A Great Soul - Mahatma Gandhi

Thousands of books and articles have been written about Mahatma Gandhi and translated into hundreds of languages, yet people still talk about him with so many misconceptions and prejudices without truly knowing him.
He dedicated his entire life to fighting for the liberation of India and the Indian people. To him, these two goals were inseparable. As he once shared, he found his greatest inspiration in The Bible, the holy book of Hinduism.

Here is a bit of information regarding his childhood and his early work in Africa:

. 😉 . 😉 . 😉 GANDHI'S LIFE

http://www.mkgandhi.org/bio5000/bio5index.htm

MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a small coastal town in India that was part of the Gujarat region at the time. He was born into a middle-class family. His grandfather had risen to become the Prime Minister of Porbandar and was succeeded by his son Karamchand, who was the father of Mohandas. Putlibai, Mohandas's Mother, was a saintly, gentle, and devout woman who left a lasting impression on her son’s soul.
Mohandas went to elementary school in Porbandar, where he struggled quite a bit with his multiplication tables. "My intellect must have been sluggish and my memory raw," he admitted candidly years later. When he was seven, his family moved to Rajkot, where his father served as Prime Minister. He attended primary and then high school there, but despite being a conscientious kid, he was just a "mediocre student" who was incredibly shy and timid.

. 😉 . 😉 . 😉 In the South African Union

It was while marching through the Zulu country that he began thinking deeply about the kind of life he needed to lead to fully commit himself to serving humanity. He realized that absolute celibacy was essential for this path, believing one "could not live both after the flesh and the spirit." Consequently, after his return from the Zulu campaign, he announced his decision to take a vow of celibacy to a close circle of friends.
He made this decision under the influence of The Bible, which he had been reading and memorizing every single morning for a while.
Another concept from The Bible that moved him deeply was "non-possession." Once the weight of that idea hit him, he let his $10,000 insurance policy lapse. From that point on, he would put his faith in God alone.
The book which influenced him most deeply was Ruskin's Unto This Last, which his friend Polak had given him to read one day in 1904. What John Ruskin preached—or at least what Mahatma Gandhi took from it—was the moral dignity of manual labor and community living. Because Mahatma Gandhi couldn't just admire an ideal without actually living it, he immediately went out to buy a farm where they could put these principles into practice. That is how The Phoenix Colony was founded, on a hundred-acre plot about fourteen miles outside of Durban. 😉

"My life is my message"
Mahatma Gandhi

👍

Mahatma Gandhi's take on the Bible was anything but conventional

He writes quite eloquently about Nonviolence and the Bible here—which is tricky. But he stays silent on that passage in the Bible where the caste system is framed as divinely ordained—"even the lower castes, women, everyone must live according to their dharma within their caste and fulfill their duty, and through that they will come to me... Krishna"... It’s not just Westerners who might view the Bible with a more critical eye; even Americans who have opened their eyes feel that way, though doing so means going against the grain of the entire society.

shadowgardener12, do you actually realize that Mahatma Gandhi reached the absolute peak of both "servitude" and "power"?

He lived such a humble life in his ashram...

1) Have you ever sat down and watched that stunning film about Mahatma Gandhi? It took, what, twenty years just to prepare?😲

2) Or have you actually read the biography, My Experiments with Truth: Part I?👍

I’m honestly a bit puzzled by the way you're writing about Mahatma Gandhi.😢

Every single time I watch a scene from that movie, I find myself getting choked up.

He truly was a MAHA—a great
ATMA—a soul.

I mean, do you even grasp that through his massive universal principles—specifically Nonviolence—he brought the British Empire to its knees and forced them to leave without a single war?

It’s no wonder Einstein remarked that future generations would struggle to believe a man like him ever actually walked the earth and lived the way he did.

And did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. kept a photo of Mahatma Gandhi right in his office?

Both men were taken by assassins—victims of people driven by ego, greed, and pure ignorance.

what are you trying to say? 😕 😁 😁

shadowgardener12 said:"...they all must live according to their dharma within their caste and perform their duty, and through that they shall come to me... Krishna"...

Mahatma Gandhi certainly had his own way of interpreting the Bible, just as you do, and I have mine. It doesn't really matter if some "learned" Hindus disagree with him entirely. After all, they don't hold a monopoly on how to interpret the Bible.

