Autobiography of a Yogi
The nonviolent voice of Gandhi appeals to man’s highest conscience.
Let nations ally themselves no longer with death, but with life; not
with destruction, but with construction; not with the Annihilator,
but with the Creator.
“One should forgive, under any injury,” says the MAHABHARATA. “It
hath been said that the continuation of species is due to man’s being
forgiving. Forgiveness is holiness; by forgiveness the universe is
held together. Forgiveness is the might of the mighty; forgiveness is
sacrifice; forgiveness is quiet of mind. Forgiveness and gentleness
are the qualities of the self-possessed. They represent eternal
virtue.”
Nonviolence is the natural outgrowth of the law of forgiveness and
love. “If loss of life becomes necessary in a righteous battle,”
Gandhi proclaims, “one should be prepared, like Jesus, to shed his
own, not others’, blood. Eventually there will be less blood spilt
in the world.”
Epics shall someday be written on the Indian SATYAGRAHIS who withstood
hate with love, violence with nonviolence, who allowed themselves
to be mercilessly slaughtered rather than retaliate. The result on
certain historic occasions was that the armed opponents threw down
their guns and fled, shamed, shaken to their depths by the sight
of men who valued the life of another above their own.
“I would wait, if need be for ages,” Gandhi says, “rather than
seek the freedom of my country through bloody means.” Never does
the Mahatma forget the majestic warning: “All they that take the
sword shall perish with the sword.” {FN44-16} Gandhi has written:
I call myself a nationalist, but my nationalism is as broad as the
universe. It includes in its sweep all the nations of the earth.
{FN44-17} My nationalism includes the well-being of the whole world.
I do not want my India to rise on the ashes of other nations. I
do not want India to exploit a single human being. I want India to
be strong in order that she can infect the other nations also with
her strength. Not so with a single nation in Europe today; they do
not give strength to the others.
President Wilson mentioned his beautiful fourteen points, but said:
“After all, if this endeavor of ours to arrive at peace fails,
we have our armaments to fall back upon.” I want to reverse that
position, and I say: “Our armaments have failed already. Let us
now be in search of something new; let us try the force of love and
God which is truth.” When we have got that, we shall want nothing
else.
By the Mahatma’s training of thousands of true SATYAGRAHIS (those
who have taken the eleven rigorous vows mentioned in the first part
of this chapter), who in turn spread the message; by patiently
educating the Indian masses to understand the spiritual and
eventually material benefits of nonviolence; by arming his people
with nonviolent weapons—non-cooperation with injustice, the willingness
to endure indignities, prison, death itself rather than resort to
arms; by enlisting world sympathy through countless examples of
heroic martyrdom among SATYAGRAHIS, Gandhi has dramatically portrayed
the practical nature of nonviolence, its solemn power to settle
disputes without war.
Gandhi has already won through nonviolent means a greater number
of political concessions for his land than have ever been won by
any leader of any country except through bullets. Nonviolent methods
for eradication of all wrongs and evils have been strikingly applied
not only in the political arena but in the delicate and complicated
field of Indian social reform. Gandhi and his followers have removed
many longstanding feuds between Hindus and Mohammedans; hundreds
of thousands of Moslems look to the Mahatma as their leader.
The untouchables have found in him their fearless and triumphant
champion. “If there be a rebirth in store for me,” Gandhi wrote,
“I wish to be born a pariah in the midst of pariahs, because thereby
I would be able to render them more effective service.”
The Mahatma is indeed a “great soul,” but it was illiterate millions
who had the discernment to bestow the title. This gentle prophet
is honored in his own land. The lowly peasant has been able to rise
to Gandhi’s high challenge. The Mahatma wholeheartedly believes in
the inherent nobility of man. The inevitable failures have never
disillusioned him. “Even if the opponent plays him false twenty times,”
he writes, “the SATYAGRAHI is ready to trust him the twenty-first
time, for an implicit trust in human nature is the very essence of
the creed.” {FN44-18}
“Mahatmaji, you are an exceptional man. You must not expect the
world to act as you do.” A critic once made this observation.
“It is curious how we delude ourselves, fancying that the body can
be improved, but that it is impossible to evoke the hidden powers
of the soul,” Gandhi replied. “I am engaged in trying to show that
if I have any of those powers, I am as frail a mortal as any of
us and that I never had anything extraordinary about me nor have I
now. I am a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow
mortal. I own, however, that I have enough humility to confess
my errors and to retrace my steps. I own that I have an immovable
faith in God and His goodness, and an unconsumable passion for truth
and love. But is that not what every person has latent in him? If
we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new
history. We must add to the inheritance left by our ancestors. If we
may make new discoveries and inventions in the phenomenal world,
must we declare our bankruptcy in the spiritual domain? Is it
impossible to multiply the exceptions so as to make them the rule?
Must man always be brute first and man after, if at all?” {FN44-19}
Americans may well remember with pride the successful nonviolent
experiment of William Penn in founding his 17th century colony in
Pennsylvania. There were “no forts, no soldiers, no militia, even
no arms.” Amidst the savage frontier wars and the butcheries that
went on between the new settlers and the Red Indians, the Quakers
of Pennsylvania alone remained unmolested. “Others were slain; others
were massacred; but they were safe. Not a Quaker woman suffered
assault; not a Quaker child was slain, not a Quaker man was tortured.”
