Foreword

The Navajivan Managing Trustee has fallen a victim to the prevailing fashion and illusion. He wants a 'Foreword' from me to a book of selections from Gandhiji's writings dealing with religion and God. The subject as well as the author ought to have saved Shri Jivanji from this foreword-hunger. But so strong is fashion that in spite of everything he has done like others and wants me to do what is wholly unnecessary.

God and therefore religion are fundamental necessities for normal healthy life - to the individual as well as to nations. Here in this book the reader will find Gandhiji speaking from his heart on various occasions in the course of thirty years of the maturest period of his life. What a modern man who did very great things thought on the subject of God and religion cannot fail to be instructive to educated men and women in these difficult days.

"We the human families are not all philosophers. Somehow or other we want something which we can touch, something which we can see, something before which we can kneel down. It does not matter whether it is a book or an empty stone-building or a stone-building inhabited by numerous figures": so wrote Gandhiji, defending temple-worship on the background of other prevailing religions.

"Hindu Dharma is like a boundless ocean teeming with priceless gems. The deeper you dive, the more treasures you find," said Gandhiji.

Anyone who desires to understand what sort of a man the Father of the Nation was, must read this book.

One may not want to learn anything about religion that is not in our Shastras or in other religious books. But here is a facet of the mind of a great man we love and to whom the nation is grateful. It has a value over and above a book of religious instruction.

C. Rajagopalachari

Madras, 11-4-'55