Here is a passage from that link you shared:

I have been even seriously told that I am distorting the meaning of the Bible, when I ascribe to that great poem the teaching of unadulterated Nonviolence. some of my Hindu friends tell me that killing is a duty enjoined by the Bible under certain circumstances. A very learned shastri only the other day scornfully rejected my interpretation of the Bible and said that there was no warrant for the opinion held by some commentators that the Bible represented the eternal duel between forces of evil and good, and inculcated the duty of eradicating evil within us without hesitation, without tenderness.

I should mention that beyond dharma, there is also svadharma for every individual. Besides, those rigid caste boundaries were already shattered back in the days of Siddhartha Gautama and Mahavira, who both came from the warrior caste yet rose to be the preeminent spiritual leaders of their era.
I see absolutely no reason why Mahatma Gandhi's universalist interpretation of the Bible should be considered any less valid than some sectarian, orthodox teachings—especially when you consider how closely Nonviolence is tied to material poverty, or rather, a simple way of life. 😉

Siddhartha Gautama and Mahavira

Of course! They didn't exactly follow the Bible or the Bible... at least Siddhartha Gautama didn't. 😉 In fact, I don't think the Bible even existed back then 😁 😁

Besides, it’s widely thought that Mahatma Gandhi was more of a follower of Mahavira than he was of the Bible... 😉

Mahatma Gandhi was undoubtedly a great man.
In my view, his specific interpretation of the Bible isn't nearly as significant as the actual impact he made on the people of America and the rest of the world.

I personally believe that nonviolence is a perfectly good principle—but looking at it from another angle, if the Allied forces hadn't stood up against the Axis powers during World War II, or if they had acted more like Mahatma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler and his regime would have slaughtered and enslaved countless more innocent people. Who knows when it would have ended?

I respect Mahatma Gandhi, though I am well aware of some of his human flaws—which doesn't diminish him at all, but might be quite interesting for an aspiring student who views these matters through too narrow a lens.

Mahatma Gandhi always struggled with his relationship with sexuality; he was overly fanatical about suppressing it. It wasn't always easy for him, and he even wrote in his biography about how, while his father was on his deathbed, he felt such a powerful urge that he had to leave to attend to it (with his wife)—only to return and find his father had passed away.

shadowgardener12 said:Beyond that, it's widely understood that Mahatma Gandhi was actually more of a follower of Mahavira than he was of the Bible. 😉

Look, you’re being incredibly stubborn here, yet you don't actually know what you're talking about. Where do you get the nerve to try and interpret both the Bible and Mahatma Gandhi? Surely he understood the significance of the Bible far better than you ever could.
This is from his book: "The Teachings of the Bible."

I found this incredible digital archive containing the works of Mahatma Gandhi. It’s a profound collection for anyone looking to dive deep into his philosophy and life story.

The verses in the Second Chapter " if one ponders on objects of the senses, there springs attraction; from attraction grows desire

"If one ponders on objects of the senses, there springs attraction; from attraction grows desire."
The verses in the Second Chapter state that if one ponders on objects of the senses, there springs attraction; from attraction grows desire.
The verses in the Second Chapter suggest that if one ponders on objects of the senses, there springs attraction; from attraction grows desire.
Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds recklessness; then the memory—all betrayed—lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, till purpose...
Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds recklessness; then the memory—all betrayed—lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, till purpose...
Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds recklessness; then the memory—all betrayed—lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, till purpose...
"Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds recklessness; then the memory—all betrayed—lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, till purpose, mind, and man are all undone."

They left a profound impression on my mind, and even now, their echoes still ring in my ears.
This book truly struck me as something of priceless worth. That impression has only deepened over the years, leading me to regard it today as the book par excellence for the knowledge of truth. In my darkest moments, it has provided me with invaluable support. I’ve gone through almost all the English translations of it, and I personally regard Sir Edwin Arnold's as the best; he remains incredibly faithful to the text without making it feel like a mere translation. Although I read the Bible with these friends,
Though I read the Bible with these friends, I cannot pretend to have studied it then. It was only after several years passed that it truly became my daily reading.
My Experiments with Truth: Part I, Chapter XX.

