Gandhi at Mangalprabhat PP 18-20, talks about hoarding – he calls it the other way “Aparigruh” – it is an act of not hoarding something.
Hoarding here is stocking something that you do not need for the time being. It is like gathering unnecessary things. According to Gandhi – “if you stock things that are unnecessary – it is just a theft. God does not stock things. God creates all that He needs and as He needs everyday. If we trust God then He furnishes us with necessities of our daily life. Perhaps saints or incarnations experience this. The natural law of creating things that you need at a time you need is unknown to man and if known he does not wish to follow it. Due to this habit of hoarding things, we invite unhappiness and pain. Rich hoard things that get spoilt and lost without being used and many who need simply suffer without some basic necessity. If people take things that they need and do not run after things that they do not basically need, there will be no pain. Today both rich and poor are suffering. Millionaires want to be billionaires and billionaires are in higher competition. The poor who get enough to eat are not happy because they want more of other amenities. No one should be without food and it is a duty of people to make sure that no one sleeps hungry. The rich should come forward. The rich should give up enough so that poor get enough for their basic needs and later both have to learn about complacence.”
Gandhi further says – “In context of soul – the body is redundant – thoughts in this context can lead us to sacrifice of supreme nature. The body should be used for service and to such an extent that service becomes true food for the body. The body should wake up, sleep, eat, sit and do every act for the sake of service. Happiness out of such a state is true happiness”.
Gandhi in a Gujarati book called “Gandhi Ni Vichar Shrushti” at p.52 says “Nature produces sufficient for all of us and if each of us just take what we need and no more, there will be no poverty in this world. There will be no starvation. The existence of inequalities implies existence of theft. I am not a socialist. I am not asking the rich to donate away their properties. But I can say those who want to move to light from darkness should stop theft. I do not ask you to leave your possessions. If I do so, I am leaving the path of “Ahimsa – Non violence”. If somebody has more than I do, be it so. But to reorder my life, I can say I do not keep things I do not need. Do you know that in India there are thirty million people who eat only once every day? They eat flat bread of millet and a pinch of salt. Until these three million people have sufficient clothes and food we have no right to hoard things. We should try to make changes in our basic necessity. If necessary, we may voluntarily starve so that we can maintain those people, so that we can give food and clothes to them”.
MY INTERPRETATION ON GANDHI THOUGHTS:
I think Gandhi’s thoughts are mind boggling. Sometimes they are too difficult to digest but they are great in intuition, great in ideas, great in life and great to experience. They are intoxicating in spiritual aspects – once you get used to it – you would never want to leave it.
Look at the big houses some of us live in; those splendid cars and the air travels are hard to leave, staying in hotels and eating good food is a joy of life. Partying late night and boozing makes our lives complete. Now by contrast – the teachings of Gandhi sound redundant. They seem obsolete. What about our aims, our ambitions of high pay, high perks and for those yet to get married boys – beautiful women and cushy life. For those girls in their teens: what about those entertainments of life that they dream or enjoy every day?
You know what – says our mind – Gandhi lived in a different age and what he talks is just not applicable. Many of us live in surroundings where poverty is intriguing term. We do not know about hardships and even if such hardships do exists – why should we care? These are some of basic questions that rise to our mind and for many they have not time to think about all these – care a hang!
Okay – what gets picturised in our mind is a sort of soundless black and white film of eary 20th century in contrast to those high resolution movies we see now. Obviously – the former is lackluster.
To my understanding, people like Gandhi are incarnations. You can read Bible or Bhagwat Gita or any such holy book and all that sounds unappealing when you have fullness and happiness of life. These appear to some extent boring. Disease in eyes cause no change in the surroundings that eye looks at – same way distortions in our thoughts do not change basic eternal facts of life that become valuable during times of crisis all of us at some point of life have to pass – be such crisis of nature that are different. Crises does not only mean financial crisis but could extent to mental, emotional and spiritual crisis.
If thoughts of Gandhi must be enjoyed, they have to be interpreted correctly.
It is true that Gandhi lived in a time when there were high problems of food and people were starving. But as human race, we do not have much to brag because starvation is still a basic problem in many nations and many places in nations that seem developing or the third world countries.
We may write off starvation for the moment in personal lives because that problem does not immediately or in near future affect us. In such a situation obvious question that may come to our heart is how is Gandhi and all his thoughts on “Hoarding” or not-to-hoard philosophy useful to us?
There is saying “Wise man points at the star and fool looks at the finger”. Misinterpreting or interpreting sayings or teachings of wise men like Gandhi (people like me may like to call him incarnation) or other men like Christ – Buddha – Krishna – Ram or call by any name you like are similar & contain secrets of happiness, bliss and spirituality. But we must learn to interpret them.
Now take the teachings of Gandhi on hoarding. Can we extent the concept of hoarding to non-physical parlance. Hoarding thoughts that are not necessary –hoarding ideas that are unnecessary – hoarding plans that are useless?
Say for example somebody tells you things that are unkind – you hoard those words in your life and those words simply resonate in your mind hundreds of times. The words were not big. The unkindness was not too severe to kill you. But you allowed the words to resonate. You hoarded them. Instead of dumping anything bad you or I simply stock them perfectly preserved for years and years. Even after years of our lives we are sometimes full of complaints. Why?
We feel our lives are a misery because we do not wish to see lives of more miserable people. What is misery? Is it a state of things around you or a state of your own mind. You are a scientist and placed on a high position earning lot of money to support your family or you are a lawyer or a public accountant or an engineer or whatever. Your profession and vocation is giving you enough. You have enough to buy a house, buy a car, buy a school seat for your child or a college admission or enough of ornaments. Now you see your neighbor driving a better car than you do and you see another colleague in your college whose child is faring better then yours and you see a woman more sensual then your wife. There comes misery. These are derived misery. Those misery that did not exist but you created them out of your extraordinary capacity to nurture dissatisfaction. “You” here does not just mean “you” but I include myself in this “you”.
So what happens – we start comparisons and we call these comparisons healthy because we feel our excellence is promoted by such social or financial comparisons. What a logic? Gosh. You know you can call such ideas “bad ideas” because they are unnatural. God does not create excellence because He has to compare. He creates excellence because that is His nature. But we are hoarding. We want to show off. We want to impress people. We want two houses if our competitor has one and three if our neighbor has two. Our necessities keep expanding upon the necessities of our neighbors and theirs expand seeing ours.
