helping the evil-doer to continue the wrong or tolerating it by
passive acquiescence. On the contrary, love the active state of ahimsa,
requires you to resist the wrongdoer by dissociation yourself from him even
though it may offend him or injure him physically. -YI, 25-8-20, Tagore, 322.
In its negative form, it (ahimsa)
means not injuring any living being whether by body or mind. It may not,
therefore, hurt the person of any wrongdoer or bear any ill-will to him and so
cause him mental suffering. The statement does not cover suffering caused to
the wrongdoer by natural acts of mine which do not proceed from ill-will. It,
therefore, does not prevent me from withdrawing from his presence a child whom
he, we shall imagine, is about to strike. Indeed, the proper practice of ahimsa
requires me to withdraw the intended victim from the wrongdoer, if I am in any
way the guardian of such a child. It was therefore most proper for the passive
resisters of South Africa to have resisted the evil that the Union Government
sought to do to them. They bore no ill-will to it. They showed this by helping
the Government whenever it needed their help. "Their resistance Consisted
of disobedience of the orders of the Government even to the extent of suffering
death at their hands." Ahimsa requires deliberate self-suffering, not a
deliberate injury of the supposed wrongdoer. -Nat, 346 (from MR, Oct. 1916).
________________________________________
If a man abused him, it would
never do for him to return the abuse. An evil returned by another evil only
succeeded in multiplying it, instead of leading to its reduction. It was a
universal law that violence would never be quenched by superior violence but
could only be quenched by non-violence or non-resistance. But the true meaning
of non-resistance had often been misunderstood or even distorted. It never
implied that a nonviolent man should bend before the violence of an aggressor.
While not returning the latter's violence by violence, he should refuse to
submit to the latter's illegitimate demand even to the point of death. That was
the true meaning of non-resistance. - H, 30-3-47, 85.
________________________________________
Evolution and Revolution
Q. Have you studied history and
noted the progress of nations? Have you at all noted that progress is made by
growth and gradual development; and not by revolution and destruction? Do you
ever notice how God works through nature that the life of plants and animals
grows by slow advance, by evolution, not revolution? Do you ever watch the sky
and the movement of the stars? The suns and systems which continue through the
ages can scarcely be seen to move at all. To ascend a mountain the climber has
to take slow and painful steps one after another. To descend quickly he need
only step over the precipice and he is at the bottom in a few seconds. A. 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 Revolutionist the world has ever
known or will know. He seconds deluges. 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 no history more so
than the English. And I beg to inform the correspondent that I have seen people
trudging slowly up mountains and have also seen men shooting up the air through
great heights. -YI, 2-2-22, 78.
________________________________________
Inward Freedom and Outward
Expression
The outward freedom that we shall
attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may
have grown at a given moment. And if this is the correct view of freedom, our,
chief energy must be concentrated upon achieving reform from within. -YI,
1-11-28, 363.
________________________________________
The Devil succeeds only by
receiving help from his fellows. He always takes advantage of the weakest spots
in our natures in order to gain mastery over us. Even so does the Government
retain control over us through our weaknesses or vices. And if we could render
ourselves proof against its machinations, we must remove our weaknesses. It is
for that reason that I have called Non-co-operation a process of purification.
As soon as that process is completed, this Government must fall to pieces for
want of the necessary environment, Just as mosquitoes cease to haunt a place
whose cesspools are filled up and dried. YI, 19-1-21, 21.
________________________________________
The Nature of Swaraj and the
Meaning of Freedom
The first step to Swaraj lies in
the individual. The great truth: ‘As with the individual so with the universe',
is applicable here as elsewhere. - Nat, 409.
________________________________________
Government over self is the
truest Swaraj, it is synonymous with mocha or salvation. - YI, 8-12-20, Tagore,
1099.
________________________________________
145. Swaraj of a people means the
sum total of the Swaraj (self-rule) of individuals. -H, 25-3-39, 64.
________________________________________
Self-government depends entirely
upon our own internal strength, upon our ability to fight against the heaviest
odds. Indeed, self-government which does not require that continuous striving
to attain it and to sustain it, is not worth the name. I have therefore
endeavoured to show both in word and deed, that political self-government-that
is self-government for a large number of men and women,-is no better than
individual self-government. And therefore, it is to be attained by precisely
the same means that are required for individual self-government or self-rule.
