His Ideal
Gandhiji was essentially a man of religion. His eventful life was really a
spiritual pilgrimage. The supreme ideal which he tried to pursue,
throughout his life, was God-realization. "I want to see God face to
face," he used to say very often. He emphatically declares:
"What I want to achieve — what I have been striving and pining to
achieve these thirty years — is Self-realization, to see God face to
face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in
pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing, are
directed to this same end."
Though Gandhiji started his life with disbelief in God and prayer and
continued to maintain the same attitude for a long time, he did feel a
void in his life at a later stage, which led him to read the real
meaning of Creation. Thereafter he could write with the greatest
assurance: "I am surer of His existence than of the fact that you and I
are sitting in this room." He felt very miserable to find that he was
still far away from God, even though he was conscious that God governed
every breath of his life. However, the feeling that he was journeying
Godward gave him some solace for he occasionally felt the warmth of the
sunshine of His presence.
His Sadhana
The Sadhana which Gandhiji practised and preached for attaining
this ideal has three aspects: (i) Intellectual, (ii) Moral and (iii)
Spiritual.
(i) The Intellectual aspect consists in the clear conception regarding the
nature of God, Soul and the World, their relation with one another and
the primary duty of man. Gandhiji soon realized the futility and
impossibility of reasoning out the existence of God. "God exists," says
he, "because we exist. Really, we are not; He alone is. If we will be,
we must eternally sing His praise and do His will." This is Gandhiji's
first criterion to prove God's existence. The direct testimony of saints
who have actually seen God, is his second criterion.
Like all other saints Gandhiji maintained that God is one without a
second. He has innumerable names, but he chose to call Him "Truth".
Gandhiji's Absolute Truth has a very wide connotation. It not only
connotes Eternal Existence, both in time and space, but it also connotes
Eternal Knowledge, Power, and Bliss. Gandhiji's Truth is Light, Life,
Goodness and Law. It is a mysterious Power that holds together,
creates, dissolves and recreates. Infinite is Its love and boundless Its
compassion. Such is the Truth he worshipped with perfect devotion.
"Our soul is immortal," says Gandhiji. It is the eternal spark of the
Divine Fire. "We may not be God," he avers, "but we are of God, even as
a little drop of water is the ocean. Imagine it torn away from the ocean
and flung millions of miles away. It becomes helpless, and cannot feel
the might and majesty of the ocean. But if someone could point out to it
that it is the ocean (and teach it to realize it), its faith would
revive, it would dance with joy and the whole might and majesty of the
ocean would be reflected in it."
"Our earthly existence is," according to Gandhiji, "so fickle that it
can be wiped out in the twinkling of an eye." He also tells us that
death is as necessary for man's growth as life itself. Death is
inevitable. It is a welcome friend, a deliverer. It is a mere change
when we work for God. Hence it is the primary duty of every man,
according to Gandhiji, to carefully introspect, realize his nature,
fight with the inner foes, develop his Godward faculties to perfection
and enjoy the vision and bliss of God.
(ii) The Moral aspect of Gandhiji's Sadhana concerns the fight
with the inner foes, viz. vices and the acquisition of some cardinal
virtues. In fact, our attempt at the cultivation of virtues, would
automatically bring about the elimination of vices. The main virtues
which Gandhiji tried to develop are truth, love, and self-restraint.
These and selfless service along with devotion to God which crowns them
all, are the basic virtues which he wants all to cultivate. Gandhiji's
truth as a virtue is nothing but the correspondence between thought,
word and deed. Prompting of the inner voice or conscience is the true
thought. Its accurate expression in speech and action will invest the
words and deeds with the sanctity of truth. Gandhiji wants us to realize
such truth.
"True love," says Gandhiji, "is boundless like the ocean and swelling
within one, spreads itself out and envelops the whole world." Such is
the unselfish love which Gandhiji cultivated. "Love is life," he
declares, "and hatred is death. The law of love, call it attraction,
affinity, cohesion, if you like, governs the world. Love is the reverse
of the coin of which the obverse is truth. Truth ever triumphs over
untruth; love conquers hatred. Hatred always tries to kill but love
never dies." Non-violence is another name which Gandhiji has given to
such a pure love. His love and non-violence are one and the same. They
depict the positive and negative aspects of the same attitude of mind.
Pure unselfish love is perfectly nonviolent, and perfect non-violence
is full of pure love. Thus they are identical.