We start expansion and hoarding in our expectations out of other people. We hoard expectations. We create expectations that are unnatural. We encroach upon liberty of others and we call them our “rights”. We carry expectations and when they break we blame. We find people whom we can accuse of breaking the expectations. Then there is a lunatic whom you or I can see. There are others of us who look okay but are not okay basically. May be we can bracket ourselves in those “others” – we are normal at times and not-normal at other times. But the problem is very fundamental. These are some pigeon holes. They exist eternally with our evolution until we will find ways to subside and destroy them permanently and merge with unity. But that is all about spiritual journey. We are too far and so we do not want to discuss all that right now. Let us get back to our world. This world where we live in. The world which Gandhi talks about amongst other things.
So we talk about hoarding right now. What is this? Is it just physical and if applied we may extend this concept to meta-physical states that we just discussed. But where to start? We are like a novice finding way in an unknown town. We have to ask – keep asking until we reach our destination of choice. Gandhi from a plain interpretation talks about hoarding physical things like wealth, food and consumables. So he is asking us to give up our habit of hoarding these physical things. He is asking us to use as much as we need and leave rest for others who may need it.
The physical aspect that Gandhi talks about must not be mistaken to be constricted only to physical realm of things. But that point could be first point to start. It could be a point where we can begin the journey. Since the mental and spiritual levels of human life are on different stage we can say that physical state is most palpable. It is something we can feel and experience more immediately. Therefore first the lust has to be ridden over. There is a human life and an animal life. The difference is in existence.
The human life is existing in mental and the spiritual state and perhaps has potential to coexist together (whether or not it may really coexist). Therefore when we talk of human life it could mean three parallel stages coexisting. But since we are so clouded by lust, greed, fear, envy and so many of disorders that we have created or contracted ourselves, we must first start with the physical stage – that stage being most natural to us. It is this stage where we learn to train the mind. It is like the “Upvas” – sort of fasts that some religions like Hindu or Muslim or Jain preach. The importance is not on fasting but it is a control. It is a method by which we learn to balance. The physical aspect is therefore important particularly for the beginners. So it is a habit of restraint that we must cultivate. Restraint may not be misinterpreted as denial of self pleasures, denial of sex, denial of good food. But there is a balance. The moment we catch that term “balance” we understand that there is no denial. Denial itself may hide deep desire and a fear of desire overcoming self. Therefore we can say we are not talking about denial when we talk about balance. Balance is not falling either way. It is not a strict denial and not a complete seduction. So once we learn to balance, we can have a pudding and there is nothing wrong with that. But there is no lust for pudding. We may want to drive in a great car, but that car does not become a source of happiness. It could only be a minor instrument of use.
The concept of teaching children to share is important. It encompasses the concept of not hoarding. But teaching children is easy and perhaps gratifying. But teaching self is difficult. We are always in a state of battle with self that we lose. This is because we often deny our weaknesses. Why should we admit where we were going wrong? Can I go wrong? Never. Yes – that is perhaps a starting point – me and not you. So here we can just learn to control our desires, our lust, our greed and our expectations. Once we do that in physical terms, and once we are more acquainted with the physical part – we then delve up to mental standard. Then there will be little reason to complain. We will start attaching less importance to gifts and more importance to people. Then the financial value of things will not be so important.
So what do we want to say – do we say money is not important – certainly no. Gandhi was a great lawyer and a great manager managing various institutions. But he did that with a feeling of detachment. The moment you are I are detached in real sense, we are away from all emotional stress that is attached with failure or success of things.
The concept of hoarding and the philosophy of not-to-hoard therefore to my mind is very appealing.
Showing posts with label Gandhi and Sarvodaya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gandhi and Sarvodaya. Show all posts
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Courage and Theft - 1
Gandhi in “Mangal Prabhat” p 21 & pp 15-7 talks about two words. They are “Abhay” and “Astay”.
Abhay means fearlessness. Astay means “no theft”.
Gandhi says that these two words are interconnected. There isn’t any asset greater then being fearless. Without being fearless – you cannot practice non-violence. God’s way is a way of courage and fearless – cowards cannot follow it. Truth is God and you can call it Ram, Narayan, Vasudev – whatever. Cowards fear things and people – braves are fearless.
My Interpretation on Gandhi Thoughts and their application in every day life:
Gandhi is very clear in his thoughts. There could be two reasons backing non-violence. Being fearless is a good reason for being non-violent. You don’t hurt, because you do not want to hurt. Your value system refuses you to hurt.
There is yet another reason why people practice fake non-violence. That reason is fear and weakness. According to Gandhi – non-violence cannot coexist with fear. In that sense, we may say that such a non-violence is fake.
Imagine a situation where in a wood you stand ten feet from a lion unarmed and you harp of non-violence. You know you will be over-powered by lion and it’s going to tear you to pieces. In this situation, non-violence is a camouflage of inability to act. Not reacting due to incapacity is an act of cowardice and has nothing to do with non-violence.
Gandhi does not talk about this sort of non-violence. His concept of non-violence is very powerful. It is being non-violent amidst strength. It is an act of bravery. To reinforce his concept of non-violence, Gandhi talks about bravery. He says that braves can follow God. Cowards have nothing to do with religion.
Corollary to interrelation of non-violence with bravery is relationship of cowardice with violence. This way terrorist who kill innocent (irrespective of their faith – Hindu or Muslim or Christians or whatever) are cowards. They fear their existence. They have no faith on God and have nothing to do with religion.
We as humans tend to rationalize our mistakes. It is not that we tell lie to others. It is that we lie to ourselves.
I have often learned one thing in life. The moment you write what is truth on a piece of paper – many doubts are resolved. But you have to muster huge courage to right that truth. Perhaps hear that little whisper from within – perhaps clear a little fog in your mind to open a door of that inner spirit.
For instance, you don’t like somebody. May be he flaunts too much in self-appreciation and you simply cannot take it. You like a way of sobriety and person right in front of you is harping about things that are totally untrue and may be you know or think them to be untrue. You feel angered from within. You get a feeling of despise for that person.
This sort of feeling is in backdrop of a possible framework that you are sober and the other person extravagant. You don’t like extravagance. May be you feel that other one is trying to belittle you. You disapprove this behavior. You get a tinge of bitterness somewhere deep within.
Although, this situation looks distant from fearlessness or from non-violence, it is very proximal.
Now just look at the whole situation from this angle: A small child of 10 years harps how brave he is to an Army Commander. The Commander knows that the child is lying. Do you think the Commander will feel bitter and agitated towards that child? No. What does he do? The Commander simply ignores that child or maybe laughs with all affection for that child – the commander plays with that child.
You know why? That is because the commander knows he is a commander and the child is a child. The commander comfortably ignores the child because he is sitting on a pedestal of his efforts and hard-work and experience. The child does not bother him! May be the commander’s heart is full of love for that little tot. Here – although, it appears that the principles of non-violence do not play any role – they do play a role because the commander is brave – he does not care for the child and his braveness gives birth to non-violence – although he can overpower the child by his talks or by his hand, he simply tolerates the child – plays with the child and may be in the process of that playing the commander teaches the child some lesson of humbleness.
