Gandhian Syncretism: The Quintessence of Theosophy

- By Sahadeb Patro and Swati Samantaray*

Introduction

Gandhi was a philosophical anarchist and is admired around the world as the legendary mystical leader, a fakir, a Mahatma, an exalted moralist, and a spiritualist. His sense of optimism was not only far above pessimism but a soaring spiral up into spiritualism, furthering it into the realm of Realism. His treatment of humanity at large bears testimony to the fact that man is the spiritual equinox of all creation, for God manifests as self-consciousness in humans. Multitudes of people incarnate the soul, but Gandhi spiritualized his body. Cosmos, as against chaos, implies order, an essential system of discipline; Gandhi, a mystic, considered the Universe to be an expression of Order. The interconnectedness of existence helps us develop love and reverence toward all creation. Gandhi's sense of nonviolence was of a higher order. Though his socio-political, socio-economic, and academic ideas have the highest élan, he firmly believed that ideas, however lofty, should be subject to perpetual examination and rectification. His Civil Disobedience Campaign was stimulation for the freedom fighters and an indefatigable challenge to the opponents. He felt that workers should understand that their labour is a kind of capital, and capitalists should acknowledge that capital is a form of labour. Wealth will never be able to generate virtue. If poverty is the sorrow of the pauper, richness is the misery of the wealthy. Gandhi, like Henry David Thoreau, believed that citizens are humans first and subjects afterward. He presented to the unbelieving world all that is noblest in the spirit of humans. He found an echo of his conviction in John Ruskin’s Unto This Last, which asserted that there is no wealth but life, and distinguished cost and value; cost is the quantity of labour required for production and value is the life-giving power of anything — its emphasis being on the dignity of labour.

This paper focuses on Gandhian syncretism. The paper seeks to identify the universal traits between Gandhian ideology and Theosophical philosophy and bring forth the contemporary relevance of Gandhian way of life.

Gandhi's Theosophical Connections

Theosophy is an all-encompassing brotherhood by some esoteric process of spiritual osmosis. Theosophy staunchly believes in the vibration of life in every atom, embracing the oneness of love and shining of every creature in the light of wisdom. The Theosophical Society, of which Gandhi was a member in London, was a religious body founded by Madam Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Col. Henry Steel Olcott in 1875 whose doctrines include belief in Karma, Reincarnation, and spiritual evolution. It’s three declared objectives are:

• to form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, caste, colour, or gender
• to encourage the study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Science
• to investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humankind

Theosophy, as ancient wisdom, is better understood in the sense of a pure philosophia perennis. It can still better be comprehended as synonymous with esotericism or mysticism. The word has been derived from Greek Theosophos, which means knowledge of things Divine. The word ‘syncretism’, not so often and commonly used term, connotes eclecticism or heterogeneity. For Gandhi, brotherhood is an ordeal of true spirituality. The fatherhood of God ensures the brotherhood of humankind. Gandhi’s general restraint in thought, feeling, conduct, and self-control are rationally in line with the Theosophical philosophy of Annie Besant’s Why I Became a Theosophist (1889), HP Blavatsky’s Key to Theosophy (1889), and Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia (1879). Theosophical influence in England and South Africa added strength to his religious sense, the literature of which is replete with Hindu influence.¹ The Bhagavad Gita that he considers his spiritual dictionary was a supreme guide to conduct. Krishna of the Gita is the right knowledge and perfection personified and apotheosis.

Austere living, supplication, and worship are the means of purifying the heart of passion as well as desire. Gandhi’s Autobiography is the genesis of his philosophical doctrines for a way of life and conduct with spiritual, social, and political implications. He was undoubtedly a moral genius; genius is an evolutionary spirit much in line with the spirit of Theosophy. In the book Gandhism After Gandhi², the author, while discussing Gandhi, says that Satyagraha is relentless search for Truth, a silent quest; it is an attribute of the spirit. Spiritual laws, like Nature's laws, need no enacting; they are self-enacting. “Nature is a perpetual circulatory worker, generating fluids out of solids, fixed things out of volatile, and volatile out of fixed, subtle out of gross, gross out of subtle”³, said Blavatsky. His political thinking was ahead of the times. The philosophy of nonviolence is a profound and powerful expression of compassion, of altruism. Satyagraha is energy generated by the power of Truth to change the heart of the oppressor. As humanity plunges into various crises, the way of Gandhi can provide new hope.