________________________________________
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.
-Ganesh (1921), 245.
________________________________________
The End and The Means
They say ‘means are after all
means'. I would say ‘means are after all everything'. As the means so the end.
Indeed the Creator has given us control (and that too very limited) over means,
non over the end. Realization of the goal is in exact proportion to that of the
means. The is a proposition that admits of no exception. -YI, 17-7-24, 236.
________________________________________
The means may be likened to a
seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection
between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree. -IHR,
39.
________________________________________
One I said ‘In spinning wheel
lies Swaraj', next I said ‘In prohibition lies Swaraj'. In the same way I would
say in cent per cent swadeshi lies Swaraj lies Swaraj. Of course, it is like
the blind men describing the elephant. All of them are right and yet not wholly
right. -H, 28-9-34, 259.
________________________________________
It seems that the attempt made to
win Swaraj is Swaraj itself. The faster we run towards it, the longer seems to
be the distance to be traversed. The same is the case with all ideals. -Nat,
685.
________________________________________
Though you l have emphasized the
necessity of a clear statement of the goal, but having once determined it, I
have never attached importance to its repetition. The clearest possible
definition of the goal and its appreciation would fail to take us there, if we
do not know and utilize the means of achieving it. I have, therefore, concerned
myself principally with the conservation of the means and their progressive
use. I know if we can take care of them attainment of the goal is assured, I
feel too that our progress towards the goal is assured. I feel too that our
progress towards the goal will be in exact proportion to the purity of our
means.This method may appear to be long, perhaps too long, but I am convinced
that it is the shortest. - ABP, 17-9-33.
________________________________________
Rights and Duties
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-o'-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. -YI. 8-1-25, 15.
________________________________________
The Greatest Good of All
A votary of ahimsa cannot
subscribe to the utilitarian formula (of the greatest god 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. The absolutist will
even sacrifice himself. - YI, 9-12-26, 432.
________________________________________
True Civilization and
Self-restraint
Civilization, in the real sense
of the term, consists not in the multiplication, but in the deliberate and
voluntary restriction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and
contentment, and increases the capacity for service. -YM, 36.
________________________________________
Q. But some comforts may be
necessary even for man's spiritual advancement. One could not advance himself
by identifying himself with the discomfort land squalor of the villager.A. A
certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above that
level, it becomes a hindrance instead of help. Therefore the ideal of creating
an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion and a
snare. The satisfaction of one's physical needs, even the intellectual needs of
one's narrow self, must meet at a point a dead stop, before it degenerates into
physical and intellectual voluptuousness. A man must arrange his physical and
cultural circumstances so that they may not hinder him in his service of
humanity, on which all his energies should be concentrated. - H, -29-8-36, 226.
________________________________________
As long as you derive inner help
and comfort from anything, you should deep it. If you were to give it up in a
mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to
want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give
up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer
has any attraction for you or when it seems to interfere with
that which is more greatly
desired. -Vishva-Bharati Quarterly, New Series II, part II, 46.
________________________________________
Economic Ideal
Ideas derived by Gandhi from
Ruskin's Unto This Last in the year 1904:(1) That the good of the individual is
contained in the good of all. (2) That a lawyer's work has the same value as
the barber's, inasmuch as all l have the same right of earning their livelihood
from their work. (3) That a life of labour, i. E. the life of the tiller of the
soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living.-Auto, 365.
________________________________________
Every human being has a right to
live, and therefore to find the wherewithal to feed himself and where
necessary, to clothe and house himself. - Nat, 350 (273).
________________________________________
According to me the economic
constitution of India and for the matter of that of the world, should be such
that no one under it should suffer from want of food and clothing. In other
words everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the
two ends meet. And this ideal can be universally realized only if the means of
production of the elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the
masses. These should be freely available to all as God's air and water are or
ought to be; they should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation
of others. Their monopolization by any country, nation or group of persons
would be unjust. The neglect of this simple principle is the cause of the
destitution that we witness today not only in this unhappy land but in other
parts of the world too. - YI, 15-11-28, 381.