If the commander fears the child or feels that the child is belittling him, a feeling of competition comes from within of that commander and the commander may simply react to the child with a child-like way.
Now come back to your situation – you and some other person sitting in front of you harping of his achievements. If you get into competition with that person, a feeling comes that he is trying to belittle you. That feeling is a manifestation of inner fear. Just like a commander is fearless about that child, if you are fearless and sitting on pedestal of your work, experience and efforts, you simply get a capacity to ignore such talks. Remember, you cannot ignore things by simply overlooking them outwardly, but the moment you stop feeling uncomfortable with things, they stand ignored!
Now your height is like a commander. You are fearless. You have courage. That moment, you will have no complaints for other person. You don’t feel he is belittling you. You don’t feel that he is trying to grow taller then he is. You don’t feel like cutting him to size. You feel just nothing! How great? You are inert. You are near God. You are focused. You know what you have to do and you just do that and nothing more, nothing less.
I think fearless is a basic trait. Obviously, we will turn divine, if we get into such a state permanently. It is not possible in real sense. But we can try. Can’t we? We can understand Gandhi’s words and try to follow it. It is not bad to get slipped. You commit no sin if you slip or slid in life. That is how we learn. Just like a child learns to crawl and get up, we learn the way of emotional maturity and someday we will fully understand Gandhi and someday we will be nearer to God who loves us so much!
Abhay means fearlessness. Astay means “no theft”.
Gandhi says that these two words are interconnected. There isn’t any asset greater then being fearless. Without being fearless – you cannot practice non-violence. God’s way is a way of courage and fearless – cowards cannot follow it. Truth is God and you can call it Ram, Narayan, Vasudev – whatever. Cowards fear things and people – braves are fearless.
My Interpretation on Gandhi Thoughts and their application in every day life:
Gandhi is very clear in his thoughts. There could be two reasons backing non-violence. Being fearless is a good reason for being non-violent. You don’t hurt, because you do not want to hurt. Your value system refuses you to hurt.
There is yet another reason why people practice fake non-violence. That reason is fear and weakness. According to Gandhi – non-violence cannot coexist with fear. In that sense, we may say that such a non-violence is fake.
Imagine a situation where in a wood you stand ten feet from a lion unarmed and you harp of non-violence. You know you will be over-powered by lion and it’s going to tear you to pieces. In this situation, non-violence is a camouflage of inability to act. Not reacting due to incapacity is an act of cowardice and has nothing to do with non-violence.
Gandhi does not talk about this sort of non-violence. His concept of non-violence is very powerful. It is being non-violent amidst strength. It is an act of bravery. To reinforce his concept of non-violence, Gandhi talks about bravery. He says that braves can follow God. Cowards have nothing to do with religion.
Corollary to interrelation of non-violence with bravery is relationship of cowardice with violence. This way terrorist who kill innocent (irrespective of their faith – Hindu or Muslim or Christians or whatever) are cowards. They fear their existence. They have no faith on God and have nothing to do with religion.
We as humans tend to rationalize our mistakes. It is not that we tell lie to others. It is that we lie to ourselves.
I have often learned one thing in life. The moment you write what is truth on a piece of paper – many doubts are resolved. But you have to muster huge courage to right that truth. Perhaps hear that little whisper from within – perhaps clear a little fog in your mind to open a door of that inner spirit.
For instance, you don’t like somebody. May be he flaunts too much in self-appreciation and you simply cannot take it. You like a way of sobriety and person right in front of you is harping about things that are totally untrue and may be you know or think them to be untrue. You feel angered from within. You get a feeling of despise for that person.
This sort of feeling is in backdrop of a possible framework that you are sober and the other person extravagant. You don’t like extravagance. May be you feel that other one is trying to belittle you. You disapprove this behavior. You get a tinge of bitterness somewhere deep within.
Although, this situation looks distant from fearlessness or from non-violence, it is very proximal.
Now just look at the whole situation from this angle: A small child of 10 years harps how brave he is to an Army Commander. The Commander knows that the child is lying. Do you think the Commander will feel bitter and agitated towards that child? No. What does he do? The Commander simply ignores that child or maybe laughs with all affection for that child – the commander plays with that child.
You know why? That is because the commander knows he is a commander and the child is a child. The commander comfortably ignores the child because he is sitting on a pedestal of his efforts and hard-work and experience. The child does not bother him! May be the commander’s heart is full of love for that little tot. Here – although, it appears that the principles of non-violence do not play any role – they do play a role because the commander is brave – he does not care for the child and his braveness gives birth to non-violence – although he can overpower the child by his talks or by his hand, he simply tolerates the child – plays with the child and may be in the process of that playing the commander teaches the child some lesson of humbleness.
If the commander fears the child or feels that the child is belittling him, a feeling of competition comes from within of that commander and the commander may simply react to the child with a child-like way.
Now come back to your situation – you and some other person sitting in front of you harping of his achievements. If you get into competition with that person, a feeling comes that he is trying to belittle you. That feeling is a manifestation of inner fear. Just like a commander is fearless about that child, if you are fearless and sitting on pedestal of your work, experience and efforts, you simply get a capacity to ignore such talks. Remember, you cannot ignore things by simply overlooking them outwardly, but the moment you stop feeling uncomfortable with things, they stand ignored!
Now your height is like a commander. You are fearless. You have courage. That moment, you will have no complaints for other person. You don’t feel he is belittling you. You don’t feel that he is trying to grow taller then he is. You don’t feel like cutting him to size. You feel just nothing! How great? You are inert. You are near God. You are focused. You know what you have to do and you just do that and nothing more, nothing less.
I think fearless is a basic trait. Obviously, we will turn divine, if we get into such a state permanently. It is not possible in real sense. But we can try. Can’t we? We can understand Gandhi’s words and try to follow it. It is not bad to get slipped. You commit no sin if you slip or slid in life. That is how we learn. Just like a child learns to crawl and get up, we learn the way of emotional maturity and someday we will fully understand Gandhi and someday we will be nearer to God who loves us so much!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Flawed "Bhramcharya" - Simply abstaining from Sex!
Gandhi and Bhramcharya
Bhramcharya in context of Gandhi and my interpretation:
“Bhramcharya” is a word that can be found both in Hindi and Gujarati. It has same meaning in both languages. Literally it means “Bhram” – God and “Charya” means Proximity.
To sum up: “Bhramcharya” means being in proximity to God.
Often in India and elsewhere people connect Bhramcharya as abstaining from sex. This is a popular yet wrong meaning attached to this word.
