Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's ideas are regarded by many sensitive, reasonable people as having considerable validity. One of Gandhi's many biographers, Dr. Saroj Malik, remarked about the positive effect Gandhian philosophy has had on the world.
Gandhi today is regarded by many the world over as one whose thought is for the whole of
humanity and for all time to come. Though he believed that Truth and non-violence are as old as
the hills, yet even so Gandhi was a world teacher, where he keeps old values before humanity, but
gives them a new significance and new depth of meaning. Christ said that he had come to fulfill
the law and not destroy it, but the law can be truly fulfilled only when its scope is expanded to
meet new situations. That is the relevance of Gandhiji for the contemporary world. He has
restated truth and non-violence to cover new ground for which there are only slight hints in the
old dispensation of the world.(1)
Mahatma Gandhi viewed living as a continual, evolutionary process, which is progressing according to God's intended will. We have said that Gandhi's philosophy is what is known as process philosophy. While traditions, like the trunk of a tree, provide strong foundations and continually remind travelers which methods are valid and which are not, past philosophical principles and ideals are sometimes insufficient justification for continuing forward in a linear direction because following a predetermined, non-variable course might lead into an abyss. In Gandhi's view, there are many paths, like the many branches of a tree, and each branch can lead upward toward greater Truth. Everything in the universe except God's Absolute Truth, which mankind cannot yet completely know, is subject to ongoing change. The life-traveler and seeker of Truth must be prepared to change directions many times along his or her way, and by doing so, while continually remaining focused on seeking Truth, might come nearer to God's intended perfection. In this view, whether people realize it or not, they are struggling and slowly evolving toward natural spiritual perfection. Gandhi had faith that over an extended period of time, people might become better and more Godlike if they discipline themselves to renounce excessive selfish desires and replace those desires with love for all of God's creation, including mankind and the lesser creatures. In relation to this, the Bhagavad-Gita, Gandhi's guiding scriptural source, states:
Detached from external contacts,
he discovers joy in himself;
joined by discipline to the infinite spirit,
the self attains inexhaustible joy.
Delights from external objects
are wombs of suffering;
in their beginning is their end,
and no wise man delights in them...
A man able to endure
the force of desire and anger
before giving up his body
is disciplined and joyful...
Truly free is the sage who controls
his senses, mind and understanding,
who focuses on freedom
and dispels desire, fear, and anger.(2)
Gandhi's view toward daily life and God was holistic. The elements of human existence; spirituality, love, relationships and work for sustenance, Gandhi felt, could not long remain separated or compartmentalized in the day-to-day existence of people or they would begin to suffer; their lives and thinking would become fragmented and disharmonious. He felt that people delude themselves when they desire excessive pleasures and material prosperity above and beyond their legitimate needs. Excessive desire, Gandhi felt, caused many of the problems of humankind. Human desire, when given full rein, often allows people to justify oppressing other humans and nature itself with falsely-founded and selfish rationalized beliefs that when their material desires are fulfilled, they will somehow discover peace and happiness. Gandhi felt that excessive desire often puts people at odds with God's Truth and that desire must be overcome with self-discipline.
There are many elements of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy, but there are three guiding principles. The first principle is Truth (Satya). Gandhi's philosophical Truth is not propositional truth, but God's Truth which might be thought of as Divine Will or a universal guiding force for all things. The search for God's Truth is the most important element in Ghandian philosophy and without this spiritual element, his philosophy loses its force. The second principle is ahimsa which means adopting a non-violent stance toward other people and other living sentient creatures (creatures that are complex enough to endure suffering), and also toward non-sentient nature to a lesser degree, although Gandhi was pragmatic in relation to people obtaining the practical necessities for their survival. Ahimsa should not be confused with non-resistance or cowardice. Gandhian ahimsa means overcoming fear, courageously facing evil with Truth and refusing to retreat or react violently to evil, even when faced with coercion, threat of violence or physical death. The third principle that gives Gandhian philosophy its practical, applicable strength is Satyagraha, which is but an active, logical extension of courage demanded by the concept of ahimsa. Satyagraha, is non-violent action. It is active, non-violent resistance where people actively confront oppressors with Truth and refuse to allow oppressors to continue their oppression. In its greater meaning, Satyagraha also means forcing oppressors to face truth, with the use of non-violent methods, including suffering and love. This is true non-violent resistance.
