I D Soni
We speak of Gandhi in love and reverence. Over and over again, have we felt, when speaking of the great-souled Gandhi, that we sit at the feet of a gracious world figure. We believe we do not exaggerate when we say that since the appearance of Gautama Buddha, who came with his great message of compassion and reverence for all life, there has not appeared in India another to whom India’s millions offered greater reverence. How they came – thousands upon thousands of men and women, to hear him! Frail was his figure and short was his stature.
But there was something indefinable which went out of him and touched the hearts of millions of the Motherland. How they came to listen to this little man! How they came and touched his feet and his garments saying to him, “Bless us! Bless us!”
Picture after picture, we could take from the life of this great man and present it to the masses, did but time permit. Many years ago, with sadness and longing in our hearts, we asked, “When will the nations understand Gandhi Ji’s mighty mission and his plan?” And, today, the nations are beginning to understand the mission and plan of Mahatma Gandhi.
“We cannot build a welfare state, until we cultivate the soul”. Like the Buddha of long ago, Mahatma Gandhi Ji was a prophet of compassion, an apostle of lokasangraha, a servant of the poor. He was also, a bhakta of Sri Rama and Sri Krishna. The message of his life, is the message of Gita, and we should believe, is an urgent need of India and the nations, today. For, today, the human race is facing a crisis – perhaps, the greatest crises in history. Only Gita’s message can bring harmony and peace which Gandhi Ji pleaded through out his life. Mahatma Gandhi was a man of truth and compassion, of silence and daring – at once a hero and a saint. He led India : he bled for India. In him was revealed, in a richer measure than in any other man of his generation, the spirit of India. He blundered, alas! Into submitting to the ‘partition’of India. We, alas! do not salute Bharata, today, as the soil of the Sapta Sindhu. Alien forces stand ready to smother Bharata. O, the destiny of the nations!
The Gita is the Ganges of light, a River of radiance running from Eternity to Time! The Gita has also attracted attention in the west, not without reason. In a letter of Emerson published, he says, “The Bhagvad Gita is an empire of thought”. Emerson was a good student of Gita like Gandhi Ji. He was fond, too, of Hafiz. He was a lover of Eastern culture. Emerson had realised the greatness of the Gita like Gandhi Ji. “Let us not think the Gita is our monopoly”, said Gandhi Ji to young men of India, “Gita was sung in India, but for the race of Man”. We truly rever the Gita when we say to ourselves, “The Gita is meant for humanity, and therefore we shall live the life of the Gita in order to serve humanity”.
Gandhi Ji used to say in his prayer meetings to make the Gita the song of our life. Do not say some thousands of years ago the Master sang the Gita in Kurukshetra: but breathe out this aspiration, “Master! Re-sing, the song in our daily life.” Then will we be true sons and daughters of India. For everyone, “according to Gandhi Ji,” who lives daily according to the song of the Gita is a builder of the coming temple of Liberty, the temple of humanity. “Liberation” is the master word of the Gita; and to know the Gita is to know that there is no true liberty without an aspiration for inner liberation.
Gandhi Ji was fully convinced, without any exaggeration, to say that Bhagvad Gita is the holiest book in Hindu literature. It is regarded as an Upanishad and often spoken of as “Gitopanishad”. It is referred to as “milk of the shastras”. This expression is significant. The essential teaching of Hindu scriptures is given us in this one book, the Bhagvad Gita
Not yet has India assimilated Gandhi Ji’s message. Nor the nations. His message has, we believe, a value for the world. It was not merely India’s political freedom he wanted. He wanted to return to the simple, righteous, ethical, and virtuous life. He wanted a brotherly and friendly civilisation. The dream in his heart was that of khadi white, not blood red liberty.
Religion, to Gandhi Ji, was not creed but right life – a life of sympathy and love, of fellowship with the poor. His leadership was deeply rooted in his life. He bore witness to the spiritual values of India’s ancient heritage. His life reflected reverence for God and all prophets and saints, and love for all creatures – men and birds and beasts. His life reflected the spiritual outlook which, indeed, was ever a mark of Gita’s deep study and of India’s rishis and saints. Gandhi Ji could sacrifice all but his spiritual outlook which he mostly acquired from the Gita and he remained under its influence through out his life.
“My patriotism,” Gandhi said, “includes the good of mankind in general. Isolated independence is not the goal: it is voluntary interdependence. The better mind of the world desires, today, not absolutely in dependent states, warring one against another. But a federation of freely, inter dependent states. I see nothing impossible about our expressing our readiness for universal inter dependence rather than independence”. Who can be more patriot rather true patriot than Gandhi Ji. His reverence for the village-folk, his readiness not only to ‘patronise’ the ‘untouchable’ but to share their dirty work and so bless them and be blessed? This has been an influence on him of the Gita’s teachings. He used to say, “All religions are true! And all religions almost as dear to me as my own Hinduism”.
It seems to me that Mahatma Gandhi Ji is a voice of God to the modern world. To India and other nations of the East, to India and all the wandering people of the West – wandering from violence to violence – beloved Gandhi gave the message which is Ancient India’s message to the Modern World. The message was a call to New Freedom. And the call came from the depths of a dedicated heart: “O children of God! You cannot build a welfare state, until you cultivate the soul”, Gandhi Ji awakened millions – in a quiet way. Everything truly great is a quiet thing. In this tumultuous age, Gandhi Ji’s faith in the one Divine Spirit was wonderful. Many deny Him, but Gandhi Ji, a lover of the Gita, raised his voice to rebuke the sceptic and the scoffer.
Indeed, his words were imbued with the power of the spirit people who heard him, were amazed at the power of his oratory. He awakened their deepest aspirations. Fame and adulation came to him, in his life time. Eminent scholars and distinguished leaders were vastly impressed by his spiritual status. But all the fame and the glory left him unmoved. He had chosen for himself what he called “The Little way” – the way of simplicity, humility and selfless service.
To Gandhi, the wisdom of India was not a fable. To Gandhi, the wisdom of India was not a withered leaf of a dead or dying past. To Gandhi, the wisdom was a living, throbbing reality. In his great address which he gave to the students of the Banaras Hindu University, Mahatma Gandhi said, “The Gita is my mother. The wisdom of the Gita, help in leading us out of darkness into light”. Gandhi Ji’s life and Gandhi Ji’s message, in its fundamentals, is to us a symbol of the wisdom of the Gita, the wisdom of India’s culture.
The culture of the Gita to Mahatma Gandhi was a living force, a shakti which needs to be developed, if India is to fulfil her destiny. And India’s destiny, according to Gandhi Ji, is one of the service to the nations of the world. On one occasion Mahatma Gandhi said, “I work for India’s freedom because I believe that India’s destiny is to save humanity. And only a free India may save the nations of the world”.
Let us, therefore, offer to this saint our reverential devotion because he embodied the noble virtues of infinite compassion, profound humility, noble ideology, innate decency, intellectual convergence and selfless love.
(The author is President Home for the Aged & Infirm, Ambphalla, Jammu.)
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