God is Omnipresent – Gandhi

God is Omnipresent – Gandhi

Om
The Supreme Ideal
Man’s Ultimate Aim is Realization of God.

God
is Sat-Chit-Ananda Existence, Knowledge, Power and Bliss.
He is an Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omniblissful Mysterious Power.

GOD IS OMNIPRESENT, OMNISCIENT AND OMNIPOTENT

God is not some person outside ourselves or away from the universe. He pervades everything and is omniscient as well as omnipotent. He does not need any praise or petitions. Being immanent in all beings, He hears everything and reads our innermost thoughts. He abides in our hearts and is nearer to us than the nails on our fingers.

God is then not a person. He is the all-pervading, all-powerful Spirit. Any one who hears Him in his heart has accession of a marvellous force or energy, comparable in its results to physical forces like steam or electricity but much more subtle.

Pathway to God
Part 1 : Intellectual Sadhana
CHAPTER ONE
GOD

God is One without a Second – Gandhi

God is one without a second – Gandhi

Om
The Supreme Ideal
Man’s Ultimate Aim is Realization of God.

God
is Sat-Chit-Ananda Existence, Knowledge, Power and Bliss.
He is an Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omniblissful Mysterious Power.

GOD IS ONE WITHOUT A SECOND

God is certainly One. He has no second. He is unfathomable, unknowable and unknown to the vast majority of mankind. He is everywhere. He sees without eyes and hears without ears. He is formless and indivisible. He is uncreate, has no father, mother or child; and yet He allows Himself to be worshipped as father, mother, wife and child. He allows Himself even to be worshipped as stock and stone, although He is none of these things. He is the most elusive. He is the nearest to us, if we would but know the fact. But He is farthest from us when we do not want to realize His omnipresence.

I dispute the description that Hindus believe in many Gods and are idolaters. They do say that there are many gods, but they also declare unmistakably that there is one God, the God of gods. It is, not therefore, proper to suggest that Hindus believe in many gods. They certainly believe in many worlds. Just as there is a world inhabited by men and another by beast, so also, is there one inhabited by superior beings called gods, whom we do not see but who nevertheless exist.

The whole mischief is created by the English rendering of the word देव or देवता (deva or devata) for which you have not found a better term than “god”. But God is Ishwara, Devadhideva, God of gods. So you see it is the word “God” used to describe different divine beings that has given rise to such confusion. I believe that I am a thorough Hindu but I never believe in many gods. Never even in my childhood did I hold that belief and no one ever taught me to do so.

Pathway to God
Part 1 : Intellectual Sadhana
CHAPTER ONE
GOD

Pathway to God – World – Gandhi

Pathway to God – World – Gandhi

Pathway to God
Part 1 : Intellectual Sadhana
CHAPTER THREE
WORLD

Om
The Supreme Ideal
Man’s Ultimate Aim is Realization of God.

God
is Sat-Chit-Ananda Existence, Knowledge, Power and Bliss.
He is an Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omniblissful Mysterious Power.

Our Soul
is A Spark of Divine Fire, A Drop in the Divine Ocean.

The World
is Full of Joy and Misery— Joy with God and Misery without Him.

Man’s Duty
is to realize God, serve Humanity, and Enjoy His Eternal Bliss.

WORLD

(1) THE WORLD IS ONE BODY
God has so ordered this world that no one can keep his goodness or badness exclusively to himself. The whole world is like the human body with its various members. Pain in one member is felt in the whole body. Rot in one part must inevitably poison the whole system. Let us, therefore, cease to think in terms of the whole country. We must put faith in God and be careful for nothing. We hold our destiny in our own hands and no one but ourselves can make or mar it.

(2) UNIVERSE—A FAMILY OF NATIONS
Nations cohere because there is mutual regard among the individuals composing them. Some day we must extend the nation law to the universe, even as we have extended the family law to form nations —a larger family. God has ordained that India should be such a nation.

Indeed, Hinduism teaches us to regard the whole humanity as one indivisible undivided family.

(3) THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Why is there evil in the world, is a difficult question to answer. I can only give what I may call a villager’s answer. If there is good, there must also be evil, just as where there is light there is also darkness. But it is true only so far as we human mortals are concerned. Before God there is nothing good, nothing evil. We may talk of His dispensation in human terms, but our language is not God’s.

