FOREWORD TO THE REVISED EDITION
It gives me pleasure that a new, revised and enlarged edition of The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Shri Prabhu and Shri Rao is being published by the Navajivan Trust. The first two editions of the book were very popular and its translations had appeared in several languages.
In the new edition, Gandhiji’s thoughts in the last few years of his life have been incorporated. Thus the book has been brought uptodatc.
“Who, indeed, can claim to know the mind of the Great?” is a famous saying of the Poet Bhavabhuti. Gandhiji was a great man; nevertheless, he had laid bare his mind in its fullness before the world. For his part, he had permitted no secrecy. Even so, I must confess, the last ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
I. OF MYSELF
01. NEITHER SAINT, NOR SINNER
I THINK that the word ‘saint’ should be ruled out of present life. It is too sacred a word to be lightly applied to anybody, much less to one like myself who claims only to be a humble searcher after Truth, knows his limitations, makes mistakes, never hesitates to admit them when he makes them, and frankly confesses that he, like a scientist, is making experiments about some ‘of the eternal verities’ of life, but cannot even claim to be a scientist because he can show no tangible proof of scientific accuracy in his methods or such tangible results of his experiments as modern science demands. (YI, 12-5-1920, p2)
To clothe me with sainthood is too early even if it i... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
02. MY MAHATMASHIP
No Mahatma
I DO not feel like being one [a Mahatma]. But I do know that I am among the humblest of God’s creatures. ( YI, 27-10-1921, p.342)
Often the title has deeply pained me; and there is not a moment I can recall when it may be said to have tickled me. (A, p. xiv)
My Mahatma ship is worthless. It is due to my outward activities, due to my politics which is the least part of me and is, therefore, evanescent. What is of abiding worth is my insistence on truth, nonviolence and brahmacharya which is the real part of me. That part of me, however small, is not to be despised. It is my all. I prize even the failures and disillusionment’s which are but steps towards success. (YI, 25-12-1926, pp78-79)
The... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
03. I KNOW THE PATH
I know the path. It is straight 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. (YI, 17-6-1926, p215)
My soul refuses to be satisfied so long as it is a helpless witness of a single wrong or a single misery. But it is not possible for me, a weak, frail, miserable being, to mend every wrong or to hold myself free of blame for all the wrong I see.
The spirit in me pulls one way, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
04. MY MISSION
I AM not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of nonviolence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law-to the strength of the spirit. (YI, 11-8-1920, p3)
There are more instances than one in my public life when, with the ability to retaliate, I have refrained from doing so and advised friends to do likewise. My life is dedicated to the spread of that doctrine. I read it in the teachings of all the greatest teachers of the world-Zoroaster, M... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
05. THE INNER VOICE
There come to us moments in life when about some things we need no proof from without. A little voice within us tells us, ‘You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way. (L, 25-12-1916)
There are moments in your life when you must act, even though you cannot carry your best friends with you. The ‘still small voice’ within you must always be the final arbiter when there is a conflict of duty. (YI, 4-8-1920, p3)
Having made a ceaseless effort to attain self-purification, I have developed some little capacity to hear correctly and clearly the ‘still small voice within’. (EF, p34)
I shall lose my usefulness the moment I stifle the ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
06. MY FASTS
MY RELIGION teaches me that, whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray. (YI, 25-9-1924, p. 319)
They [fasts] are a part of my being. I can as well do without my eyes, for instance, as I can without fasts. What the eyes are for the outer world, fasts are for the inner. (YI, 3-12-1925, p. 422)
Higher Dictate
I am not responsible for these fasts. I do not undertake them for my amusement. I would not torture the flesh for the love of fame. Though I bear joyfully the pangs of hunger and many other discomforts of fasting, let no one imagine that I do not suffer. These fasts are bearable only because they are imposed upon me by a higher Power and the capacity to bear the pain also comes from th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
07. MY INCONSISTENCIES
I DECLINE to be slave to precedents or practice I cannot understand or defend on a moral basis. (YI, 21-7-1921, p228)
I must admit my many inconsistencies. But since I am called ‘Mahatma’, I might well endorse Emerson’s saying that ‘Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’ There is, I fancy, a method in my inconsistencies. In my opinion, there is a consistency running through my seeming inconsistencies, as in Nature there is unity running through seeming diversity. (YI, 13-2-1930, p52)
Friends who know me have certified that I am as much a moderate as I am an extremist and as much a conservative as I am a radical. Hence, perhaps, my good fortune to have friends among th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
08. MY WRITINGS
MY HESITANCY in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. (A, p45)
In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole country sides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves b... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
II. TRUTH
09. THE GOSPEL OF TRUTH
WHAT…is Truth? 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, [do] 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…
It is because we have at the present moment everybody claiming the right of conscience without going through any discipline whatsoever, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
10. TRUTH IS GOD
God Is
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. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent.