“Brotherhood is just now a distant aspiration,”⁴ says Gandhi. To him, it is a test of true spirituality. All prayers, worship, rituals, and religious observances are set at naught if we fail to feel a live kinship with all animates. His acquaintance with religions in England was through Theosophy. In November 1889, he visited the Blavatsky Lodge in London and was introduced to HP Blavatsky and Annie Besant. Gandhi stated that there are as many religions as humans. However, in reality, religion is one. “The avaricious, the lustful, the wrathful and the drunkard are among the ten types of persons reckoned by Vidura as having no regard for religion.”⁵ Gandhi solicits us to reminisce about the common man’s uncommon traits and attributes for a future India.

Pragmatism of Nonviolence

Gandhi was born Indian, but he belongs to the world. No wonder the UNO has adopted his birthday as International Nonviolence Day. What does it mean when Gandhi said, ‘My life is my message’, when he concluded writing his Autobiography Satya Sodianam in 1921? It means Truth, nonviolence, fearlessness, and Satyagraha are abstract concepts that require a reflecting surface, a resonating surface to come back to us with all their grace, glory, and piety; and Gandhi's life is that surface which reflects, resonates such eternal qualities of the human species. Human nature does require concrete faith. God has created so many men in order that they may arrive at a complete idea through cumulative thought. However, ideas should be subject to perpetual examination.

The philosophy of nonviolence is a profound and powerful expression of compassion. Satyagraha is energy generated by Truth’s power to change the oppressor’s heart. It implies a commitment to the Truth in all its dimensions. Gandhi's life was an open book, an extended essay on transparency, honesty, and courage. He recognized that unless the conditions of all Indians improve, India might get independence but could not be free. He drew on India’s ancient tradition of pluralism and its long history of religious diversity and assimilation. The prayers and hymns at Gandhi’s ashrams resonated with the sacred from across faiths. He truly represented the syncretic tradition of India and believed that ethics was the core of all religions faith transcends reason; it is not opposed to it. True religion knows no territorial limits. Religion is the emotion of reverence that inspires, says Emerson.

Gandhi neatly converted a political movement into a moral war that his adversary just could not win; he removed fear from the minds of people that had hitherto experienced subjecthood, not citizenship. The epic struggle for independence was achieved without bloodshed, unique in history, fighting against the evil itself, not against the evil-doer; fighting against the British imperialism, not against the Britishers.

Religion and Humanism

He was the voice of the voiceless; the strength of the weak —a feeble person somewhat partly clad in scrimpy dhoti (loincloth ), but entirely draped in the attire of Truth, was all-powerful as compared to battalions of armed men wearing full uniforms. Hundreds of books, treatises, biographies, and criticisms remain insufficient to understand Gandhi because of the sheer intensity, profundity, magnitude and magnanimity of “Gandhiana"⁶, which is vast. His is the religion of humanity. However, there is a Gandhi in each one of us; we need to discover him. As humanity plunges into various crises, the way of Gandhi can overcome them.

One of history’s amazing paradoxes was how a soldier fought with the weapons of a saint. His life was his lesson, an open book, an unwritten autobiography. His “experiments in community living at Tolstoy Farm contained typical blends of freedom and regulation”⁷. His words were deeds, and they built a movement of a nation. Gandhi provided a quantum jump in raising the consciousness of Indians and the world. Morality is the foundation of his life, and Truth is the base of morality. US Secretary of State General George C. Marshall hailed him “as the spokesman for the conscience of all mankind"⁸. According to Gokhale, Gandhi had the spiritual power to turn ordinary men and women into leonine heroes and martyrs. Such were the tributes to the Mahatma from across the world. He died with ‘Hey Ram’ on his lips — the final cry of an anguished soul anxious to discover the final Truth.⁹

Gandhi: An ‘Operative Myth’

Gandhi was the lion of loin clothes. The charkha (spinning, wheel) symbolizes communal peace and signifies simple living and high thinking. He regarded spinning superior to the practice of denominational religion, which kept all negative thoughts at bay. Khadi is not just a fabric or cloth but a spiritual, political, and historical symbol; spiritual because he saw weaving as a method of self-realisation and sacrifice; political because it created a new Indian identity; and historical because until today the National Flag is unexceptionally made out of khadi, and its global message is for a just and exploitation-free new world order.