I cannot account for the existence of evil by any rational method. To want to do so is to be coequal with God. I am therefore, humble enough to recognize evil as such. And I call God long suffering and patient, precisely because He permits evil in the world. I know that there is no evil in Him and yet if there is evil, He is the author of it and yet untouched by it.

(4) PAIR OF OPPOSITE FORCES
The distinction between good and evil thoughts is not unimportant. Nor do these thoughts come haphazard. They follow some law, which the scriptures have tried to enunciate. There are certain problems in mathematics, for the solution of which some workable assumptions have to be made. They help the solution of the problem. But they are purely imaginary, and have no other practical use. Similarly, psychologists have proceeded upon the assumption that a pair of opposite forces is warring against each other in the universe, of which one is divine and the other is devilish. The distinction is made by all the scriptures of the world. I say this distinction is imaginary. God is one, without a second. He alone is. He is indefinable. In reality there is no war between God and Satan.

(5) GOD’S HAND BEHIND GOOD AND EVIL
In strictly scientific sense, God is at the bottom of both good and evil. He directs the assassin’s dagger no less than the surgeon’s knife. But for all that, good and evil are, for human purposes, from each other, distinct and incompatible, being symbolical of Light and Darkness, God and Satan . . . respectively.

God’s hand is behind good, but in God’s hand it is not mere good. His hand is behind evil also but there it is no longer evil. ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ is our own imperfect language. God is above both good and evil.

It is we who entertain thoughts, and it is we ourselves who repulse them. We have, thus, to strive against ourselves. The scriptures have, therefore, said that there is duel in the world. This duel is imaginary, not real. We can, however, sustain ourselves in the world by assuming the existence of the imaginary duel
to be real.

(6) BLESSINGS OF CALAMITY
It is the universal experience that every calamity brings a sensible man down on his knees. He thinks that it is God’s answer to his sins and that he must henceforth behave better. His sins have left him hopelessly weak, and in his weakness he cried out to God for help. Thus millions of human beings used their personal calamities for self-improvement. Nations too have been known to invoke the assistance of God when calamities have overtaken them. They have abased themselves before God and appointed days of humiliation, prayer and purification.

Pathway to God – Soul – Gandhi

Pathway to God – Soul – Gandhi

Pathway to God
Part 1 : Intellectual Sadhana
CHAPTER TWO
SOUL

Om
The Supreme Ideal
Man’s Ultimate Aim is Realization of God.

God
is Sat-Chit-Ananda Existence, Knowledge, Power and Bliss.
He is an Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omniblissful Mysterious Power.

Our Soul
is A Spark of Divine Fire, A Drop in the Divine Ocean.

The World
is Full of Joy and Misery— Joy with God and Misery without Him.

Man’s Duty
is to realize God, serve Humanity, and Enjoy His Eternal Bliss.

SOUL

(1) SPARK OF DIVINITY

We may not be God, but we are of God—even as a little drop of water is of the ocean. Imagine it torn away from the ocean and flung millions of miles away. It becomes helpless, torn from its surroundings and cannot feel the might and majesty of the ocean. But if some one could point out to it that it is the ocean, its faith would revive, it would dance with joy and the whole of the might and majesty of the ocean would be reflected in it.

(2) MAN IS THE IMAGE OF GOD

Man alone is made in the image of God. That some of us do not recognize that status of ours, makes no difference, except that we do not get the benefit of the status, even as a lion brought up in the company of sheep, may not know his own status and therefore, does not receive its benefits; but it belongs to him, nevertheless, and the moment he realizes it, he begins to exercise his dominion over the sheep. But no sheep masquerading as a lion can ever attain the leonine status. And to prove the proposition, that man is made in the image of God, it is surely unnecessary to show that all men admittedly exhibit that image in their own person. It is enough to show that one man at least has done so. And will it be denied that the great religious teachers of mankind have exhibited the image of God in their persons ?

(3) LIFE IS A MERE BUBBLE

Our existence as embodied beings is purely momentary; what are a hundred years in Eternity? But if we shatter the chains of egotism, and melt into the ocean of humanity, we share its dignity. To feel that we are something, is to set up a barrier between God and ourselves; to cease feeling that we are something is to become one with God. A drop in the ocean partakes of the greatness of its parent, although it is unconscious of it. But it is dried up as soon as it enters upon an existence independent of the ocean. We do not exaggerate when we say that life is a bubble.

