Chapter I; Part II
Gandhi’s Years in England
Gandhi arrived in England in 1988 at age nineteen to study law. Leaving India was determined by his caste to be grounds for excommunication. His family allowed him to go only after his mother had secured an oath from him to refrain from wine, women, and meat. He kept the vow but, in his first months in england, went every hungry. His search for a decent vegetarian meal led him into the company of Vegetarian Society, where he met an interesting array of mavericks who launched him, through their beliefs and the readings they gave him, on a spiritual quest. Reading Henry Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism, for example, gave him a fresh understanding of and appreciation for his country’s tradition of vegetarianism.
During his second year in England he met two Theosophists, bachelor brothers, who were reading Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation of Bhagavad Gita, and they invited him to read it with them. Certain verses in the second chapter struck him strongly:
If one ponders on objects of the sense, there springs
Atrraction; from attraction grows desire,
Desire flams 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. (2:62—63)
Gandhi wrote:
The book struck me as one of priceless worth, the impression has ever since been growing on me with the result that I regard it today as the book par excellence for the knowledge of Truth.
Another book by Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia, and a personal meeting with Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Besant of the Theosophists, who highly valued the Gita and the learning of the East, prompted in him an interest to read books on Hinduism. At the same time, a vegetarian friend urged him to read the Bible. He plowed through the books of the Old Testament even though the chapters after Genesis put him to sleep. When read the New Terstament, however, it was a totally different story:
The New Testament produced a different impression, especially the Sermon on the Mount which went straight to my heart. I compared it with the Gita. The verses, “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whoseever shall smite thee away thy coat let him have thy cloak too,” delighted me beyond measure and put me in mind of Shamal Bhatt’s “For a bowl of water give a goodly meal,” etc. My young mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, The Light of Asia and the Sermon on the Mount. That renunciation was the highest form of religion appealed to me greatly.
At this point in his life Gandhi had to postpone reading any more religious books to study deligently for his examinations, but he told himself that he would come back to the study of all the major religions as soon as he could. That time would not come until he found himself in South Africa.
The South African Years
Gandhi passed his examinations returned to India in 1891 after two and a half eventual years. He could not find steady, lucrative employement, however, so when he recieved an invitation in 1893 from a Muslim trader in Natal, South Africa, who was in need of the services of an Indian lawyer trained in england, he jumped at the opportunity.
In South Africa he made friends with many Christians, especially evangelicals and Quakers. They invited him ti services, entertained him in their homes, bombarded him with books, and engaged him in argumentation. He found the life and message of Jesus very attractive but he resisted person could be saved all in one go by calling on someone else for salvation. As a Hindu, Gandhi believed that individuals need to struggle to find their own unique way, doing good and dying well, to liberate themselves from the karma of past lives and to eventually enter into oneness with the divine. Given his sense that all human beings are called to be one with divinity, Gandhi did not understand how Jesus could be the only son of God. Neither could he recognize the Sermon on the Mount in the history and practice of the Christian Church. He did not feel conversant enough with his own Hindu traditions to be able to engage his friends comfortably in disputations. Therefore, in 1891 in Bombay right after returning from England.
That friend was a poet-jeweler named Raychand, a Jain, only slightly older than Gandhi. A superb businessman, Raychand, upon closing business for the day, would always turn to his spiritual diary and his religious books. He was intensely focused on seeing God face to face. Gandhi wrote of him:
During the two years I remained in close with him I felt in him every moment the spirit of vairagya (renunciation)... There was a strange power in his eyes; they were extremely bright and free from any sign of impatience or anxiety... These qualities can exist only in a man of self-control.
Gandhi asked Raychand a variety of questions ranging from the nature of the soul and God to the meaning of salvation and the nature of the scriptures. In all there are twenty-seven questions, twenty questions about Hinduism and the rest about Christianity. Raychand’s answer to the first question concerning the nature of the spirit is three times as long as any other. It begins:
Q....
In addition to this long letter, Raychand sent Gandhi three ancient Hindu texts that belonged to the Hindu system of Advaita Vendata, a system codified in the ninth century by the famous philosopher Shankara but originating in the ancient Upanishads of the pre-Christian era.
The works that Raycahand sent fully engaged Gandhi’s attention. He paid special attention to the practical issues concerning how one can achieve moksha (liberation) in this life, the moral and intellectual training required for climbing the seven stages of yogic exercises leading to the goal. Page after page of the Hindu texts emphasize personal exertion and reason-much different from the Vaishnava tradition that places the cause of liberation in the initiative of a loving God and his avatar Krishna. In the Hindu system of Advaita Vedanta, nonattachment and asceticism are the keys to moksha.
Gandhi found the letter and the readings very helpful. His belief in Hinduism recieved a solid intellectual foundation, and he began to make Hinduism his own on a more reflective level. What he found particularly important in Raychand’s teaching was his stress on action.
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