The Ideal Of Gandhi

By Swami Premananda

(The author focuses on the two most important aspects of Gandhi's character - Truth and Love and how he tried to teach both to the entire human race. Gandhi believed that on a day to day basis one could live a life without violence and with complete truth).

January 30, 1976 at the Dedication of the Gandhi Memorial Center, USA

"We are constantly being told about experiments which go on in the laboratories of science and technology. Greater experiments, however, have been made in the inner lives of godly souls. What tremendous spiritual investigations Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed conducted within their hearts, minds and souls, not in search of some limited aspect of truth as it applies to chemistry, physics, medicine or astronomy, but in quest of truth of God itself.

We are now thinking of spiritual life as it really is: The Truth of God! What is it? Gandhi must have contemplated within himself. He saw that it really means the total truth - the truth by which all negativeness, whether it can be social, political or economic can be overcome. And what is this total truth? The answer is clear. It has to be love. Yes, love is the truth of God. Therefore, Truth is God, and Love is God.

By the power of love we can overcome all negativeness, limitations, or finiteness that exists within us as well as that which exists in the world. That became the philosophy of Gandhi. Understanding Gandhi's personal experiment, you can understand the lives of Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, St. Francis, Shankaracharya, Chaitanya and other great souls, all of who, made similar experiments.

Having proved to himself that by the love of God he could overcome his own negativeness, Gandhi prepared to test an even broader question: Can the negativeness of human society be overcome by the power of the love of God?

No one had ever made such an experiment. Consider Jesus or Buddha, just to mention two godly souls. When the question was raised," What are your thoughts regarding the problems of life?" Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of third world, I have come to give you the spiritual."

Buddha's reply was similar. He became a monk. But Gandhi determined to see whether the spiritual power within us was applicable to everyday existence, and to human conduct in our social, political and economic life. Such was Gandhi's self-dedication.

Gandhi's message brings the dawn of a new spiritual era. Its glory is yet to come for the majority of mankind to witness.

I have seen and known this man. I have watched his philosophy. I know the power of his ideals. Just remember this: To him service was the total expression of love, the truth of God."

Source: The Gandhi Message, Summer Solstice, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, 2002