(4) LIFE AND DEATH

It is as clear to me as daylight that life and death are but phases of the same thing, the reverse and obverse of the same coin. In fact, tribulation and death, seem to me to present a phase far richer than happiness or life. What is life worth without trials and tribulations, which are the salt of life? … I want you all to treasure death and suffering more than life and to appreciate their cleansing and purifying character.

The body must suffer for its ill-deeds. We die to live once more, even as we live to die at last. Life, therefore, is not an occasion for joy, nor is death an occasion for sorrow. But there is one thing needful. We must ascertain our duty in life and continue to discharge it till we die.

Death is at any time blessed, but it is twice blessed for a warrior who dies for his cause, i.e. Truth. Death is no fiend, he is the truest of friends. He delivers us from agony. He helps us against ourselves. He ever gives us new chances, new hopes. He is like a sleep, a sweet restorer. Yet it is customary to mourn when a friend dies. The custom has no operation when the death is that of a martyr.

(5) FREEDOM OF CHOICE

Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man being a free agent, knows these distinctions and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute but when he follows his baser nature, can show himself lower than the brute.

But this free-will we enjoy is less than that of a passenger on a crowded deck… Man is the maker of his own destiny in the sense that he has freedom of choice as to the manner in which he uses his freedom. But he is no controller of results. The moment he thinks he is, he comes to grief.

It is man’s special privilege and pride to be gifted with the faculties of head and heart both, that he is a thinking no less than a feeling animal, as the very derivation of the word shows. … In man reason quickens and guides the feeling. In brute the soul lies dormant. To awaken the heart is to awaken the dormant soul, to awaken reason is to inculcate discrimination between good and evil.

(6) MAN’S PRIMARY DUTY

It is the duty of every human being to look carefully within and see himself as he is and spare no pains to improve himself in body, mind and soul. He should realize the mischief wrought by injustice, wickedness, vanity and the like and do his best to fight them.

Man’s estate is one of probation. During that period he is played upon by evil forces as well as good. He is ever prey to temptations. He has to prove his manliness by resisting and fighting temptations. He is no warrior who fights outside foes of his imagination and is powerless to lift his little finger against innumerable foes within or what is worse, mistakes them for friends.

It is not man’s duty to develop all his faculties to perfection; his duty is to develop all his Godward faculties to perfection and to suppress completely those of contrary tendencies.

It is inherent in man, imperfect though he is, ceaselessly to strive after perfection. In the attempt he falls into reverie. And just as a child tries to stand, falls down again and again and ultimately learns how to walk, even so, man, with all his intelligence, is a mere infant as compared to the infinite and ageless God.

The goal ever recedes from us. The greater the progress the greater the recognition of our unworthiness. Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.

Pathway to God – God – Gandhi

Pathway to God – God – Gandhi

Pathway to God
Part 1 : Intellectual Sadhana
CHAPTER ONE
GOD

Om
The Supreme Ideal
Man’s Ultimate Aim is Realization of God.

God
is Sat-Chit-Ananda Existence, Knowledge, Power and Bliss.
He is an Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omniblissful Mysterious Power.

Our Soul
is A Spark of Divine Fire, A Drop in the Divine Ocean.

The World
is Full of Joy and Misery— Joy with God and Misery without Him.

Man’s Duty
is to realize God, serve Humanity, and Enjoy His Eternal Bliss.

GOD

(1) GOD IS ONE, WITHOUT A SECOND

God is certainly One. He has no second. He is unfathomable, unknowable and unknown to the vast majority of mankind. He is everywhere. He sees without eyes and hears without ears. He is formless and indivisible. He is uncreate, has no father, mother or child; and yet He allows Himself to be worshipped as father, mother, wife and child. He allows Himself even to be worshipped as stock and stone, although He is none of these things. He is the most elusive. He is the nearest to us, if we would but know the fact. But He is farthest from us when we do not want to realize His omnipresence.

I dispute the description that Hindus believe in many Gods and are idolaters. They do say that there are many gods, but they also declare unmistakably that there is one God, the God of gods. It is, not therefore, proper to suggest that Hindus believe in many gods. They certainly believe in many worlds. Just as there is a world inhabited by men and another by beast, so also, is there one inhabited by superior beings called gods, whom we do not see but who nevertheless exist.