________________________________________
Violence is no monopoly of any
one party. I know Congressmen who are neither socialists nor communists, but
who are frankly devotees of the cult of violence. Contrariwise, I know
socialists and communists who will not hurt a fly but who believe in the
universal ownership of the instruments of production, I rank myself as one
among them. - H, 10-12-38, 366
________________________________________
Q. Is it possible to defend by
nonviolence anything which can only be gained by violence?A. It followed from
what he had said above that what was gained by violence could not only not be
defended by non-violence, but the latter required the abandonment of ill-gotten
gains. Q. Is the accumulation of capital possible except through violence
whether open or tacit? A. Such accumulation by private persons was impossible
except through violent means, but accumulation by the State in a nonviolent
society, was not only possible, it was desirable and inevitable.Q. Whether a
man accumulates material or moral wealth, he does so only through the help or
co-operation of other members of society. Has he then the moral right to use
any of it mainly for personal advantage?
A. The answer was an emphatic no.
- H, 16-2-47, 25 (Corrected with reference to the original).
________________________________________
If they were to prefer death to
dishonour, they had to have the heart of a fakir, not the fakir of old who went
about with a staff and a beggar's bowl. That was time when there were rich and
poor. Then there was room for beggars. Society's thought had advanced since,
though practice had not kept pace with thought. The society of the future was
to be a society in which there was to be no distinction between rich and poor.
Then there was room for beggars. Society's thought had advanced since, though
practice had not kept pace with thought. The society of the future was to be a
society in which there was to be a society in which there was to be no
distinction between rich and poor, or colour and colour, or country and
country. - H, 3-11-46, 388.
________________________________________
Economics and Morality
That economics is untrue which
ignores or disregards moral values. The extension of the law of non- violence
in the domain of economics means nothing less than the introduction of moral
values as a factor to be considered in regulating international commerce. -YI,
26-12-24, 421.
________________________________________
True economics never militates
against the highest ethical standard, just as all true ethics to be worth its
name, must at the same time be also good economics. An economics that
inculcates Mammon worship, and enables the strong to amass wealth at the
expense of the weak, is a false and dismal science. It spells death. True
economics, on the other hand, stands for social justice, it promotes the good
of all equally including the weakest, and is indispensable for decent life. -
H, 9-I0-37, 292.
________________________________________
The Social Ideal
I want to bring about an
equalization of status. The working classes have all these centuries been
isolated and relegated to a lower status. They have been shudras, and the word
has been interpreted to mean and inferior status. I want to allow no
differentiation between the son of a weaver, of an agriculturist and of a
schoolmaster. - H, 15-1-38, 416.
________________________________________
Political Ideal
To me political power is not an
end but one of the means of enabling people to better their condition in every
department of life. Political power means capacity to regulate national life
through national representatives. If national life becomes so perfect as to
become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary. There is then a
state of enlightened anarchy. In such a state everyone is his own ruler. He
rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbours.
In the ideal state therefore, there is no political power because there is no
State. But the ideal is never fully realized in life. Hence the classical
statement of Thoreau that that government is best which governs the least.*-YI,
2-7-31, 162.
________________________________________
I look upon an increase in the
power of the State with the greatest fear, because, although while apparently
doing good by minimizing exploitation, it dies the greatest harm to mankind by
destroying individuality which lies at the root of al progress. *The statement
that I had derived my idea of Civil Disobedience from the writings of Thoreau
is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before
I got the essay of Thoreau on Civil Disobedience. But the movement was then
known as Passive Resistance. As it was incomplete I had coined the word
Satyagraha for the Gujarati readers. When I saw the title of Thoreau's great
essay, I began to use his phrase to explain our struggle to the English
readers. But I found that even Civil Disobedience failed to convey the full
meaning of the struggle. I, therefore, adopted the phrase Civil Resistance.
Nonviolence was always and integral part of our struggle.- (Letter to Kodanda
Rao, quoted in Incidents in Gandhiji's Life edited by Chandrashankar
Shukla,1949. P. 114-5).