If evaluated, in terms of physical senses and perceptions, this word only means keeping your senses under control.
Gandhi has written about Bhramcharya in Harijan Bandhu on 21/06/1936 and again about this topic in Mangal Prabhat, Page #11.
Bhramcharya essentially is a process of control – but a control over sense. It is a control over self. Gandhi calls it as control over all sense including craving for food. He says craving for food and taste buds must be controlled. If we can control our lust for food, we can also control our desire over sex and desire to eat has great proximity with Bhramcharya.
So far as Gandhi’s opinion on marriage is concerned, I don’t know, if I am mistaken but referring to Mangal Prabhat Page #7-8, he says husband and wife should live like brother and sister. In fact, he is asking not to indulge in sexual activities.
For control to be absolute, Gandhi feels that people inclined towards Bhramcharya should not marry.
MY INTERPRETATION:
As usual before embarking on my interpretation, I feel when I sit to measure what Gandhi said, it is probably like a little ant trying to measure elephant. Therefore, my interpretation may be flawed or totally conceived incorrectly.
Nevertheless, I feel I must express my feelings. When Gandhi says something, probably it does not matter if it is 1910 or 2010. He is trying to point at universal laws. They hold true for centuries.
His idea of Bhramcharya is appealing. It is controlling sense – those senses of eyes, nose, touch, speech and ears. Within these senses is comprised a need for sex and perhaps derived habit of taste.
We all tend to control others. In fact: our thought process from dawn to dusk centers around controlling others. Parents try to control children. Boss tries to control his employee. Name a relation and you will find a mechanism of control operating right there. We feel we have things and people under control and we feel desperate when we lose control.
But, under natural law, we must realize that smallest constituent of any matter is atom. Same way, first point of control should be self and not others.
As humans, animal instincts have not died in us. We feel and enjoy a savage satisfaction in controlling others, firing others, and this gives a feeling of superiority. These feelings are external. In reality, if there is a hollow, we would not even control ourselves. Then the external controls are illusory and transient. That is why people with great success and talent commit suicide. There is an inner hollowness.
If we cannot control our senses, we cannot control our emotions. We jump to subjectivity and call ourselves objective.
We start looking at things by taking our ideas and expectations into first place. Basically, we are moving out rather then inner correction.
Here is where most Gandhians (followers of Gandhi) reside, in a zone of external control. They wear Khadi – they keep photo of Gandhi and make a hue of falling ethics and declining values. We also like them tend to complain about things or people when they exist or behave contrary to our expectations.
We are unable to control our expectations. Here is a point where bhramcharya plays a role. It controls the senses as well as expectations that arise from senses. Here is a place where Gita teaches principals of “Karma”.
The moment we stop our efforts of controlling results, but push efforts for controlling our self and our actions, we practice “Bhramcharya” – the inner control – control of self.
Gandhi, as pointed hitherto links to Bhramcharya a concept of marriage. I feel probably Gandhi was not in his 20s or 30s when he first asked people not to marry. May be his testosterone levels had settled by the time he had four kids. So he was comfortable when he said “Don’t Marry”.
From my personal experience, I feel marriage does not hurt Bhramcharya. Even having sex does not hurt Bhramcharya.
You may argue that having and practicing Bhramcharya is like having food and saying I am fasting. They are two opposites that cannot coexist.
But to my belief, that argument is incomplete and therefore untrue. Such an argument emanates from misconception about Bhramcharya.
To clarify, Bhramcharya does not mean eliminating the senses, it means controlling the sense. It does not and cannot mean eliminating or destroying senses and self. This cannot be right interpretation.
Controlling taste is like eating cucumber when you have an option to eat cake. Nevertheless, it does not mean starving yourself to death – Gandhi would never mean anything like that and ascribing Gandhi like that to my understanding would be incorrect.
Same way, controlling sex, does not mean stopping it completely. I mean if that was intention of God, he would not have taken a deep trouble of creating male and female sex organs and sex hormones. In that case, we would be born as asexual organisms. But God gave the organs to use just as he gave mouth to eat.
Excessive eating leads to obesity and therefore loss of health – same is with sex. It leads to loss of health and loss of focus. Eating moderate food having right combination of nutrients and fibers leads to good health. Same way using your sex energies may lead to their transmutation. Sex with spouse is not bad and does not a bad idea and does not hurt bhrancharya – but going to brothel must be shunned.
Bhramcharya in context of Gandhi and my interpretation:
“Bhramcharya” is a word that can be found both in Hindi and Gujarati. It has same meaning in both languages. Literally it means “Bhram” – God and “Charya” means Proximity.
To sum up: “Bhramcharya” means being in proximity to God.
Often in India and elsewhere people connect Bhramcharya as abstaining from sex. This is a popular yet wrong meaning attached to this word.
If evaluated, in terms of physical senses and perceptions, this word only means keeping your senses under control.
Gandhi has written about Bhramcharya in Harijan Bandhu on 21/06/1936 and again about this topic in Mangal Prabhat, Page #11.
Bhramcharya essentially is a process of control – but a control over sense. It is a control over self. Gandhi calls it as control over all sense including craving for food. He says craving for food and taste buds must be controlled. If we can control our lust for food, we can also control our desire over sex and desire to eat has great proximity with Bhramcharya.
So far as Gandhi’s opinion on marriage is concerned, I don’t know, if I am mistaken but referring to Mangal Prabhat Page #7-8, he says husband and wife should live like brother and sister. In fact, he is asking not to indulge in sexual activities.
For control to be absolute, Gandhi feels that people inclined towards Bhramcharya should not marry.
MY INTERPRETATION:
As usual before embarking on my interpretation, I feel when I sit to measure what Gandhi said, it is probably like a little ant trying to measure elephant. Therefore, my interpretation may be flawed or totally conceived incorrectly.
Nevertheless, I feel I must express my feelings. When Gandhi says something, probably it does not matter if it is 1910 or 2010. He is trying to point at universal laws. They hold true for centuries.
His idea of Bhramcharya is appealing. It is controlling sense – those senses of eyes, nose, touch, speech and ears. Within these senses is comprised a need for sex and perhaps derived habit of taste.
We all tend to control others. In fact: our thought process from dawn to dusk centers around controlling others. Parents try to control children. Boss tries to control his employee. Name a relation and you will find a mechanism of control operating right there. We feel we have things and people under control and we feel desperate when we lose control.
But, under natural law, we must realize that smallest constituent of any matter is atom. Same way, first point of control should be self and not others.
As humans, animal instincts have not died in us. We feel and enjoy a savage satisfaction in controlling others, firing others, and this gives a feeling of superiority. These feelings are external. In reality, if there is a hollow, we would not even control ourselves. Then the external controls are illusory and transient. That is why people with great success and talent commit suicide. There is an inner hollowness.