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 recreates. 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... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
11. TRUTH AND BEAUTY
Inwardness of Art
THERE ARE two aspects of things — the outward and the inward….The outward has no meaning except in so far as it helps the inward. All true Art is thus an expression of the soul. The outward forms have value only in so far as they are the expression of the inner spirit of man. (YI, 13-11-1924, p.377)
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. (ibid)
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 Ar... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
III. FEARLESSNESS
12. THE GOSPEL OF FEARLESSNESS
FEARLESSNESS IS the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral. (YI, 13-10-1921, p. 323)
Where there is fear there is no religion. (YI, 2-9-1926, p. 308)
Every reader of the Gita is aware that fearlessness heads the list of the Divine Attributes enumerated in the 16th Chapter. Whether this is merely due to the exigencies of meter, or whether the pride of place has been deliberately yielded to fearlessness is more than I can say. In my opinion, however, fearlessness richly deserves the first rank assigned to it there, perhaps, by accident.
Fearlessness is a sine qua non for the growth of the other noble qualities. How can one seek truth or cherish Love without fearles... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
IV. FAITH
13. THE GOSPEL OF FAITH
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. (YI, 24-9-1925, p. 331)
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. (YI, 14-4-19... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
14. THE MEANING OF GOD
Law-giver and Law
GOD MAY be called by any other name so long as it connotes the living Law of Life-in other words, the Law and the Law-giver rolled into one. (H, 14-4-1946, p80)
God Himself is both the Law and the Law-giver. The question of anyone creating Him, therefore, does not arise, least of all by an insignificant creature such as man. Man can build a dam, but he cannot create a river. He can manufacture a chair, but it is beyond him to make the wood. He can, however, picture God in his mind in many ways. But how can man who is unable to create even a river or wood create God? That God has created man is, therefore, the pure truth. The contrary is an illusion. However, anyone may, if he likes, say that G... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
15. RAMANAMA
My Savior
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... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
16. PRAYER THE FOOD OF MY SOUL
I CLAIM to be a man of faith and prayer, and even if I were cut to pieces, I trust God would give me the strength not to deny Him and to assert that He is. (YI, 8-12-1927, p413)
No act of mine is done without prayer. Man is a fallible being. He can never be sure of his steps. What he may regard as answer to prayer may be an echo of his pride. For infallible guidance man has to have a perfectly innocent heart incapable of evil. I can lay no such claim. Mine is a struggling, striving, erring, imperfect soul. (YI, 25-9-1924, p313)
Even if I am killed, I will not give up repeating the names of Rama and Rahim, which mean to me the same God. With these names on my lips, I will die cheerfully. (H, 20-4-1947, p11... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
17. MY HINDUISM IS NOT EXCLUSIVE
All-embracing
FOR ME Hinduism is all-sufficing. Every variety of belief finds protection under its ample folk. (SW, p329)
I can no more describe my feelings for Hinduism than for my own wife. She moves me as no other woman in the world can. Not that she has no faults; I dare say she has many more than I see myself. But the feeling of an indescribable bond is there. Even so I feel for and about Hinduism with all its faults and limitations. (YI, 6-10-1921, p318)
...Hinduism is not an exclusive religion. In it there is room for the worship of all the prophets in 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 absorp... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
18. RELIGION AND POLITICS
Life an Integral Whole
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, 2-3-1922, p. 131)
Human life being an undivided whole, no line can ever be drawn between its different compartments, not between ethics and politics. A trader who earns his wealth by deception only succeeds in deceiving himself when he thinks that his sins can be washed away by spending some amount of his ill-gotten gains on the so-called religious purposes. One’s everyday life is never capable of being separated from one’s spiritual being. Both act and react upon one another. (H, 30-3-1947, p. 85)
The politic... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
19. TEMPLES AND IDOLATRY
Character of Idolatry
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. (YI, 6-10-1921, p318)
I am both an idolater and an iconoclast in what I conceive to be the true sense of the terms. I value the spirit behind idol worship. It plays a most important part in the uplift of the human race... 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 vi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
20. THE CURSE OF UNTOUCHABILITY
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 the affronts leveled at them, in order that I may endeavor to free myself and them from that miserable condition. I, therefore, prayed that, if I should be born again, I should do so not as a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya or Shudra, but as an Atishudra. (YI, 4-5-1921, p144)
I was wedded to the work for the extinction of ‘untouchability’ long before I was wedded to my wife. There were two occasions in our joint life when there was choice between working for the untouchables and remaining with my wife and I would have preferred the first. But thanks to my good... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
V. NONVIOLENCE
21. THE GOSPEL OF NONVIOLENCE
The Law of Our Species
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of nonviolence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law-to the strength of the spirit....