The Upanishadic adage of ‘renounce and enjoy’ was epitomized in Gandhi's life. Unleashing the extraordinary strength of ordinary people was his ‘Purna Swaraj’. The Voice of the Silence (1889) by Blavatsky is rightly called the Theosophists’ Bible, Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (written in ten days while travelling from London to South Africa in November 1909), one of the most important scholarly works, is rightly called the common man’s Bible. Right from Hind Swaraj to Dominion Status, to self-governance, to independence, is a long march in the historic struggle against British imperialism. Right from the Indian cause he took up in Natal in 1898 to January 1948 was his 55-year-long march, out of which he spent about five years and ten months in prison. The fateful train journey in South Africa on June 7 1893 transformed Gandhi's life. As early as 1921, Rev. John Haynes Holmes said that Gandhi was comparably the greatest man living on earth. Gandhi could and did err; he could not and would not lie.¹⁰

At his death, Pearl S Buck called it another crucifixion. His celibacy since 1906, the vow of Brahmacharya since the days of the Boer war, was epoch-making and worth pondering for any worldly man. He advised the people that they should “live simply so that others may simply live”.¹¹ This carries a subtle reference and relevance to what Socrates said long ago, “I love to go there and discover how many things I am perfectly happy without”.¹² He mastered voluntary simplicity from Tolstoy; passive resistance, and Civil Disobedience from Henry D Thoreau. If Rajchandra brought morality into business, Gandhi brought morality into politics. Gandhi was inspired by Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia (1879), Ruskin’s Unto This Lost (1862), Thomas Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History (1841), where the greatest hero is the prophet who exemplifies by austere living. His thoughts and ideas carry the genesis of the whole civilization, his political thinking was ahead of his times. Gandhi said:

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... my young mind tried to unify the teachings of the Gita, The Light of Asia, and the Sermon on the Mount.¹³

According to C F Andrews, the more we study Gandhi, the more we shall discover humanity, humility, universality, and spirituality in him, the four pillars on which we live and thrive. Gandhi is an ‘operative myth’ that still lives on in contemporary consciousness. The present system of education has made our intellect the blotting sheets of modern civilization, Gandhi told Utkal Gaurav Madhusudan Das.¹⁴ The Prophet of Ahimsa, Gandhi found the ancient doctrine of turning the other cheek as it is found in the realization that ‘unearned suffering is redemption’. Nonviolence and love go inseparably together. Paraphrasing the words of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. said: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force”.¹⁵ King Jr. has emphatically said that to all other countries, he was a traveller, but to India, he was a pilgrim because it is the birthplace of Gandhi. In early life, Gandhi’s impression of ‘God is Truth’ ultimately culminated in his revision that ‘Truth is God’, nonviolence is like radium in its action, according to him.¹⁶ Nonviolence is a positive state of love of doing good even to the evil-doer. Gandhi's favourite hymn (Vaishnava jan to, Tene Kahiye Je, Peed paraaye jaane re ...) is being played in 124 countries. Prayer is not aspiring for something but the quest of the soul and regular acknowledgement of one’s faults and foibles. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. When we look at all these religions as so many leaves of the same tree, they seem so different, but at the trunk, they are one. Gandhi acknowledged The Bhagavad Gita as his spiritual dictionary, an evolutionary scientist that he was, and yet a mystic, a practical mystic. For him Krishna of the Gita is the embodiment of perfection and personification of right knowledge - an apotheosis. All his work, in essence, is an appeal from the ‘seen’ to the unseen. Gandhi's philosophy is oceanic in content, his speeches and writings cover over 100 volumes as Collected Works. He was the one who spoke as he thought and acted as he spoke, in whom no shadow fell between word and deed.¹⁷

Gandhi's initial dietary habits, introspection, and vocal reticence are symptoms of his tenor towards common restraint in thought, feeling, word and conduct. These forms of self-management became primary modes of the renunciation he later practiced, which agreed with the Theosophical tenets. He studied Why I Became a Theosophist (1890) H.P Blavatsky’s, Key to Theosophy (1889) and Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia (1879). Like the Gita, Gandhi regarded these texts as his supreme guide to conduct, and warned us against the danger of making a sect out of his thought. He weaned himself from any denominational religion. By fitting the freedom struggle, the epic war of independence, into the schema of philosophy of justice and fairness, he accomplished for India a stature un-paralled in the annals of human history and civilization. True nonviolence is complete innocence.¹⁸ Violence is self-destructive. Ahimsa is the all-encompassing code of all values. Posit ahimsa, all the values are posited; negate ahimsa, all the values are negated. Truth is what the voice within tells. Violence, even in answer to grave provocation, was a bad augury.