If we cannot control our senses, we cannot control our emotions. We jump to subjectivity and call ourselves objective.
We start looking at things by taking our ideas and expectations into first place. Basically, we are moving out rather then inner correction.
Here is where most Gandhians (followers of Gandhi) reside, in a zone of external control. They wear Khadi – they keep photo of Gandhi and make a hue of falling ethics and declining values. We also like them tend to complain about things or people when they exist or behave contrary to our expectations.
We are unable to control our expectations. Here is a point where bhramcharya plays a role. It controls the senses as well as expectations that arise from senses. Here is a place where Gita teaches principals of “Karma”.
The moment we stop our efforts of controlling results, but push efforts for controlling our self and our actions, we practice “Bhramcharya” – the inner control – control of self.
Gandhi, as pointed hitherto links to Bhramcharya a concept of marriage. I feel probably Gandhi was not in his 20s or 30s when he first asked people not to marry. May be his testosterone levels had settled by the time he had four kids. So he was comfortable when he said “Don’t Marry”.
From my personal experience, I feel marriage does not hurt Bhramcharya. Even having sex does not hurt Bhramcharya.
You may argue that having and practicing Bhramcharya is like having food and saying I am fasting. They are two opposites that cannot coexist.
But to my belief, that argument is incomplete and therefore untrue. Such an argument emanates from misconception about Bhramcharya.
To clarify, Bhramcharya does not mean eliminating the senses, it means controlling the sense. It does not and cannot mean eliminating or destroying senses and self. This cannot be right interpretation.
Controlling taste is like eating cucumber when you have an option to eat cake. Nevertheless, it does not mean starving yourself to death – Gandhi would never mean anything like that and ascribing Gandhi like that to my understanding would be incorrect.
Same way, controlling sex, does not mean stopping it completely. I mean if that was intention of God, he would not have taken a deep trouble of creating male and female sex organs and sex hormones. In that case, we would be born as asexual organisms. But God gave the organs to use just as he gave mouth to eat.
Excessive eating leads to obesity and therefore loss of health – same is with sex. It leads to loss of health and loss of focus. Eating moderate food having right combination of nutrients and fibers leads to good health. Same way using your sex energies may lead to their transmutation. Sex with spouse is not bad and does not a bad idea and does not hurt bhrancharya – but going to brothel must be shunned.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Gandhi - Truth & Nonviolence - Practical Application
Truth and Nonviolence
At Page #5-6 – Mangalprabhat – Gandhiji talks about Satya – Truth and “Ahinsa” – Nonviolence.
Gandhiji says that normally when we talk of Non-violence – we carry a belief of physical non-injury. It means, if you are not injuring or hurting somebody physically – you feel that you have practiced non-violence. This is a broader perspective.
But Gandhi wants to extend the concept of non-violence. He gives some examples. He says bad thoughts constitute violence. False talks are violence. Jealousy is violence. Praying for somebody’s ill is violence. Being possessive is also a form of violence.
Truth and non-violence are interwoven. They are two parts of a same coin. They are inseparable. Truth is the end and non-violence – may be means to an end.
Since we can control the means, which is handier. Non-violence is the first step. In that sense, truth is God. If we don’t worry about the end (God), but if we cling onto the means – non-violence, probably some day we will reach at a point where we meet God.
According to Gandhiji, Non-violence is not a discrete happening. You practice it one day or for one person and leave it next day or for some other person – it does not work that way. Non-violence has to appear in each act of life. He felt that non-violence is good for individual as well as for larger sect of people.
Gandhi to support his views cites historical events. He says let us peep back into the history and we find that human as a race is getting non-violent by and by. Look at this: we had been hunting during initial years of civilization. Some of us were even cannibals. Later we realized better ways beyond hunting. We started agriculture. We settled down from nomadic state. We, as humans built cities and towns. The world has witnessed various prophets and priests all of whom have taught non-violence. This was natural since violence could only lead to an end of this world and extinction of humans.
My Interpretation:
OUR DOUBTS:
Normally when we hear about non-violence, our paradigm revolves around the fact that we must not resort to physical fights.
The physical aspect of non-violence is fairly convincing to most of us. So every day street fights and murders are not so rampant. Though physical violence occurs, but in comparison to total number of people and interactions happening every day, they are few.
It is also true that we no longer take out daggers and swords every now and then. Neither do we run to kill our opponents in every day life.
Gandhiji, however talks about other part of nonviolence that extends in the mental and spiritual part.
This part of non-violence is not very convincing at the first instance. To those whom this aspect convinces, find great difficulty in practicing it.
Applicability of non-violence and its benefits in legal, corporate and personal worlds:
As pointed out earlier, the principals of non-violence and truth sound archaic.
Very first questions that we may want to push on the table, if we open our heart and tell out our feelings honestly are:
1. How is non violence going to help me?
2. My opponents don’t practice it – why should I?
3. I cannot survive if I try to step into shoes of saint – and you talk of non-violence!
4. In a world of business, we have to tell lies, we have to fool others, and we have to respond to events in a way they react to us…
5. These things look great in books – they are useless in practice!
6. Non-violence is a word used by cowards and sadist who have no ability to respond.
The points raised above are very genuine. They are not wrong and they make more sense then nonviolence. But, I must say after lending analysis that they are incomplete and represent single dimension that is misleading.
When I hear Gandhians (followers of Gandhi) talking about Gandhi’s principals, I find amazing stiffness – sort of sadist people in them. They are a fracas of “Tanpura” (Indian Musical Instrument). But can we add spice and hip hop to his great ideas without losing its great flavor and benefits it offers? Let us see.
When I read first these thoughts, I was deeply inspired, but doubts came in. I must confess. It did not simply work – I thought how is this going to apply? I mean for example, lawyers take wrong adjournments, they fool their clients – bill them extra hours, they give advice that encourage people to litigate and even if they do pre litigation review, they do it many times even if they are sure about legal position and a clear advice without pretending to research could clear off the matter. They write articles in journals, not with an intention of educating people, but to attract clients. Don’t lawyers envy each other? Can a lawyer openly confess to his client and say – he believes that opponent has a better lawyer? Doesn’t each of us do it in some form or other? For example, a known person suddenly becoming very successful and we find no happiness or admiration for that success. Rather may not even like to hear that! That is envy!
May be this is smoke that clouds our minds.
Not only lawyer but all of us in different parts of life in different professions do this thing often, knowingly or unknowingly.
We tend to be self centered. But the difficulty comes, when we are not truly self-centered. We don’t even know what is good for us from a selfish standpoint – be it selfish.
One thing that we must accept is a fact that genetically we are in a race for survival and the fittest survives – one who can adapt to change survives most.