________________________________________
The State represents violence in
a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State
is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes
its very existence. It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed
capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself and
fail to develop nonviolence at any time. What I would personally prefer, would
be, not a centralization of power in the hands of the State but an extension of
the sense of trusteeship; as in my opinion, the violence of private ownership
is less injurious than the violence of the State. However, if it is
unavoidable, I would support a minimum of State-owner-ship. What I disapprove
of is an organization based on force which a State is Voluntary organization
there must be. - MR, 1935, 412.
________________________________________
Democracy
Let there be no manner of doubt
that Swaraj established by nonviolent means will be different in kind from the
Swaraj that can be established by armed rebellion. -YI, 2-3-22, 130.
________________________________________
Violent means will give violent
Swaraj. That would be a menace to the world and India herself. -YI, 17-7-24,
236.
________________________________________
I hold that democracy cannot be
evolved by forcible methods. The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from
with out. It has to come from within. - Sita, 982.
________________________________________
I read Carlyle's History of the
French Revolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me
something about the Russian Revolution. But it is my conviction that inasmuch
as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence, they failed to
realize the democratic ideal. In the democracy which I have envisaged, a
democracy established by nonviolence, there will be equal freedom for all.
Everybody will be his own master. -GC, 173.
________________________________________
I believe that true democracy can
only be and outcome of nonviolence. The structure of a world federation can be
raised only on a foundation of nonviolence, and violence will have to be
totally given up in world affairs. - GC, 175.
________________________________________
True National Independence
I live for India's freedom and
would die for it, because it is part of Truth. Only a free India can worship
the true God. I work for India's freedom because my swadeshi teaches me that
being born in it and having inherited her culture, I am fittest to serve her
and she has a prior claim to my service. But my patriotism is not exclusive; it
is calculated not only not to hurt another nation but to benefit all in the
true sense of the word. India's freedom as conceived by me can never be a
menace to the world. - YI, 3-4-24, 109.
________________________________________
We want freedom for our country,
but not at the expense or exploitation of others, not so as to degrade other
countries. I do not want the freedom of India if it means the extinction of
England or the disappearance of Englishmen. I want the freedom of my country so
that other countries may learn something from my free country, so that the
resources of my country might be utilized for the benefit of mankind. Just as
the cult of patriotism teaches us today that the individual has to die for the
district, the district for the province, and province for the country, even so,
a country has to be free in order that it may die, if necessary, for the
benefit of the world. My love therefore of become free, that if need be, the
whole country may die, so that the human races may live. There is no room for
race-hatred there. Let that be our nationalism.- IV, 170.
________________________________________
The International Ideal
My religion has no geographical
limits. If I have a living faith in it, it will transcend my love for India
herself. -YI, 11-8-20, Tagore, 714.
________________________________________
Isolated independence is not the
goal of the world States. It is voluntary interdependence.- YI, 17-7-24, 236.
________________________________________
There is no limit to extending
our services to our neighbours across State-made frontiers. God never made
those frontiers.- YI, 31-12-31, 427.
________________________________________
Freedom of the Self and of the
Nation
I do not realize that I am
‘staking a whole nation for self-evolution'. For self-evolution is wholly
consistent with a nation's evolution. A nation cannot advance without the units
of which it is composed advancing, and conversely no individual can advance
without the nation of which he is a part also advancing. -YI, 26-3-31, 50.
________________________________________
The motto of the Gujarat
Vidyapith is. It means: That is knowledge which is designed for salvation. On
the principle that the greater includes the less, national independence or
material freedom is included in the spiritual. The knowledge gained in
educational institutions must therefore at least teach the way and lead to such
freedom. -YI, 20-3-30, 100.
________________________________________
His Own Mission
I have not conceived my mission
to be that of a knight-errant wandering everywhere to deliver people from
difficult situations. My humble occupation has been to show people how they can
solve their own difficulties. -H, 28-6-42, 201.
________________________________________
My work will be finished if I
succeed in carrying conviction to the human family, that every man or woman,
however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty.
This defense avails,though the whole world may be against the individual
resister. - HS, 6-8-44,
________________________________________
Character of His Leadership
You will see that my influence,
great as it may appear to outsiders, is strictly limited. I may have
considerable influence to conduct a campaign for redress of popular grievances
because people are ready and need a helper. But, I have no influence to direct
people's energy in a channel in which they have no interest. - H,26-7-42, 242.
________________________________________
Why Politics?