When the Quakers were finally forced to give up the government of
the state, “war broke out, and some Pennsylvanians were killed. But
only three Quakers were killed, three who had so far fallen from
their faith as to carry weapons of defence.”
“Resort to force in the Great War (I) failed to bring tranquillity,”
Franklin D. Roosevelt has pointed out. “Victory and defeat were
alike sterile. That lesson the world should have learned.”
“The more weapons of violence, the more misery to mankind,” Lao-tzu
taught. “The triumph of violence ends in a festival of mourning.”
“I am fighting for nothing less than world peace,” Gandhi
has declared. “If the Indian movement is carried to success on a
nonviolent SATYAGRAHA basis, it will give a new meaning to patriotism
and, if I may say so in all humility, to life itself.”
Before the West dismisses Gandhi’s program as one of an impractical
dreamer, let it first reflect on a definition of SATYAGRAHA by the
Master of Galilee:
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and
a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil:
{FN44-20} but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn
to him the other also.”
Gandhi’s epoch has extended, with the beautiful precision of
cosmic timing, into a century already desolated and devastated by
two World Wars. A divine handwriting appears on the granite wall
of his life: a warning against the further shedding of blood among
brothers.
MAHATMA GANDHI’S HANDWRITING IN HINDI
[Illustration—see gandhi2.jpg]
Mahatma Gandhi visited my high school with yoga training at Ranchi.
He graciously wrote the above lines in the Ranchi guest-book. The
translation is: “This institution has deeply impressed my mind.
I cherish high hopes that this school will encourage the further
practical use of the spinning wheel.”
(SIGNED) MOHANDAS GANDHI September 17, 1925
[Illustration—see gandhiflag.jpg]
A national flag for India was designed in 1921 by Gandhi. The
stripes are saffron, white and green; the CHARKA (spinning wheel)
in the center is dark blue. “The CHARKA symbolizes energy,”
he wrote, “and reminds us that during the past eras of prosperity
in India’s history, hand spinning and other domestic crafts were
prominent.”
{FN44-1} His family name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He never
refers to himself as “Mahatma.”
{FN44-2} The literal translation from Sanskrit is “holding to
truth.” SATYAGRAHA is the famous nonviolence movement led by Gandhi.
{FN44-3} False and alas! malicious reports were recently circulated
that Miss Slade has severed all her ties with Gandhi and forsaken
her vows. Miss Slade, the Mahatma’s SATYAGRAHA disciple for twenty
years, issued a signed statement to the UNITED PRESS, dated Dec.
29, 1945, in which she explained that a series of baseless rumors
arose after she had departed, with Gandhi’s blessings, for a small
site in northeastern India near the Himalayas, for the purpose of
founding there her now-flourishing KISAN ASHRAM (center for medical
and agricultural aid to peasant farmers). Mahatma Gandhi plans to
visit the new ashram during 1946.
{FN44-4} Miss Slade reminded me of another distinguished Western
woman, Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson, eldest daughter of America’s
great president. I met her in New York; she was intensely interested
in India. Later she went to Pondicherry, where she spent the last
five years of her life, happily pursuing a path of discipline at
the feet of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh. This sage never speaks; he silently
greets his disciples on three annual occasions only.
{FN44-5} For years in America I had been observing periods of
silence, to the consternation of callers and secretaries.
{FN44-6} Harmlessness; nonviolence; the foundation rock of Gandhi’s
creed. He was born into a family of strict Jains, who revere AHIMSA
as the root-virtue. Jainism, a sect of Hinduism, was founded in the
6th century B.C. by Mahavira, a contemporary of Buddha. Mahavira
means “great hero”; may he look down the centuries on his heroic
son Gandhi!
{FN44-7} Hindi is the lingua franca for the whole of India. An
Indo-Aryan language based largely on Sanskrit roots, Hindi is the
chief vernacular of northern India. The main dialect of Western
Hindi is Hindustani, written both in the DEVANAGARI (Sanskrit)
characters and in Arabic characters. Its subdialect, Urdu, is spoken
by Moslems.
{FN44-8} Gandhi has described his life with a devastating candor
in THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH (Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Press, 1927-29, 2 vol.) This autobiography has been summarized in
MAHATMA GANDHI, HIS OWN STORY, edited by C. F. Andrews, with an
introduction by John Haynes Holmes (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930).
Many autobiographies replete with famous names and colorful
events are almost completely silent on any phase of inner analysis
or development. One lays down each of these books with a certain
dissatisfaction, as though saying: “Here is a man who knew many
notable persons, but who never knew himself.” This reaction is
impossible with Gandhi’s autobiography; he exposes his faults and
subterfuges with an impersonal devotion to truth rare in annals of
any age.
{FN44-9} Kasturabai Gandhi died in imprisonment at Poona on February
22, 1944. The usually unemotional Gandhi wept silently. Shortly
after her admirers had suggested a Memorial Fund in her honor, 125
lacs of rupees (nearly four million dollars) poured in from all
over India. Gandhi has arranged that the fund be used for village