Self-restraint is the third cardinal virtue which Gandhiji attempted to
cultivate and advocate. If truth supports and love unites,
Self-restraint gives the necessary strength to the Sadhaka and
enables him to walk with courage and confidence on the Pathway to God.
Self-restraint is the source of all strength, the spring of all power.
It is the mother of so many virtues like non-stealing, celebacy,
non-taste etc. Voluntary restraint is the privilege of man. Control of
palate is the source of perfect health and strength. It will enable him
to control all other senses with ease. And he who can conquer the senses
can conquer the whole world. Complete control of thought, word and deed
alike, will bring a power of the highest potency and purity of the
highest type, so very necessary for receiving the grace of the Lord.
Selfless service is the last aspect of his moral Sadhana. "The
only way to find God," he says, "is to see Him in His creation, and be
one with it." "I am striving for the Kingdom of Heaven, which is
spiritual deliverance. For me the road to salvation lies through
incessant toil in the service of my country and there through of
humanity." Gandhiji tried to reduce himself to a cipher, identify
himself with everything that lives and live at peace with friend and
foe alike. Thus did he hope to attain salvation through selfless
service. He strongly maintained that loving service, offered in a spirit
of humility, will bring about proper self-purification, which in the
fullness of time, will lead to God-realization.
(iii) The Spiritual aspect of the Sadhana practised and preached
by Gandhiji consisted of a living faith in God, heart-felt prayer,
meditation on Ramanama, and self-surrender. Gandhiji highly extols
"living immovable faith". "Intellect," he says, "takes us along the
battle of life to a certain extent, but at critical moments, it fails
us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest, and
human reason is beaten down to the ground, that faith shines the
brightest and comes to our rescue." "Faith is not a delicate flower that
withers under the slightest stormy weather. It moves mountains and jumps
across the ocean. That faith is nothing but the 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."
Prayer is the next spiritual Sadhana performed by Gandhiji. He
himself was essentially a man of faith and prayer. "Prayer is really,"
he tells us, "complete meditation and melting into the higher Self-God."
"He who hungers for the awakening of the Divine in him, must fall back
upon prayer." Real prayer, according to him, prefers heart without
words, to words without heart. It needs no speech. It must spring from
the heart. Prayer is a call to humility — a call to self-purification,
to inward search and peace. "I believe," declares Gandhiji, "that prayer
is the very soul and essence of religion and therefore, it must be the
very core of the life of man." Along with prayer, Gandhiji tried to
enthrone Ramanama in his heart and took God's name with every breath. At
the same time he developed the attitude of self- surrender to the Lord.
"I have no strength," he says "save what God has given me. I know that I
can do nothing, God can do everything. My greatest weapon is mute
prayer." "God demands nothing less than complete self-surrender as the
price for the only real freedom that is worth having. And when a man
thus loses himself, he immediately finds himself in the service of all
that lives. It becomes his delight and recreation. He is a new man,
never weary of spending himself in the service of God's Creation."
His achievements
Now let us try to understand Gandhiji's conception of God-realization
as well as his actual achievement. Says he, "I hold that complete
realization of God is impossible in this embodied life. Nor is it
necessary. A living immovable faith is all that is required for reaching
the full spiritual height attainable by human being." To him,
God-realization is a supersensuous experience, consisting in the feeling
of His constant presence in the heart. However, he appears to have
enjoyed other spiritual experiences as well. Shri Gurudeva Dr. Ranade
has told us that Gandhiji was more an audile than a photist 6r a
morphist. Gandhiji speaks about the Inner Voice which may be likened to
the Anahata sound heard by the mystics. Though small in the
beginning, it gradually appears to have assumed greater and greater
sonorousness and power. "The Divine Music," he tells us, "is incessantly
going on within ourselves. But our loud senses drown the delicate music,
which is unlike and infinitely superior to anything we can hear with our
senses." Along with this "Still Small Voice" Gandhiji speaks about "the
Pillar of Fire" and the "Inner Light". "When this Light corresponds,
with the promptings of the Inner Voice," he says, "then that spark has
the flash of inspiration." He also speaks about the Lustre of Truth
which is "million- times more brilliant than that of the sun." Gandhiji
appears to have received messages and heard actual words emerging from
the Inner Voice—words from God. About the authenticity of these messages
Gandhiji declares: "I can say this that not the unanimous verdict of the
whole world against me could shake me from the belief that what I heard
was the true Voice of God. . . . For the Voice was more real than my
existence."