TODAY IS THE BIRTHDAY OF MAHATMA GANDHI, THE APOSTLE OF PEACE INDIA GAVE TO OUR TROUBLED WORLD
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WE SHALL REPORT ON THE LIFE AND RAPTURES OF OUR REVERED APOSTLE. IN CELEBRATING HIS GIFT TO OUR WORLD, I SHALL QUOTE FROM A RECENT REPORT BY MY FRIEND, ANIL RAJVANSHI OF NARI-INDIA. ANIL WROTE AN INTERESTING PIECE ON “GANDHI’S RELEVANCE TODAY”, WHICH WE SHALL REPRODUCE HERE IN SOME DETAIL ::::
Introduction :::::: Gandhiji not only gave India its freedom but also gave the world and us a new thought on nonviolence and sustainable living. His teachings and experiments are more valid today than ever before, especially when we are trying to find solutions to worldwide greed, corruption, violence and runaway consumptive lifestyle which are putting a very heavy burden on the world’s resources.
Through ages India has time and again given to the world a new thought. Thus Buddhism, Jainism, Yogic system, Sikhism are part of the great spiritual thought given by India from time to time. Gandhiji’s message of nonviolence and sustainable living is a continuation of that long tradition.
To my mind Gandhiji’s greatest contribution to sustainable development was two fold. Firstly his experiments in simple living and high thinking. He believed that with simple living the resources of the planet earth can sustain us comfortably and his famous saying that earth provides us enough for our needs but not for our greed is extremely apt today. Secondly his insistence on all inclusive growth
of the society and hence his focus on rural development.
I will try to show in this essay how both these issues are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago when Gandhiji enumerated them.
Gandhi’s spirituality ::::: Gandhiji was a highly evolved and spiritual human being. To him spirituality came first. Other things like politics, public life etc. were by-products of his spirituality. Also as a person progresses on the path of spirituality, his or her priorities in life change. The focus of life shifts more towards getting personal happiness through mental peace or by helping others and less on material needs, greed and desires. Gandhiji’s experiments on simple and sustainable living followed his own spiritual progress.
He also realized from an early age the importance of a great body and mind. In this he was following the tenets of ancient Yogic system which stresses on a healthy body and a powerful mind. Thus all his experiments on food, brahmacharya (celibacy) and fasting came from this belief. Besides he also realized that to fight a powerful enemy like Britain, he had to make his body-temple extremely powerful so that it could sustain long fights. This meant that it had to need least amount of comforts and external inputs and thus Gandhiji showed that with simple living he could produce the highest quality of thought. To my mind this was an ultimate example of sustainable living.
The spirit of Bhagwad Gita’s Karma Yoga guided him in his endeavors and he considered it as his duty to help his countrymen and fellow beings. There are many instances of people who saw his glowing skin, aura, and felt the presence of his personality whenever they met him. That is only possible for a Yogi of very high order.
My father who was involved in the freedom struggle and went to jail with Gandhiji told me of a remarkable instance. In early 1940’s just before the quit India movement, a mammoth public meeting took place in Allahabad. Between half to a million people were present. Gandhiji was late for the meeting. All the great leaders of independence movement were giving their speeches and trying to
calm the crowd, which was quite restless. Then suddenly Gandhiji came, climbed on the dais and put a finger on his lips. A wave of silence swept the grounds starting from dais. My father termed it as a remarkable experience of the power of a small frail man over the masses.
Possessed with a great body and a powerful mind he also became fearless and it is this quality of fearlessness which made him blaze new trails and produce novel political strategies like nonviolence, Satyagraha, etc. Time and again he showed his fearlessness by dealing with British on equal terms. In 1920s and 30s during the height of colonial rule such a behavior of a subject in front of his colonial
masters was unique and provided a quantum jump in raising the consciousness of Indians.
Besides this quality of fearlessness also rooted him deeply in the path of Karma Yoga and hence he believed only in work and power of will and never in any astrologers, palmist etc.
When the brain becomes very powerful it also becomes sensitive to the surroundings. This is the genesis of nonviolence as this makes all life sacred.
Gandhiji as the pujari (priest) of nonviolence used it for everything including industrialization. He rightly thought the industrialization of 1920s to be a violent system with heavy machinery, very inefficient energy and materials conversion technologies and no concern for the environment. Intuitively he revolted against those systems and felt that simple life (with few needs) and most of the daily things to be produced from locally available materials was nonviolent and in tune with the nature.
Gandhi was not anti-technology or science. He was a prisoner of his times. He always said that he was a pujari (priest) of “body-temple” and since it was the most complex machinery in the world so how could he be anti-machinery! He believed in rural-based and economically viable local production and consumption systems. Hence he was against things made in Bombay and shipped to rural areas.
Similarly he said that he objected to electricity being produced in Bombay and transmitted to Wardha (where his ashram was). He wanted it produced in Wardha from local resources – again showing his vision since decentralized power production is gaining currency.
Not being a student of science or engineering he could not express his feelings in a scientific way but always talked about his dream village which he felt will be self-sufficient with its inhabitants living in harmony with nature. Modern technology which is following bio-mimicry allows for the first time to have softer and efficient systems to achieve our purposes and for the Gandhian dream becoming a
reality.
I am sure if he were alive today he would have felt that his dream village could have taken shape with the availability of internet connectivity, desktop manufacturing (also called 3-D printing), and small renewable energy power packs. His dream of giving employment and decent life to rural population may become possible with the availability of these energy-efficient and high-tech systems.
As a spiritual being and a visionary, Gandhiji was far ahead of his times. For example he was energy conservator par excellence. He lived in his ashrams without electricity or any modern amenities. His insistence on use of self/human labor for majority of needs was legendary and was usually frowned upon by his closest colleagues who thought it was anti-progress and pushing back India to stone ages. Nevertheless with the development of sophisticated man-machine interface technologies like free play radios, human powered electricity producing units for laptops, cell phones etc, the use of self/human labor maybe able to solve the twin problems of obesity and energy!
Sometimes Gandhiji carried his energy conservation experiments too far. His experiments on conserving his sexual energy proved quite controversial. He was obviously following the age-old tradition of abstinence that yogis practice. Thus when, at the age of 70, he had a wet dream he felt that his world had collapsed. He wrote about it and said that he felt ashamed of himself. Recent scientific
evidence however has shown that our brains are full of sexual chemicals, which help in memory improvement and general well being. It is therefore possible that the practice of abstinence was done intuitively by yogis to conserve these chemicals to enhance their brain quality, which would help them in practice of yoga. More than the loss of chemicals, Gandhiji felt a lack of Sanyam and a loss of control over his purity of thought and hence his anguish. ………………..
TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, YOU MAY GO TO THE FOLLOWING LINK ::: http://www.nariphaltan.org/gandhitoday.pdf & FOR THE TIMES OF INDIA VERSION OF THE SAME STORY, CLICK ON :: http://timesofindia.speakingtree.in/spiritual-articles/lifestyle/bapu-was-ahead-of-his-time