If I seem to take part in
politics, it is only because politics encircle us today like the coil of a
snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish
therefore to wrestle with the snake. - YI, 12-5-20, Tagore, 1069.
________________________________________
My work of social reform was in
no way less or subordinate to political work. The fact is, that when I saw that
to a certain extent my social work would be impossible without the help of
p9olitical work, I took to the latter and only to the extent that it helped the
former. I must therefore confess that work so social reform or
self-purification of this nature is a hundred times dearer to me than what is
called purely political work.- YI, 6-8-31, 203.
________________________________________
My life is oneindivisible whole,
and all my activities run into one another, and they all have their rise in my
insatiable love of mankind.- H, 2-3-34, 24.
________________________________________
A Practical Idealist
In dealing with living entities
the dry syllogistic method leads not only to bad logic but sometimes to fatal
logic. For if you miss even a tiny factor-and you never have control over all
the factors that enter to be wrong. Therefore, you never reach the final truth,
you only reach an approximation; and that too if you are extra careful in your
dealings.- H, 14-8-37, 212.
________________________________________
For me, the law of complete love
is the law of my being. Each time I fail, my effort shall be all the more
determined for my failure. But I am not preaching that final law through the
Congress or the Khilafat. I know that any such attempt is foredoomed to
failure. To expect a whole mass of men and women to obey that law all at once
is not to know its working. - YI, 9-3-22, 141.
________________________________________
I adhere to the opinion that I
did will to present to the Congress nonviolence as an expedient. I could not
have done otherwise, if I was to introduce it into politics. In South Africa
too I introduced it as an expedient. It was successful there because resisters
were a small number in a compact area and therefore easily controlled. Here we
had numberless persons scattered over a huge country. The result was that they
could not be easily controlled or trained. And yet it is a marvel the way they
have responded. They might have responded much better and shown far better
results. But I have no sense of disappointment in me over the results obtained.
If I had started with men who accepted nonviolence as a creed, I might have
ended with myself. Imperfect as I am, I started with imperfect men and women
and sailed on an uncharted ocean. Thank God, that though the boat has not
reached its haven, it has proved fairly storm-proof. - H, 12-4-42, 116.
________________________________________
God has blessed me with the
mission to place nonviolence before the nation for adoption. For better or for
worse the Congress, admittedly the most popular and powerful organization, has
consistently and to the best of its ability tried to act up to it. I hope the
learned critic does not wish to suggest that as the Congress did not accept my
position, I should have dissociated myself entirely from the Congress and
refused to guide it. My association enables the Congress to pursue the
technique of corporate non-violent action.- H, 2-12-39, 357.
________________________________________
I would not serve the cause of
nonviolence, if I deserted my best co-workers because they could not follow me
in an extended application of nonviolence. I therefore remain with them in the
faith that their departure from the nonviolent method will be confined to the
narrowest field and will be temporary.- H, 30-9-39, 289.
________________________________________
Personal
I lay claim to nothing
exclusively divine in me. I do not claim prophetship. I am but a humble seeker
after Truth and bent upon finding It. I count no sacrifice too great for the
sake of seeing God face to face. The whole of my activity whether it may be
called social, political, humanitarian or ethical is directed to that end. And
as I know that God is found more often in the lowliest of His creatures than in
the high and mighty, I am struggling to reach the status of these. I cannot do
so without their service. Hence my passion for the service of the suppressed classes.
And as I cannot render this service without entering politics, I find myself in
them. Thus I am no master, I am but a struggling, erring, humble servant of
India and there through, of humanity.- YI, 11-9-24, 298.
________________________________________
I claim no perfection for myself.
But I do claim to be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but another name
for God. In the course of that search the discovery of nonviolence came to me.
I its spread is my life mission. I have no interest in living except for the
prosecution of that mission. - H, 6-7-40, 185.
________________________________________
I have been a willing slave to
this most exacting Master for more than half a century. l His voice has been
increasingly audible as year as 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.- H, 6-5-33, 4.
________________________________________
Q. Are you happy?Ah! I can answer
that question. I am perfectly happy.
Q. More happy than you were
outside the village?
A. I cannot say, for my happiness
is not dependent on external circumstances. - H, 8-8-36, 201.