The whole mischief is created by the English rendering of the word देव or देवता (deva or devata) for which you have not found a better term than “god”. But God is Ishwara, Devadhideva, God of gods. So you see it is the word “God” used to describe different divine beings that has given rise to such confusion. I believe that I am a thorough Hindu but I never believe in many gods. Never even in my childhood did I hold that belief and no one ever taught me to do so.

(2) HE IS OMNIPRESENT, OMNISCIENT AND OMNIPOTENT

God is not some person outside ourselves or away from the universe. He pervades everything and is omniscient as well as omnipotent. He does not need any praise or petitions. Being immanent in all beings, He hears everything and reads our innermost thoughts. He abides in our hearts and is nearer to us than the nails on our fingers.

God is then not a person. He is the all-pervading, all-powerful Spirit. Any one who hears Him in his heart has accession of a marvellous force or energy, comparable in its results to physical forces like steam or electricity but much more subtle.

(3) HE IS A MYSTERIOUS POWER

There is an indefinable Mysterious Power that pervades everything. I feel it though I don’t see it. It is this Unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses.

I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing and ever dying, there is underlying all that change a Living Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. This informing Power or Spirit is God.

The truth is that God is the Force. He is the essence of life. He is pure, undefiled consciousness. He is eternal. And yet, strangely enough, all are not able to derive, either benefit from or shelter in the all-pervading Living Presence.

Electricity is a powerful force. Not all can benefit from it. It can only be produced by following certain laws. It is a lifeless force. Man can utilize it if he can labour hard enough to acquire the knowledge of its laws. The Living Force which we call God can similarly be followed if we know and follow His law leading to the discovery of Him in us.

God is an Unseen Power residing within us. There are many powers lying hidden within us and we discover them by constant struggle. Even so, we may find this Supreme Power, if we make deligent search with the fixed determination to find Him.

My God does not reside above. He has to be realized on earth. He is here, within you, within me. He is omnipotent and omnipresent. You need not think of the world beyond. If we can do our duty here, the beyond will take care of itself.

(4) THE SUPREME GOOD

Is this Power benevolent or malevolent? I see It as purely benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of death, life persists; in the midst of untruth, truth persists; in the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence, I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good.

God is wholly good. There is no evil in Him. God made man in His own image. Unfortunately for us, man has fashioned Him in his own. This arrogation has landed mankind in a sea of troubles. God is the Supreme Alchemist. In His presence all iron and dross turn into pure gold. Similarly does all evil turn into good.

Again God lives, but not as we. His creatures live but to die. But God is Life. Therefore, goodness and all it connotes is not an attribute. Goodness is God. Goodness conceived as apart from Him, is a lifeless thing and exists while it is a paying policy. So are all morals. If they are to live in us, they must be considered and cultivated in their relation to God. We try to become good, because we want to reach and realize God. All the dry ethics of the world turns to dust because apart from God they are lifeless. Coming from God they come with life in them. They become part of us and ennoble us.

(5) GOD IS TRUTH AND LOVE

The Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God. There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me. But I worship God as Truth only.

To me God is Truth and Love. God is ethics and morality; God is fearlessness. God is the source of Light and Life, and yet He is above and beyond all these.

God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. For in His boundless love, God permits the atheist to live. He is the searcher of the hearts. He knows us and our hearts better than we do ourselves. … He is personal God to those who need His personal presence. He is embodied to those who need His touch. He is the purest Essence. He is, to those who have faith. He is all things to all men.

(6) GOD IS SAT-CHIT-ANANDA

The word Satya (Truth) is derived from Sat which means “Being”. And nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God. In fact, it is more correct to say Truth is God than to say God is Truth.

And where there is Truth, there is also Knowledge, which is true. Where there is no Truth, there can be no true knowledge. That is why the word Chit or Knowledge is associated with the name of God. And where there is true Knowledge, there is always Bliss (Ananda). Sorrow has no place there. And even as Truth is Eternal, so is the Bliss derived from it. Hence we know God as Sat- Chit-Ananda, one who combines in Himself, Truth, Knowledge and Bliss.

(7) HE Is LAW ETERNAL

God is an Idea, Law Himself. … He and His Law abide everywhere and govern everything. Therefore, though I do not think that He answers in every detail, every request of ours, there is no doubt that He rules our actions and I literally believe that not a blade of grass grows or moves without His will.

