Autobiography of a Yogi
you had the courage of your convictions and a complete and implicit
faith in God. How thankful I am for a husband that put God and his
country before me. I am grateful to you for your tolerance of me
and my shortcomings of youth, when I grumbled and rebelled against
the change you made in our mode of living, from so much to so
little.
As a young child, I lived in your parents’ home; your mother was a
great and good woman; she trained me, taught me how to be a brave,
courageous wife and how to keep the love and respect of her son,
my future husband. As the years passed and you became India’s most
beloved leader, I had none of the fears that beset the wife who may
be cast aside when her husband has climbed the ladder of success,
as so often happens in other countries. I knew that death would
still find us husband and wife.
For years Kasturabai performed the duties of treasurer of the public
funds which the idolized Mahatma is able to raise by the millions.
There are many humorous stories in Indian homes to the effect that
husbands are nervous about their wives’ wearing any jewelry to
a Gandhi meeting; the Mahatma’s magical tongue, pleading for the
downtrodden, charms the gold bracelets and diamond necklaces right
off the arms and necks of the wealthy into the collection basket!
One day the public treasurer, Kasturabai, could not account for a
disbursement of four rupees. Gandhi duly published an auditing in
which he inexorably pointed out his wife’s four rupee discrepancy.
I had often told this story before classes of my American students.
One evening a woman in the hall had given an outraged gasp.
“Mahatma or no Mahatma,” she had cried, “if he were my husband
I would have given him a black eye for such an unnecessary public
insult!”
After some good-humored banter had passed between us on the subject of
American wives and Hindu wives, I had gone on to a fuller explanation.
“Mrs. Gandhi considers the Mahatma not as her husband but as her
guru, one who has the right to discipline her for even insignificant
errors,” I had pointed out. “Sometime after Kasturabai had been
publicly rebuked, Gandhi was sentenced to prison on a political
charge. As he was calmly bidding farewell to his wife, she fell at
his feet. ‘Master,’ she said humbly, ‘if I have ever offended you,
please forgive me.’” {FN44-9}
At three o’clock that afternoon in Wardha, I betook myself,
by previous appointment, to the writing room of the saint who had
been able to make an unflinching disciple out of his own wife-rare
miracle! Gandhi looked up with his unforgettable smile.
“Mahatmaji,” I said as I squatted beside him on the uncushioned
mat, “please tell me your definition of AHIMSA.”
“The avoidance of harm to any living creature in thought or deed.”
“Beautiful ideal! But the world will always ask: May one not kill
a cobra to protect a child, or one’s self?”
“I could not kill a cobra without violating two of my vows—fearlessness,
and non-killing. I would rather try inwardly to calm the snake by
vibrations of love. I cannot possibly lower my standards to suit
my circumstances.” With his amazing candor, Gandhi added, “I must
confess that I could not carry on this conversation were I faced
by a cobra!”
I remarked on several very recent Western books on diet which lay
on his desk.
“Yes, diet is important in the SATYAGRAHA movement-as everywhere
else,” he said with a chuckle. “Because I advocate complete continence
for SATYAGRAHIS, I am always trying to find out the best diet for
the celibate. One must conquer the palate before he can control the
procreative instinct. Semi-starvation or unbalanced diets are not
the answer. After overcoming the inward GREED for food, a SATYAGRAHI
must continue to follow a rational vegetarian diet with all necessary
vitamins, minerals, calories, and so forth. By inward and outward
wisdom in regard to eating, the SATYAGRAHI’S sexual fluid is easily
turned into vital energy for the whole body.”
The Mahatma and I compared our knowledge of good meat-substitutes.
“The avocado is excellent,” I said. “There are numerous avocado
groves near my center in California.”
Gandhi’s face lit with interest. “I wonder if they would grow in
Wardha? The SATYAGRAHIS would appreciate a new food.”
“I will be sure to send some avocado plants from Los Angeles to
Wardha.” {FN44-10} I added, “Eggs are a high-protein food; are they
forbidden to SATYAGRAHIS?”
“Not unfertilized eggs.” The Mahatma laughed reminiscently. “For
years I would not countenance their use; even now I personally
do not eat them. One of my daughters-in-law was once dying of
malnutrition; her doctor insisted on eggs. I would not agree, and
advised him to give her some egg-substitute.
“‘Gandhiji,’ the doctor said, ‘unfertilized eggs contain no life
sperm; no killing is involved.’
“I then gladly gave permission for my daughter-in-law to eat eggs;
she was soon restored to health.”
On the previous night Gandhi had expressed a wish to receive
the KRIYA YOGA of Lahiri Mahasaya. I was touched by the Mahatma’s
open-mindedness and spirit of inquiry. He is childlike in his
divine quest, revealing that pure receptivity which Jesus praised
in children, “. . . of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
The hour for my promised instruction had arrived; several SATYAGRAHIS
now entered the room-Mr. Desai, Dr. Pingale, and a few others who
desired the KRIYA technique.