But a survival of uncivilized is different from civilized. Once in higher state of mental standards the rules of game become different – although the principal of survival continues.
When we talk about rules of game – what do we want? We want honestly for us. We want people to be honest to us. When we buy car or a house we don’t want to be dumped with crap lot. In relations we want our wife to practice fidelity. We want our child to work hard and grow up shouldering responsibility. We want our business associate to be honest to us. We want our debtors to make timely payment to us and so on is the list. Yeah!
But how are we going built up a rendezvous like that? I mean if you go to a church or temple you meet people who like to worship and you go to a brothel you meet people having physical cravings.
You shall reap what you sow – there are no short cuts. Now if you are a person intrinsically supporting violence or back stabbing, you will be supported by people who also enjoy that. May be, if you are too good at creating designs for trapping people – you lead your band. It is great to be a gang of that sort because, things work right. A devil team resounds well because they manage to subdue people. But – when you do that remember you are never surrounded by people with high ethics or sense of integrity. You will built a mess around you and survive so long as you can handle the mess. The moment your evil team finds you weak, they withdraw support you – they tear you to pieces because that is a rule of game you play. You enjoyed the rules when you won and you must not complain foul when others practice same sins you patronaged.
Say in the group of lions – those carnivorous – moment principal lion is injured or incapacitated, he is ousted and sometimes in such a great misery that wolves tear off lions. Now remember human counterparts – all of us care for older ones – don’t we? So in a human concept growing physically old does not necessarily by implication mean death – of course unless you have sown distrust, selfishness, lack of attention in your children – you get great results.
Here the principal of survival - the natural principal remains intact. That principal is not wrong and neither invalid. But the rules of game change.
Gandhi’s ideas to my understanding should be applied for changing the rules of the game. The rules of the game that Gandhi talks support the basic principal of survival. Rather that old man quietly whispers – if you want survival – you have to practice non-violence.
If you want your friends and your associates, customers and your family viz. wife, child and all others around you to be honest to you – first give honesty. Shun people who cannot simply accept honestly as a basic idea. If you do that you built a long lasting relation. Relation – where you eat mangoes you have sown for years.
So from selfish point of view – Gandhi’s principals are very appealing and make sense.
At Page #5-6 – Mangalprabhat – Gandhiji talks about Satya – Truth and “Ahinsa” – Nonviolence.
Gandhiji says that normally when we talk of Non-violence – we carry a belief of physical non-injury. It means, if you are not injuring or hurting somebody physically – you feel that you have practiced non-violence. This is a broader perspective.
But Gandhi wants to extend the concept of non-violence. He gives some examples. He says bad thoughts constitute violence. False talks are violence. Jealousy is violence. Praying for somebody’s ill is violence. Being possessive is also a form of violence.
Truth and non-violence are interwoven. They are two parts of a same coin. They are inseparable. Truth is the end and non-violence – may be means to an end.
Since we can control the means, which is handier. Non-violence is the first step. In that sense, truth is God. If we don’t worry about the end (God), but if we cling onto the means – non-violence, probably some day we will reach at a point where we meet God.
According to Gandhiji, Non-violence is not a discrete happening. You practice it one day or for one person and leave it next day or for some other person – it does not work that way. Non-violence has to appear in each act of life. He felt that non-violence is good for individual as well as for larger sect of people.
Gandhi to support his views cites historical events. He says let us peep back into the history and we find that human as a race is getting non-violent by and by. Look at this: we had been hunting during initial years of civilization. Some of us were even cannibals. Later we realized better ways beyond hunting. We started agriculture. We settled down from nomadic state. We, as humans built cities and towns. The world has witnessed various prophets and priests all of whom have taught non-violence. This was natural since violence could only lead to an end of this world and extinction of humans.
My Interpretation:
OUR DOUBTS:
Normally when we hear about non-violence, our paradigm revolves around the fact that we must not resort to physical fights.
The physical aspect of non-violence is fairly convincing to most of us. So every day street fights and murders are not so rampant. Though physical violence occurs, but in comparison to total number of people and interactions happening every day, they are few.
It is also true that we no longer take out daggers and swords every now and then. Neither do we run to kill our opponents in every day life.
Gandhiji, however talks about other part of nonviolence that extends in the mental and spiritual part.
This part of non-violence is not very convincing at the first instance. To those whom this aspect convinces, find great difficulty in practicing it.
Applicability of non-violence and its benefits in legal, corporate and personal worlds:
As pointed out earlier, the principals of non-violence and truth sound archaic.
Very first questions that we may want to push on the table, if we open our heart and tell out our feelings honestly are:
1. How is non violence going to help me?
2. My opponents don’t practice it – why should I?
3. I cannot survive if I try to step into shoes of saint – and you talk of non-violence!
4. In a world of business, we have to tell lies, we have to fool others, and we have to respond to events in a way they react to us…
5. These things look great in books – they are useless in practice!
6. Non-violence is a word used by cowards and sadist who have no ability to respond.
The points raised above are very genuine. They are not wrong and they make more sense then nonviolence. But, I must say after lending analysis that they are incomplete and represent single dimension that is misleading.
When I hear Gandhians (followers of Gandhi) talking about Gandhi’s principals, I find amazing stiffness – sort of sadist people in them. They are a fracas of “Tanpura” (Indian Musical Instrument). But can we add spice and hip hop to his great ideas without losing its great flavor and benefits it offers? Let us see.
When I read first these thoughts, I was deeply inspired, but doubts came in. I must confess. It did not simply work – I thought how is this going to apply? I mean for example, lawyers take wrong adjournments, they fool their clients – bill them extra hours, they give advice that encourage people to litigate and even if they do pre litigation review, they do it many times even if they are sure about legal position and a clear advice without pretending to research could clear off the matter. They write articles in journals, not with an intention of educating people, but to attract clients. Don’t lawyers envy each other? Can a lawyer openly confess to his client and say – he believes that opponent has a better lawyer? Doesn’t each of us do it in some form or other? For example, a known person suddenly becoming very successful and we find no happiness or admiration for that success. Rather may not even like to hear that! That is envy!
May be this is smoke that clouds our minds.
Not only lawyer but all of us in different parts of life in different professions do this thing often, knowingly or unknowingly.
We tend to be self centered. But the difficulty comes, when we are not truly self-centered. We don’t even know what is good for us from a selfish standpoint – be it selfish.
One thing that we must accept is a fact that genetically we are in a race for survival and the fittest survives – one who can adapt to change survives most.
But a survival of uncivilized is different from civilized. Once in higher state of mental standards the rules of game become different – although the principal of survival continues.
