My Religion

Chapter 11: Christianity

The New Testament gave me comfort and boundless joy, as it came after the repulsion that parts of the Old had given me. Today supposing I was deprived of the Gita and forgot all its contents but had a copy of the Sermon (on the Mount), I should derive the same joy from it as I do from the Gita.

Young India, 22-12-'27, p. 426

Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and will of God. It is in this sense that I see Him and recognize Him as the Son of God. And because the life of Jesus has the significance and the transcendency to which I have alluded, I believe that He belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world, to all races and people — It matters little under what flag, name or doctrine they may work, profess a faith, or worship a God inherited from their ancestors.

The Modern Review, October 1941, p. 406

On seeing a painting of the crucified Christ in Rome, Gandhiji remarked: 'What would not I have given to be able to bow my head before the living image at the Vatican of Christ Crucified ? It was with a wrench that I could tear myself away from the scene of living tragedy. I saw there at once that nations like individuals could only be made through the agony of the Gross and in no other way. Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself.'

This Was Bapu, By R. K. Prabhu, 1954. p. 29