Truth requires more lengthy discussion since it is the guiding principle from which all other
principles of Gandhian philosophy follow. Since a Gandhian philosophical interpretation of Truth
might appear unfamiliar to some Westerners, it necessarily requires a comparison of traditional
Western thought and Eastern thought in relation to spirituality and Truth so that
misunderstandings regarding similar terms with somewhat different interpreted meanings might be
dispelled. In this discussion, the terms "Spiritual Otherness or Ultimacy" will be used when
discussing the concept of the Divine as related to Buddhism, which does not allow a personified
God as Ultimate. In relation to the other major religions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and some
forms of Hinduism, the term "God" may be used in relation to the Divine, although the term most
certainly has different meanings from the perspectives of those respective religions.
Truth (Satya)
In Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy, adherents must seek Truth (Satya) to find peace on this earth and in any envisioned transcendent spiritual future for their souls. In Gandhi's thinking, Satya is not truth in an ordinary meaning of the term, where a certain attribute corresponds with a readily-observable or logically-justified fact. It is a broader, more meaningful Truth which, in the writings of Gandhi, appears to be thought of as the near-equivalent of God or other envisioned concepts of transcendent Otherness as Ultimate Truth reveals Itself to believers of different spiritual faiths and beliefs. Gandhi often repeated Ramakrishna's famous slogan, "All Religions are True," which, from a strictly logical or religion-specific doctrinal view, appears to be false, even though Gandhi qualified this phrase by noting that there is some error in all religions, even in his own Hindu religion.(3) "This aspect of Gandhi's thinking is typical of Indian philosophy, which admits relative truth and degrees of truth, without references to Aristotelian logic, according to which ordinary truth is an absolute quality and a proposition must be either true or false."(4)
Truth, in the Gandhian sense, appears to be a verb, not a noun. It means dynamically seeking and following the will of God or the spiritual Ultimate as it is revealed within the heart of the believer who seeks to unify himself or herself with God or spiritual Ultimacy. In one instance, Gandhi explained that this Truth "is what the voice within tells you."(5) In his autobiography, Gandhi gave this vision of Truth a much greater meaning than mere human conscience. He explained that he spent his entire lifetime searching for this Truth, stating, "my uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth... that the only means for the realization of [God's] Truth is ahimsa [courageous non-violence toward sentient living beings]."(6) In this statement, there is also an implication that one can only find God by seeking His Truth which might be revealed to the seeker in an infinite number of ways in daily life and in spiritual meditation if the seeker has renounced excessive desire for the pleasures of life and has prepared his or her heart to receive this Truth through devotion. Therefore, if seeking unification with God or the spiritual Ultimate can be thought of as the highest ideal for any human being, then discovering God through devotion to Truth, as it is revealed in the hearts of diverse seekers, becomes a way to find God.
From a rational perspective, man cannot completely know God's will or plan, other than in glimpses as it has been revealed by God or through His messengers, prophets and inspired individuals throughout the centuries. It is left to the seeker to continually search for Truth in his or her daily life. If, in his or her search for God's Truth, a person gains increased knowledge of God, then reasonably, more Truth might be revealed to the searcher. However, as more Truth is revealed, more questions concerning God's will and Ultimate Truth are raised and the goal of knowing Ultimate or Divine Truth becomes an ever-receding and distant proposition for living human beings. From his Eastern perspective, Mahatma Gandhi recognized this. In a particularly beautiful passage, he wrote:
This Truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the
relative truth of our conception, but 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. I have
not found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in
pursuit of this quest...But as long as I have not realized this Absolute Truth, so long must I hold
by the relative truth as I have conceived it. That relative truth must, meanwhile be my beacon, my
shield and buckler... Often in my progress I have had faint glimpses of the Absolute Truth, God,
and daily the conviction is growing upon me that He alone is real and all else is unreal.(7)
If Gandhi's statement appears somewhat confusing in relation to understanding what he meant by equating God and Truth, especially in a relative way versus an absolute way, this can be attributed to Gandhi's belief in Eastern religious-philosophical traditions, visions of God and how one attains a relationship with God. Hindu and the Eastern visions of mankind attaining a relationship with God are at the foundations of Gandhian philosophy. The fact that Gandhi remarked, "that 'to find truth is to realize oneself and one's destiny' suggests that his concept [of Truth] approaches that of ultimate reality, the Brahman [highest level] of Advaita [Veyanta] in [Hindu] philosophy, the single entity underlying all things."(8)
For many Westerners and others accustomed to dualism, where the spiritual vision is separated from the reasonable and rational ordinary vision of life to some extent, it can be argued that there is also some mental separation of the concept of truth (in the ordinary sense) from the spiritual vision of God and God's Truth. In the dualistic system, the rational vision of truth must be proven with readily-observable criteria or must be reasonably concluded from a logical reasoning process. This might create some conflict in the minds of reason-oriented individuals in relation to the idea of Ultimate Truth which is not easily-proven with ordinary logic and must therefore rely heavily on spiritual belief. For the Western believer, a mental vision of Ultimate Truth becomes reasonable when one realizes that people cannot through ordinary human reason come to completely know God's Truth even though the manifestations of the universe itself, including one's life and being, reasonably prevent a denial of Its existence. Western (and Eastern) believers know that God or spiritual Ultimacy exists and that any knowledge of God's Truth comes through the only avenues available to earth-bound humans: mystical apprehensions of Its existence combined with belief through faith. Three things, therefore, are needed for one to believe in God or the spiritual Ultimate: knowledge that God or the spiritual Ultimate cannot be reasonably denied, a mystical apprehension within one's being that God or spiritual Ultimacy exists and forms a basis for the workings of the universe, and a sincere belief in the guiding powers of this force of Spiritual Otherness. When these three criteria are met in the mind and heart of the believer, the existence of God or spiritual Ultimacy then becomes reasonable.