When we talk about rules of game – what do we want? We want honestly for us. We want people to be honest to us. When we buy car or a house we don’t want to be dumped with crap lot. In relations we want our wife to practice fidelity. We want our child to work hard and grow up shouldering responsibility. We want our business associate to be honest to us. We want our debtors to make timely payment to us and so on is the list. Yeah!
But how are we going built up a rendezvous like that? I mean if you go to a church or temple you meet people who like to worship and you go to a brothel you meet people having physical cravings.
You shall reap what you sow – there are no short cuts. Now if you are a person intrinsically supporting violence or back stabbing, you will be supported by people who also enjoy that. May be, if you are too good at creating designs for trapping people – you lead your band. It is great to be a gang of that sort because, things work right. A devil team resounds well because they manage to subdue people. But – when you do that remember you are never surrounded by people with high ethics or sense of integrity. You will built a mess around you and survive so long as you can handle the mess. The moment your evil team finds you weak, they withdraw support you – they tear you to pieces because that is a rule of game you play. You enjoyed the rules when you won and you must not complain foul when others practice same sins you patronaged.
Say in the group of lions – those carnivorous – moment principal lion is injured or incapacitated, he is ousted and sometimes in such a great misery that wolves tear off lions. Now remember human counterparts – all of us care for older ones – don’t we? So in a human concept growing physically old does not necessarily by implication mean death – of course unless you have sown distrust, selfishness, lack of attention in your children – you get great results.
Here the principal of survival - the natural principal remains intact. That principal is not wrong and neither invalid. But the rules of game change.
Gandhi’s ideas to my understanding should be applied for changing the rules of the game. The rules of the game that Gandhi talks support the basic principal of survival. Rather that old man quietly whispers – if you want survival – you have to practice non-violence.
If you want your friends and your associates, customers and your family viz. wife, child and all others around you to be honest to you – first give honesty. Shun people who cannot simply accept honestly as a basic idea. If you do that you built a long lasting relation. Relation – where you eat mangoes you have sown for years.
So from selfish point of view – Gandhi’s principals are very appealing and make sense.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Gandhi Sarvodaya – Possessions / things:
I am referring to article by Mahatma Gandhi in Amritbazar Patrika dtd. 17/09/1933.
Gandhiji in this article said that we have to be clear about our purpose and about our means of achieving that purpose. Just knowing purpose is not enough. We have to be clear about the means. We have to be clear about the ways by which we will reach up to that purpose.
Gandhiji said that he has always been careful about preserving the ways of achieving purpose. He has been keen to use the means in right way so that the intended purpose is well achieved.
If the ways / means of reaching the purpose are well preserved and well used, the purpose can be achieved.
If our means are pure our purpose can be achieved. Corollary to his is – our purpose is achieved to the extent of purity of our means.
My interpretation:
Gandhiji said some things that look redundant in to-days time, but are not so.
Gandhiji refers to means of purpose. Preserving means is very important. What is organizational budgeting all about? We have to monitor what resources are deployed and how are they deployed. None of us can use our resources the way governments in developing nations do. They nearly squander everything resulting in huge fiscal deficit.
Here the concept proposed by Gandhiji gains importance. Is your child preparing for exam? Are you preparing for project? Are you starting some new venture? Concept given by Gandhiji is very practical and can be put to use right away.
A child has to be clear about his purpose – passing exam. He has to be clear about means – the tool – his books and his studies. He must preserve books, he must work hard. He has to be honest. This is child’s purity of means. If he is more pure, he is certain to reach his goal of passing exams.
Same is a case with entrepreneur. He has to be innovative. His purpose is success in product launch. His tools are his innovativeness and his creativity. More creative – more clear about market means more success in product launch. So – Gandhiji’s description about purpose and preservation of means for achieving that purpose is very important.
Rest for some other time.
Gandhiji in this article said that we have to be clear about our purpose and about our means of achieving that purpose. Just knowing purpose is not enough. We have to be clear about the means. We have to be clear about the ways by which we will reach up to that purpose.
Gandhiji said that he has always been careful about preserving the ways of achieving purpose. He has been keen to use the means in right way so that the intended purpose is well achieved.
If the ways / means of reaching the purpose are well preserved and well used, the purpose can be achieved.
If our means are pure our purpose can be achieved. Corollary to his is – our purpose is achieved to the extent of purity of our means.
My interpretation:
Gandhiji said some things that look redundant in to-days time, but are not so.
Gandhiji refers to means of purpose. Preserving means is very important. What is organizational budgeting all about? We have to monitor what resources are deployed and how are they deployed. None of us can use our resources the way governments in developing nations do. They nearly squander everything resulting in huge fiscal deficit.
Here the concept proposed by Gandhiji gains importance. Is your child preparing for exam? Are you preparing for project? Are you starting some new venture? Concept given by Gandhiji is very practical and can be put to use right away.
A child has to be clear about his purpose – passing exam. He has to be clear about means – the tool – his books and his studies. He must preserve books, he must work hard. He has to be honest. This is child’s purity of means. If he is more pure, he is certain to reach his goal of passing exams.
Same is a case with entrepreneur. He has to be innovative. His purpose is success in product launch. His tools are his innovativeness and his creativity. More creative – more clear about market means more success in product launch. So – Gandhiji’s description about purpose and preservation of means for achieving that purpose is very important.
Rest for some other time.
ndhi and Sarvodaya – Panchayati Raj
Ga
In Harijanbandhu - a publication by Mahatma Gandhi – on 18/01/1948, Gandhi-ji had written about Panchayati Raj. According to him true purpose of Panchayati Raj was to empower last man in the queue. He said that smallest Indian (meaning an Indian who is impoverished – destitute and powerless) should have same rights as that of elite. Every Indian has to become pure (pure probably had very versatile meaning for Gandhiji).
He believed that pureness means being away from Cast, creed, color. He believed pureness to be synonym of love – one who gives love to all. He believed pureness means not considering anybody untouchable (India had history of untouchables where some elite considered others to be untouchables). To a pure Indian, according to Gandhi – both worker and owners were on same footing. Pureness is keeping away from wine and other narcotics. Pureness to Gandhiji was fidelity to spouse. Fidelity meant to him not fidelity in actions but fidelity in mind. Pureness to Gandhiji meant total non-violence.
My Interpretation:
Interpretation may vary from one person to another. Hence, there is no doubt that my interpretation may be materially different.
One thing is certain, when we read stuff like this – like talking about fidelity, equality – we feel that these are propositions fit to be forgotten with books in which they are written. Many of us may feel it is a waste of time to give a thought to these things.
Yet, when we work in our workplace, courts, government offices and all such places, we probably run for equality. Some more successful and established make out ways by which - they push others down the line to make more space for them at cost of others.