I do feel that there is orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable Law governing everything and every being that lives and moves. It is not a blind law, for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings. . . . The Law and the Law-giver are one. I may not deny the Law or Law-giver, because I know so little about It or Him. Even as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail nothing, so will not my denial of God and His Law, liberate me from its operation; whereas, humble and mute acceptance of Divine Authority makes life’s journey easier even as acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier.

(8) HIS INFINITE MERCY

God is, even though the whole world deny Him. God embraces not only this tiny globe of ours, but millions and billions of such globes. How can we, little crawling creatures so utterly helpless as He has made us, how could we possibly measure His greatness, His boundless love, His infinite compassion? So great is His infinite love and pity that He allows man insolently to deny Him, wrangle about Him, and cut the throats of his fellowmen. How can we measure the greatness of God, who is so forgiving, so divine ?

He allows us freedom and yet His compassion commands obedience to His Will. But if anyone of us disdains to bow to His Will, He says: “So be it.” “My sun will shine no less for thee, My clouds will rain no less for thee. I need not force thee to accept My sway.” Of such a God let the ignorant dispute the existence. I am one of the millions of wise men who believe in Him and am never tired of bowing to Him and singing His glory.

God is the hardest task-master, I have known on earth. He tries you through and through. And when you find your faith is failing, or your body is failing you, and you are sinking, He comes to your assistance somehow or other and proves to you that you must not lose your faith and that He is always at your beck and call, but on His terms. So I have found. I cannot recall a single instance when at the eleventh hour, He has forsaken me.

(9) HE HAS MANY NAMES

There is only one omnipotent and omnipresent God. He is named variously and we remember Him by the name which is most familiar to us. Each person can choose the name that appeals most to him. Ishwara, Allah, Khuda, God mean the same.

God has a thousand names, or rather, He is nameless. We may worship or pray to Him by whichever name that pleases us. All worship the same Spirit, but as all foods do not agree with all, all names do not appeal to all. Each chooses the name according to His associations and He being the Indweller, All-Powerful and Omniscient, knows our inmost feelings and responds to us according to our deserts.

In my opinion, Rama, Rahaman, Ahurmazda, God or Krishna, are all attempts on the part of man to name that invisible Force. . . . Man can only conceive God within the limitations of his own mind. What matters, then, whether one man worships God as a person and another as Force? Both do right according to their lights. One need only remember that God is the Force among all the forces. All other forces are material. But God is the Vital Force or Spirit which is all- pervading, all-embracing and therefore beyond human ken.

Daridranarayan is one of millions of names by which humanity knows God who is unnameable and unfathomable by human understanding. And it means God of the poor, God appearing in the hearts of the poor.

(10) HIS INCARNATIONS

God is not a person. To affirm that He descends to earth every now and again, in the form of human being, is a partial truth, which merely signifies that such a person lives near to God. Inasmuch as God is omnipresent, He dwells within every human being and all may, therefore, be said to be incarnations of Him. But this leads us nowhere. Rama, Krishna, etc. are called incarnations of God because we attribute divine qualities to them. Whether they actually lived or not does not affect the picture of them in man’s mind.

Nonviolence is superior to violence – Mahatma Gandhi

Nonviolence is superior to violence


I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence.

But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness only when there is the power to punish; it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature. A mouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces by her. I therefore appreciate the sentiment of those who cry out for the condign punishment of General Dyer and his ilk. They would tear him to pieces, if they could. But I do not believe India to be helpless. I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature. Only I want to use India’s and my strength for a better purpose.

Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. An average Zulu is any way more than a match for an average Englishman in bodily capacity. But he flees from an English boy, because he fears the boy’s revolver or those who will use it for him. He fears death and is nerveless in spite of his burly figure. We in India may in a moment realize that one hundred thousand Englishmen need not frighten three hundred million human beings. A definite forgiveness would, therefore, mean a definite recognition of our strength.

With enlightened forgiveness must come a mighty wave of strength in us, which would make it impossible for a Dyer and a Frank Johnson to heap affront on India’s devoted head. It matters little to me that for the moment I do not drive my point home. We feel too downtrodden not to be angry and revengeful. But I must not refrain from saying that India can gain more by waiving the right of punishment. We have better work to do, a better mission to deliver to the world.

I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the Rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute, and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law — to the strength of the spirit.