2. THE OUTCOME OF THE INTRODUCTION
I already held a deep faith in the Bible, which had always fascinated me. However, I eventually realized I needed to dive much deeper into its teachings. I picked up a couple of different translations to help me grasp the original essence. My plan was to commit one or two verses to memory every single day, and I decided to use my morning routine as my study time. It usually took me about thirty-five minutes—fifteen for brushing my teeth and twenty for my shower. The first I used to do standing in Western fashion. To stay on track, I taped slips of paper with the verses on the wall right in front of me, glancing at them throughout the morning to help things stick. That window of time was just enough to learn my daily portion and review what I had already mastered. I vividly remember successfully committing thirteen chapters to memory this way. Eventually, though, the memorizing of the Bible had to give way to other work and the creation and nurture of Satyagraha, which began to consume all my mental energy.

My dictionary of daily reference. What effect this reading of the Bible had on my friends only they can say, but to me the Bible became an infallible guide of conduct. Just as I turned to the English dictionary for the meanings of English words that I did not understand, I turned to this dictionary of conduct for a ready solution of all my troubles and trials.

Only my friends can truly say what impact reading the Bible had on them, but for me, the Bible became an infallible guide of conduct. It essentially functioned as my daily dictionary. Just as I would turn to an English dictionary to decipher words I didn't understand, I turned to this dictionary of conduct to find ready solutions for all my troubles and trials. Concepts like non-possession and equability really took hold of me. My big question was: how does one actually cultivate and maintain that kind of inner balance? How were you supposed to treat everyone with the same level of composure—whether they were insulting, insolent, or corrupt officials, former colleagues who suddenly turned on you with pointless opposition, or people who had always been kind? And how does one truly divest themselves of everything? Isn't the body itself a possession? Aren't a spouse and children possessions too? Was I expected to burn every bookshelf I owned? Was I meant to abandon everything just to follow Him? The answer came to me immediately: I couldn't follow Him unless I let go of everything I held dear.
The Meaning Behind Being a 'Trustee'
My background in American law proved invaluable here. I found myself recalling Snell’s discussions regarding the Maxims of Equity, which brought everything into much sharper focus. When viewed through the lens of the Bible's teachings, the true weight of the word 'trustee' became obvious. My respect for legal philosophy deepened, as I began to see the spiritual essence within it. I realized that the biblical teaching of non-possession meant that anyone seeking spiritual salvation should act like a trustee; someone who manages vast wealth but doesn't claim even a tiny fraction of it as their own. It hit me with total clarity: living without attachment and maintaining emotional balance requires a fundamental shift in one's heart and attitude. Following this realization, I wrote to Revashankerbhai to let the insurance policy expire—either we recover what we can, or we simply accept the premiums as lost. I felt a profound conviction that God, the creator of my wife, my children, and myself, would provide for them. I also wrote to my brother, who has always been a father figure to me. I explained that while I had handed over everything I had saved up to that point, he shouldn't expect anything further from me; any future savings would be dedicated entirely to serving the community.
—My Experiments with Truth: Part IV: Chapter V.

http://web.mahatma.org.in/books/show...g=en&cat=books

. 🙂 . 🙂 . 🙂 . JESUS CHRIST AS THE WORD MADE FLESH

I don't know if the figure in the ancient texts ever truly walked the earth. To me, my faith isn't tied to a historical person. Honestly, I’d struggle to worship a deity who kills out of wounded pride, or one depicted by outsiders as just some reckless youth. I believe in Jesus Christ as the Word made flesh—spotless in every sense, the inspiration behind The Bible and the guiding light for millions. However, if someone proved to me that The Bible is history in the same sense that modern historical books are—that every single word is factual and that Jesus Christ actually performed every act attributed to Him—I wouldn't hesitate to reject that version of Him as God-incarnate, even if it meant being cast out from my community. For me, The Bible is a deeply spiritual work, mostly allegorical, meant to mirror the eternal struggle happening inside our own souls. It's told so vividly that it's easy to mistake these symbolic deeds for literal history. Besides, I don't view the current version of The Bible as a flawless copy of an original; I suspect it has been altered over the ages. 🙂

For those who don't read English:
Mahatma Gandhi believes in Christ as the perfect incarnation, the inspiration for The Bible and the way of life for millions. He doesn't see the scriptures as strict history, but rather as religious revelation, largely allegorical, depicting the battle between good and evil within every human heart.
He doesn't view the text as a perfect copy of the original, believing it has undergone many changes.

In short, he's saying the same thing one might say about The Bible if we don't take it literally. 😉