Peace is the greatest social good. Tranquility and peace-loving means are the methods of nature. Gandhi exemplifies the magnitude of the time-honored approach that ‘love’ is superior to ‘hatred’. On that fatal Friday, January 30, 1948, the perverse assassin of Gandhi, who had known no enemy in life, inflicted a deep wound in the heart of humanity. Pt. Nehru cried in agony: “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere”.¹⁹ Like all men of genius, Gandhi was an enigma; to the Indians, he was Bapuji, Mahatma, a saint long before his martyrdom. A careful and considerate historian like Arnold Toynbee wrote, “It can already be forecast with some confidence that Gandhi's effect on human history is going to be greater and more lasting than either Stalin’s or Hitler’s”.²⁰ What Toynbee deduced was that Gandhi was not just an Indian phenomenon. When Gandhi picked on salt taxes as a symbol, he converted a simple act of minor civil disobedience into a powerful weapon of protest against an empire. The India Gandhi spent all his life making free is far from free.

Getting things done fast is not a sign of impatience. Do not block inevitable change and progress in the name of antique Indian policies, culture, and values. Truth never damages a cause that is just, said Gandhi. Truth is always the strongest argument, says Sophocles. The quest for Truth is the summum bonum of life.²¹ Truth is the sovereign principle; Satyagraha is a sovereign remedy; there is no other God than Truth.²² God is pure consciousness. Innumerable are the names of God, but if a choice were to be made of one, it would be Sat or Satya. Hence, verily Truth is God.²³ Service without humility is selfishness and egotism to Gandhi. Einstein’s remark is worth noting here: “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth”.²⁴

Gandhi's appeal was to the conscience of the world. He “stressed the need for self-sufficiency in every sphere of life”.²⁵ To Gandhi, suffering, is a process of self-purification. He said that human nature shows itself at its best in moments of travail. His interest in vegetarianism, spirituality, and Indian affairs finds him a ready platform for bonding with niche groups ranging from the Esoteric Christian Union to the Theosophical Society and the vegetarian society. Gandhi was a Carlylian Hero who was not shaped by history but became a shaper of history both for India and humankind. The East India Company “destroyed that supplementary village industry, and the millions of spinners who had become famous through the cunning of their deft fingers for drawing the finest thread, such as have never been drawn by any modern machinery. It is a historical fact that before the advent of the East India Company these villagers were not idle”²⁶ George Woodcock says that one of Gandhi's achievements was to show Britons the reality of their consciences and their practice as imperialists. It was Gandhi who roused the whole nation for the first time. He was a highly evolved and spiritual human being; as a visionary, he was far ahead of his time. Like Buddha, he sought salvation for all, transforming lives, not transcending them. He made India’s independence movement an epoch-making marvel of history. Swaraj is essentially self-autonomy and self-control; self-revelation, self-perception, and self-realization. Nelson Mandela said, “You gave us Mohandas; we returned him to you as Mahatma Gandhi”.²⁷ Gandhi was a Vedantin by conviction. Like Tolstoy, he realized the infinite possibilities of universal love. Like Socrates and Plato, Gandhi believed in the efficacy of reason. Gandhiana occupies a place in all publications on world religions, world prophets, and world philosophers. It is not our words, it is our life that affects people, said Annie Besant in keeping with the spirit of Theosophy and the philosophy of the life of the Mahatma - “Kill out desire of comfort”²⁸. Be wary of desires lest they be fulfilled. Desire is what J. Krishnamurti called ‘future psychological time’. “Thou shalt not let thy senses make a playground of thy mind”²⁹, cautioned Blavatsky.

Contemporary Relevance

Gandhi is beyond Time and Space; without him, the story of India remains incomplete and soulless. Conscientious people worldwide wistfully looked at Gandhi and wished him to have been alive today for so many of the unsolvable problems the world currently encounters, particularly over the Russian-Ukrainian War jeopardizing human life on earth. His greatest contribution to modern civilization is his life itself, and he made his life a lesson for all ages to come. He is still the common man’s leader.

Conclusion

In fine, this paper offered the colours of Gandhian syncretism regarding Theosophy, the Divine Wisdom. Gandhi’s example of ‘spiritual secularism and secularized religion’ is worth following in India and the world over today. He upheld the Truth in every religion yet deliberately stayed away from rituals, temples, mosques, churches, or deities, thus evolving a liberal equilibrium combining personal life with multi-faith public morality. Nevertheless, there is a bit of Gandhi in every one of us, which needs to be stirred to bring home a pragmatic, practical realisation of the unconditional Universal Brotherhood that Theosophy expounds.