I first taught the little class the physical YOGODA exercises. The
body is visualized as divided into twenty parts; the will directs
energy in turn to each section. Soon everyone was vibrating before
me like a human motor. It was easy to observe the rippling effect
on Gandhi’s twenty body parts, at all times completely exposed to
view! Though very thin, he is not unpleasingly so; the skin of
his body is smooth and unwrinkled.
Later I initiated the group into the liberating technique of KRIYA
YOGA.
The Mahatma has reverently studied all world religions. The
Jain scriptures, the Biblical New Testament, and the sociological
writings of Tolstoy {FN44-11} are the three main sources of Gandhi’s
nonviolent convictions. He has stated his credo thus:
I believe the Bible, the KORAN, and the ZEND-AVESTA {FN44-12} to
be as divinely inspired as the VEDAS. I believe in the institution
of Gurus, but in this age millions must go without a Guru, because
it is a rare thing to find a combination of perfect purity and
perfect learning. But one need not despair of ever knowing the
truth of one’s religion, because the fundamentals of Hinduism as
of every great religion are unchangeable, and easily understood.
I believe like every Hindu in God and His oneness, in rebirth and
salvation. . . . I can no more describe my feeling 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 daresay she has many more than
I see myself. But the feeling of an indissoluble bond is there.
Even so I feel for and about Hinduism with all its faults and
limitations. Nothing delights me so much as the music of the GITA,
or the RAMAYANA by Tulsidas. When I fancied I was taking my last
breath, the GITA was my solace.
Hinduism is not an exclusive religion. In it there is room for
the worship of all the prophets of the world. {FN44-13} 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 absorption has
been of an evolutionary, imperceptible character. Hinduism tells
each man to worship God according to his own faith or DHARMA,
{FN44-14} and so lives at peace with all religions.
Of Christ, Gandhi has written: “I am sure that if He were living
here now among men, He would bless the lives of many who perhaps
have never even heard His name . . . just as it is written: ‘Not
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord . . . but he that doeth
the will of my Father.’ {FN44-15} In the lesson of His own life,
Jesus gave humanity the magnificent purpose and the single objective
toward which we all ought to aspire. I believe that He belongs not
solely to Christianity, but to the entire world, to all lands and
races.”
On my last evening in Wardha I addressed the meeting which had
been called by Mr. Desai in Town Hall. The room was thronged to
the window sills with about 400 people assembled to hear the talk
on yoga. I spoke first in Hindi, then in English. Our little group
returned to the ashram in time for a good-night glimpse of Gandhi,
enfolded in peace and correspondence.
Night was still lingering when I rose at 5:00 A.M. Village life was
already stirring; first a bullock cart by the ashram gates, then
a peasant with his huge burden balanced precariously on his head.
After breakfast our trio sought out Gandhi for farewell PRONAMS.
The saint rises at four o’clock for his morning prayer.
“Mahatmaji, good-by!” I knelt to touch his feet. “India is safe in
your keeping!”
Years have rolled by since the Wardha idyl; the earth, oceans, and
skies have darkened with a world at war. Alone among great leaders,
Gandhi has offered a practical nonviolent alternative to armed
might. To redress grievances and remove injustices, the Mahatma
has employed nonviolent means which again and again have proved
their effectiveness. He states his doctrine in these words:
I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction.
Therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only
under that law would well-ordered society be intelligible and life
worth living.
If that is the law of life we must work it out in daily existence.
Wherever there are wars, wherever we are confronted with an opponent,
conquer by love. I have found that the certain law of love has
answered in my own life as the law of destruction has never done.
In India we have had an ocular demonstration of the operation of
this law on the widest scale possible. I don’t claim that nonviolence
has penetrated the 360,000,000 people in India, but I do claim
it has penetrated deeper than any other doctrine in an incredibly
short time.
It takes a fairly strenuous course of training to attain a mental
state of nonviolence. It is a disciplined life, like the life of
a soldier. The perfect state is reached only when the mind, body,
and speech are in proper coordination. Every problem would lend
itself to solution if we determined to make the law of truth and
nonviolence the law of life.
Just as a scientist will work wonders out of various applications
of the laws of nature, a man who applies the laws of love with
scientific precision can work greater wonders. Nonviolence is
infinitely more wonderful and subtle than forces of nature like,
for instance, electricity. The law of love is a far greater science
than any modern science.
Consulting history, one may reasonably state that the problems of
mankind have not been solved by the use of brute force. World War
I produced a world-chilling snowball of war karma that swelled into
World War II. Only the warmth of brotherhood can melt the present
colossal snowball of war karma which may otherwise grow into World
War III. This unholy trinity will banish forever the possibility
of World War IV by a finality of atomic bombs. Use of jungle logic
instead of human reason in settling disputes will restore the earth
to a jungle. If brothers not in life, then brothers in violent
death.
War and crime never pay. The billions of dollars that went up in
the smoke of explosive nothingness would have been sufficient to
have made a new world, one almost free from disease and completely
free from poverty. Not an earth of fear, chaos, famine, pestilence,
the DANSE MACABRE, but one broad land of peace, of prosperity, and
of widening knowledge.