2. The Sermon on the Mount

I could not possibly read through the Old Testament. I read the book of Genesis, and the chapters that followed invariably sent me to sleep But just for the sake of being able to say that I had read it, I plodded through the other books with much difficulty and without the least interest or understanding. I disliked reading the book of Numbers.

But 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. The verses, "But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man take away thy coat let him have thy cloak too," delighted me beyond measure and put me in mind of Shamal Bhatt's "For a bowl of water, give a goodly meal", etc.

An Autobiography, p. 49, Edn. 1958

I have not been able to see any difference between the Sermon on the Mount and the Bhagavadgita. What the Sermon describes in a graphic manner, the Bhagavadgita reduces to a scientific formula. It may not be a scientific book in the accepted sense of the term, but it has argued out the law of love - the law of abandon as I would call it - in a scientific manner. The Sermon on the Mount gives the same law in wonderful language. The New Testament gave me comfort and boundless joy, as it came after the repulsion that parts of the Old had given me. Today supposing I was deprived of the Gita and forgot all its contents but had a copy of the Sermon, I should derive the same joy from it as I do from the Gila.

Young India, 22-12-1927

Christ, a Supreme Artist

Truth is the first thing to be sought for, and Beauty and Goodness will then be added unto you. Jesus was, to my mind, a supreme artist because he saw and expressed Truth; and so was Mahomed, the Koran being the most perfect composition in all Arabic literature - at any rate, that is what scholars say. It is because both of them strove first for Truth that the grace of expression naturally came in and yet neither Jesus nor Mahomed wrote on art. That is the Truth and Beauty I crave for, live for and would die for.

Young India, 20-1 1-1924