The rishis who discovered the law of nonviolence in the midst of violence were greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves known the use of arms, they realized their uselessness, and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through vi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
22. THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE
NONVIOLENCE IN its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means the pitting of one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honor, his religion, his soul and lay the foundation for that empire’s fall or its regeneration. (YI, 1-8-1920, p3)
Active Force
The nonviolence of my conception is a more active and more real fighting against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness. I contemplate a mental and, therefore, a moral opposition to immoralities. I seek e... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
23. TRAINING FOR NONVIOLENCE
“HOW ARE we to train individuals or communities in this difficult art?”
There is no royal road, except through living the creed in your life which must be a living sermon. Of course, the expression in one’s own life presupposes great study, tremendous perseverance, and thorough cleansing of one’s self of all the impurities. If for mastering of the physical sciences you have to devote a whole life-time, how many life-times may be needed for mastering the greatest spiritual force that mankind has known? But why worry even if it means several life-times? For, if this is the only permanent thing in life, if this is the only thing that counts, then whatever effort you bestow on mastering i... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
24. APPLICATION OF NONVIOLENCE
IF ONE does not practice nonviolence in one’s personal relations with others, and hopes to use it in bigger affairs, one is vastly mistaken. Nonviolence like charity must begin at home.
But if it is necessary for the individual to be trained in nonviolence, it is even more necessary for the nation to be trained likewise. One cannot be nonviolent in one’s own circle and violent outside it. Or else, one is not truly nonviolent even in one’s own circle; often the nonviolence is only in appearance. It is only when you meet with resistance, as for instance, when a thief or a murderer appears, that your nonviolence is put on its trail. You either try or should try to oppose the thief with his o... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
25. THE NONVIOLENT SOCIETY
I HOLD that nonviolence is not merely a personal virtue. It is also a social virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is largely regulated by the expression of nonviolence in its mutual dealings. What I ask for is an extension of it on a larger, national and international scale. (H, 7-1-1939, p417)
All society is held together by nonviolence, even as the earth is held in her position by gravitation. But when the law of gravitation was discovered, the discovery yielded results of which our ancestors had no knowledge. Even so, when society is deliberately constructed in accordance with the law of nonviolence, its structure will be different in material particulars from what it is today. But... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
26. THE NONVIOLENT STATE
MANY HAVE shaken their heads as they have said, “But you can’t teach nonviolence to the masses. It is only possible for individuals and that too in rare cases.” That is, in my opinion, a gross self-deception. If mankind was not habitually nonviolent, it would have been self-destroyed ages ago. But in the duel between forces of violence and nonviolence, the latter have always come out victorious in the end.
The truth is that we have not had patience enough to wait and apply ourselves whole-heartedly to the spread of nonviolence among the people as a means for political ends. (YI, 2-1-1930, p4)
Political Power
To me political power is not an end but one of the means of enabling people to bett... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
27. VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM
MY EXPERIENCE teaches me that truth can never be propagated by doing violence. Those who believe in the justice of their cause have need to possess boundless patience and those alone are fit to offer civil disobedience who are above committing criminal disobedience or doing violence. (YI, 28-4-1920, p. 8)
Popular Violence
If I can have nothing to do with the organized violence of the Government, I can have less to do with the unorganized violence of the people. I would prefer to be crushed between the two. (YI, 24-11-1921, p. 382)
For me popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the Government violence. Indeed, I can combat the Government violence more successfully than the popular. For one... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
28. BETWEEN COWARDICE AND VIOLENCE
I WOULD risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of a whole race. (YI, 4-8-1920, p5)
Violence the Choice
I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence....I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.
But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier...But abstinence is forgiveness only when there is the power to punish; it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature....
But I do not ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
29. RESISTANCE TO AGGRESSION
I MUST live. I would not be a vassal to any nation or body. I must have absolute independence or perish. To seek to win in a clash of arms would be pure bravado. Not so if, in defying the might of one who would deprive me of my independence, I refuse to obey his will and perish unarmed in the attempt. In so doing, though I lose the body, I save my soul, i.e., my honor. (H, 15-10-1938, p290)
Duty of Resistance
The true democrat is he who with purely nonviolent means defends his liberty and therefore, his country’s and ultimately, that of the whole of mankind...But the duty of resistance accrues only to those who believe in nonviolence as a creed-not to those who will calculate and will examine the me... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