I have therefore ventured to place before India the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For Satyagraha and its offshoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering. The Rishis, who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they realized their uselessness, and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through violence but through nonviolence.

Nonviolence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means putting of one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honour, his religion, his soul, and lay the foundation for that empire’s fall or its regeneration.

And so I am not pleading for India to practise non-violence because she is weak. I want her to practise nonviolence being conscious of her strength and power. No training in arms is required for realization of her strength. We seem to need it, because we seem to think that we are but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize that she has a soul that cannot perish, and that can rise triumphant above every physical weakness and defy the physical combination of a whole world. What is the meaning of Rama, a mere human being, with his host of monkeys, pitting himself against the insolent strength of ten-headed Ravana surrounded in supposed safety by the raging waters on all sides of Lanka? Does it not mean the conquest of physical might by spiritual strength?

However, being a practical man, I do not wait till India recognizes the practicability of the spiritual life in the political world. India considers herself to be powerless and paralyzed before the machine guns, the tanks and the aeroplanes of the English, and takes up non-co-operation out of her weakness. It must still serve the same purpose, namely, bring her delivery from the crushing weight of British injustice, if a sufficient number of people practise it.

If India takes up the doctrine of the sword, she may gain momentary victory. Then India will cease to be the pride of my heart. I am wedded to India because I owe my all to her. I believe absolutely that she has a mission for the world. She is not to copy Europe blindly. India’s acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be the hour of my trial. I hope I shall not be found wanting. My religion has no geographical limits. If I have a living faith in it, it will transcend my love for India herself. My life is dedicated to the service of India through the religion of non-violence which I believe to be the root of Hinduism.

My Non-Violence
By M. K. Gandhi
Compiled By : Sailesh Kumar Bandopadhyaya
01. The Doctrine of the Sword
Young India, 11-8-1920

Definition of Religion – Mahatma Gandhi

Definition of Religion (Mahatma Gandhi)

By religion, I do not mean formal religion or customary religion, but that religion which underlies all religions, which brings us face to face with our Maker.
M. K. Gandhi, By Joseph J. Doke, 1909, p. 7

Religion should pervade every one of our actions. Here religion does not mean sectarianism. It means a belief in ordered moral government of the universe. It is not less real because it is unseen. This religion transcends Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. It does not supersede them. It harmonizes them and gives them reality.
Harijan, 10-2-’40 p. 445

Let me explain what I mean by religion. It is not the Hindu religion which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and whichever purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly restless until it has found itself, known its Maker and appreciated the true correspondence between the Maker and itself.
Young India, 12-5-’20, p. 2

No man can live without religion. There are some who in the egotism of their reason declare that they have nothing to do with religion. But it is like a man saying that he breathes but that he has no nose. Whether by reason, or by instinct, or by superstition, man acknowledges some sort of relationship with the divine. The rankest agnostic or atheist does acknowledge the need of a moral principle, and associates something good with its observance and something bad with its non-observance. Bradlaugh, whose atheism is well-known, always insisted on proclaiming his innermost conviction. He had to suffer a lot for thus speaking the truth, but he delighted in it and said that truth is its own reward. Not that he was quite insensible to the joy resulting from the observance of truth. This joy however is not at all worldly, but springs out of communion with the divine. That is why I have said that even a man who disowns religion cannot and does not live without religion.
Young India, 23-1-’30, p. 2

My Religion
By M.K.Gandhi
What I mean by Religion
01 Definition of Religion

Gandhi’s Views On Religion and God

Gandhi’s Views On Religion and God

There is an indefinable mysterious Power that pervades everything. I feel that Power that pervades everything. I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent.
Young India, 11 Oct. 1928

To me God is Truth and Love; God is ethics and morality; God is fearlessness. God is the source of Light and Life and yet He is above and beyond all these, God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. For in His boundless love God permits the atheist to live.
Young India, 5 March 1925

Belief in one God is the corner-stone of all religions. But I do not foresee a time when there would be only one religion on earth in practice. In theory, since there is one God, there can be only one religion. But in practice, no two persons I have known have had the same identical conception of God. Therefore, there will perhaps always be different religions answering to different temperaments and climate conditions.
Harijan, Feb.1934

I recognize no God except the God that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb millions. They do not recognize his presence; I do. And, I worship the God that is Truth or Truth which is God, through the service of these millions.
Harijan, 11 March 1939