Nature by itself has not created any equality. Look at the lion and a deer. The deer is clawed by lion and the helpless creature can do nothing. Where is equality? Why should we as humans propose a concept of equality when nature just says – “Survival of fittest”.
Logically this proposition looks true and more convincing. But in that case, strongest should survive and weaker should perish as happens in animal kingdom. In that case Gandhiji was was so feeble – a short man with no physical strength should die. Same way lot of scientist who are physically weak should also perish and those Sumos of Japan and likes of Bruce lees should survive. Army should prevail over civilians and weapons over peace.
Do we want a world like that? “NO” – probably answer for most of us. We prefer peace over war. Love over hatred. We are traveling away from pure animal instincts. A lion may kill cubs of lioness to mate with her. Can we think of doing this to any lady? No.
In a corporate context, this concept is useful because, attention is given to what is said rather than who said it. Many times best suggestions come from bottom because they are people who understand problem at its zenith. We have to value all. How can we be oblivious to people around us. How can we achieve team spirit if we undermine somebody? How can we be happy by mocking on others? Sometimes best things do not come in best package.
From physical paradigm, we traverse to mental paradigm. From mental paradigm we travel to spiritual awareness. Probably Gandhiji was in a different world that we are yet to see.
Rest for some other time.
In Harijanbandhu - a publication by Mahatma Gandhi – on 18/01/1948, Gandhi-ji had written about Panchayati Raj. According to him true purpose of Panchayati Raj was to empower last man in the queue. He said that smallest Indian (meaning an Indian who is impoverished – destitute and powerless) should have same rights as that of elite. Every Indian has to become pure (pure probably had very versatile meaning for Gandhiji).
He believed that pureness means being away from Cast, creed, color. He believed pureness to be synonym of love – one who gives love to all. He believed pureness means not considering anybody untouchable (India had history of untouchables where some elite considered others to be untouchables). To a pure Indian, according to Gandhi – both worker and owners were on same footing. Pureness is keeping away from wine and other narcotics. Pureness to Gandhiji was fidelity to spouse. Fidelity meant to him not fidelity in actions but fidelity in mind. Pureness to Gandhiji meant total non-violence.
My Interpretation:
Interpretation may vary from one person to another. Hence, there is no doubt that my interpretation may be materially different.
One thing is certain, when we read stuff like this – like talking about fidelity, equality – we feel that these are propositions fit to be forgotten with books in which they are written. Many of us may feel it is a waste of time to give a thought to these things.
Yet, when we work in our workplace, courts, government offices and all such places, we probably run for equality. Some more successful and established make out ways by which - they push others down the line to make more space for them at cost of others.
Nature by itself has not created any equality. Look at the lion and a deer. The deer is clawed by lion and the helpless creature can do nothing. Where is equality? Why should we as humans propose a concept of equality when nature just says – “Survival of fittest”.
Logically this proposition looks true and more convincing. But in that case, strongest should survive and weaker should perish as happens in animal kingdom. In that case Gandhiji was was so feeble – a short man with no physical strength should die. Same way lot of scientist who are physically weak should also perish and those Sumos of Japan and likes of Bruce lees should survive. Army should prevail over civilians and weapons over peace.
Do we want a world like that? “NO” – probably answer for most of us. We prefer peace over war. Love over hatred. We are traveling away from pure animal instincts. A lion may kill cubs of lioness to mate with her. Can we think of doing this to any lady? No.
In a corporate context, this concept is useful because, attention is given to what is said rather than who said it. Many times best suggestions come from bottom because they are people who understand problem at its zenith. We have to value all. How can we be oblivious to people around us. How can we achieve team spirit if we undermine somebody? How can we be happy by mocking on others? Sometimes best things do not come in best package.
From physical paradigm, we traverse to mental paradigm. From mental paradigm we travel to spiritual awareness. Probably Gandhiji was in a different world that we are yet to see.
Rest for some other time.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Gandhi and Sarvodaya
A question may arise - what has a lawyer to do with Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was a barrister - a lawyer. But a lawyer, who was honest. We cannot say that he did not lie because in his modesty he has so many times made statements that under-estimate his ability. Nevertheless, this man had a dream of a world that we may called day time fantacy.
Yet it will be right to say that what Gandhi said was not a day time fantacy. If there are right people governin nation - right leaders - Sarvodaya - a world of Gandhi can come true. I felt it was necessary to touch upon Gandhiji's concept of Sarvodaya and therefore this write up.
Sarvodaya - Gandhian Ideology.
Meaning of Sarvodaya:
This was a dream world for Gandhi - India's father of Nation. According to Gandhi, Sarvodaya meant:
1. In well being of all lies well being of mine.
2. A Lawyer and a barber have same right of livelihood.
3. Real life is a life of simplicity.
Gandhi in his book "Sarvodaya Parichay" admits that his habit of reading books was nearly zero during his student age. After getting into work, he had little time to study. There were only few books that he studied. They included "Unto the last" by Ruskin. Gandhi acknowledged being deeply influenced by that book.
He said that Ruskin deeply influenced him and what laid deep beneath him was dug off by that book of Ruskin.
On 12/12/1926, in a publication called Navjivan, Gandhi said that industrialization cannot be blindly supported. He was against communism because he considered communism employing same means as capitalizm although in different form.
A proponent of non-violence according to Gandhi should support entire life on the earth. While he mentioned something like "Shrey wadi" (that is a Gujarati word) - but I could not follow what it meant.
Rest for some other time.
Yet it will be right to say that what Gandhi said was not a day time fantacy. If there are right people governin nation - right leaders - Sarvodaya - a world of Gandhi can come true. I felt it was necessary to touch upon Gandhiji's concept of Sarvodaya and therefore this write up.
Sarvodaya - Gandhian Ideology.
Meaning of Sarvodaya:
This was a dream world for Gandhi - India's father of Nation. According to Gandhi, Sarvodaya meant:
1. In well being of all lies well being of mine.
2. A Lawyer and a barber have same right of livelihood.
3. Real life is a life of simplicity.
Gandhi in his book "Sarvodaya Parichay" admits that his habit of reading books was nearly zero during his student age. After getting into work, he had little time to study. There were only few books that he studied. They included "Unto the last" by Ruskin. Gandhi acknowledged being deeply influenced by that book.
He said that Ruskin deeply influenced him and what laid deep beneath him was dug off by that book of Ruskin.
On 12/12/1926, in a publication called Navjivan, Gandhi said that industrialization cannot be blindly supported. He was against communism because he considered communism employing same means as capitalizm although in different form.
A proponent of non-violence according to Gandhi should support entire life on the earth. While he mentioned something like "Shrey wadi" (that is a Gujarati word) - but I could not follow what it meant.
Rest for some other time.
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