Notes and References

1. Quoted in Joel Spring, Globalization and Educational Rights: An Intercivilizational. (New York: Routledge, 2012), p.128.
2. Quoted in Anil Dutta Mishra Ed., Gandhism After Gandhi. (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1999), p.124.
3. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, Cosmogenesis. (Adyar, Chennai: Theosophical Publishing House, 1888), p.13.
4. Quoted in Richard Johnson Ed., Gandhi’s Experiments with Truth. (Oxford: Lexington Books, 2006), p.123.
5. M.K. Gandhi, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 82. (India: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 2001), p.264.
6. Quoted in Usha Mehta Ed., Mahatma Gandhi and Humanism. (Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, 2000), p. IX.
7. Quoted in Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Ofa Certain Age: Twenty Life Sketches. (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2011), p. 6.
8. Quoted in Eileen Lucas, Mahatma Gandhi: Fighting For Indian Independence.(New York: Enslow Publishing, 2018).
9. Quoted in R.A. Mashelkar Ed., Timeless Inspirator-Reliving Gandhi(Pune: Sakal Papers Limited, 2013).
10. Quoted in Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Of a Certain Age: Twenty Life Sketches(New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2011), p.13.
11. Quoted in David G. Benner, Living Wisdom (Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2018), p. 199.
12. Quoted in Jean Howarth Walton & Mike Walton, Moments of Reflection (UK: Heinemann Educational, 1995), p. 117.
13. M. K. Gandhi, Autobiography, or The Story of My Experiments with Truth. (Washington DC: Public Affairs Press, 1948), Chapter XX, p. 91
14. Quoted in Kailash Chandra Dash, Gandhi in Odisha — III. (October 2, 2019).
15. https://www.odisha.plus/2019/10/gandhi-in-odisha-gandhijis-remarkable-visits-series-3-by-kailash-chandra-dash-mahatma-gandhi-150/ Accessed on April 18 2022.
16. Quoted in Keith D. Miller, Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King Jr. (London: The University of Georgia Press, 1998), p. 90.
17. Quoted in Mohit Chakrabarti, The Gandhian Philosophy of the Spinning Wheel. (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 2000), p.69.
18. Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works - Vol. 90. (India: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 2008), p. V.
19. Sahadeb Patro, Infinity and Beyond, Vol. VI. (Cuttack: Akshar Publications, 2016), p.70.
20. Quoted in K. S. Bharathi, Encyclopaedia of Eminent Thinkers: The political thought of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.1. (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1998), p.21.
21. Quoted in Madhu Limaye, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, a Historical Partnership, 1916-1948: 1947-1948. (New Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2007), p. 327.
22. Quoted in Bindu Puri, The Tagore-Gandhi Debate on Matters of Truth and Untruth. (Springer India, 2014), p.46.
23. Quoted in S.N. Sen, History Modern India. (New Delhi: New Age International (P) Limited, 2006), p. 169.
24. Quoted in M. Q. Khan, Patro and Samantaray Ed., Mysticism: A Literary Quest for Ultimate Reality. (New Delhi: Authorspress, 2018), p.24.
25. Quoted in Anil Mishra, Reading Gandhi. (India: Pearson Education India, 2012), p.279. Swati Samantaray, The Mystic Flights of Tagore. (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2010), p.47.
26. Quoted in Chandrika Kaul Ed., M.K. Gandhi, Media, Politics and Society: New Perspectives.(Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2020), p.161.
27. Quoted in Anil Nauriya, The making of Gandhi in South Africa and after. (Deccan Herald, June 23, 2020) https://www.deccanherald.com opinion /the-making-of-gandhi-in-south-africa-and-after-852712.html Accessed on April 19 2022.
28. Quoted in Mabel Collins, Light on the Path. (Boston: Cupples Upham & Co., 1886), p. 4.
29. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence. (Munich: BookRix GmbH Co.KG, 2019), Fragment III

Courtesy: Gandhi Marg, Volume 44 Number 2, July-September, 2022.

* SAHADEB PATRO was formerly Reader in English and American Literature, Stewart Science College, Cuttack. Presently he is the President Utkal Gandhi Smarak Nidhi, Cuttack, and Utkal Theosophical Federation, Bhubaneswar. Prof. Patro is the author of Infinity and Beyond (7 Volumes) and co-editor of Mysticism: A Literary Quest for Ultimate Reality. | E-mail: spatro61@rediffmail.com

* SWATI SAMANTARAY is currently working with KIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, as a Professor. Her field of interests are mysticism, existentialism, digital humanities, culture, and film studies. Her books include The Mystic Flights of Tagore, Lord Jagannath: The Enigmatic Emblem of Cosmic Consciousness, Mysticism: A Literary Quest for Ultimate Reality, and Folklore: A Key to Cultural Understanding. | E-mail: swati.sray@gmail.com