Because of Western dualism's heavy emphasis on ordinary rational thought processes and its distrust of things that cannot be logically and positively proven, it can be asserted that reason-based dualism does produce considerable material progress for mankind, but that dualism's shortcomings might be said to be derived from its overemphasis on ordinary reasoning processes in attempting to know God or Ultimate Truth. Too often, because of a Western distrust of the mystical elements and emotions in one's being, the search for God's Truth is relegated to a different sphere of thought where the existence of Ultimate Truth is separated from daily life and thought in the mind of the believer. In dualism, this can lead to some separation of the concept of (ordinary) truth from the idea of the existence of God with the overall concept of truth taking on non-divine, somewhat utilitarian connotations that keeps it apart from conceptions of doing God's will (Truth) in the mind of the dualist.
In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the believer certainly has to eventually reach an understanding of truth in the sense that one must become truthful with God, oneself and the world before attaining a satisfactory relationship with the Divine, and believers must do it rather quickly, within the short span of one lifetime. However, this truthfulness is seen as but one important step in the overall process of discovering God through faith and (or) obedience to God's scriptural laws, and sometimes the apprehension of what the person feels is "right" according to God's Truth is pushed aside in favor of following a logically rationalized course of action. Dualistic separation of Western and other monotheistic spiritual belief systems from ordinary daily affairs, which are often governed by pragmatic, utilitarian reasoning to a large extent, has sometimes caused Westerners problems in relation moral and ethical issues.
Leo Tolstoy believed that dualism has caused some Christians to ignore the basic imperatives of Jesus's teachings which he felt were at the eternal heart of true Christianity. In a fiery passage that indicates he found this separation of spirituality from daily life appalling, Tolstoy explained:
People can, and do live the reasonable and harmonious life natural to them, only when they are
united in their understanding in the meaning of life...the discord between the life of the people
who have not kept pace with the religious elucidation of the meaning of life, and the guidance for
conduct flowing therefrom, has never been so great as it now is among the Christian nations, who
have not accepted in its true meaning the Christian teaching revealed to them and the guidance for
conduct flowing therefrom... This has come about because the people of the Christian world,
having accepted as Christianity, a Church teaching which fundamentally differs from heathenism
only by its insincerity and artificiality, soon ceased to believe in this teaching, and did not replace
it by another....a state in which the majority know no explanation of the meaning of their life: that
is to say, have no religion, faith, or general guidance for their conduct. The majority of
men...though externally they hold the old, Church faith, no longer believe in it, and are not guided
by it in their lives... The so-called educated classes--either consciously no longer believe in
anything, or the smaller part of them..., sincerely believing in a teaching incompatible with life and
that lags behind it, try to justify their faith by all sorts of complicated sophistries.(9)
Tolstoy recognized two major difficulties in nineteenth-century Christianity (which might also apply to Judaism and Islam) and which appear to hold true today in a materialistic world. One difficulty is that dualism and resulting materialism have caused true Christianity to become distorted in order to accommodate materialistic secular interests and has sometimes ignored Jesus's non-violent teachings and His law of love that He taught in the Sermon on The Mount and in The Gospels. With religious approval in some instances, Christendom has sometimes continued to operate with what it believes to be Old Testament-justified ("an eye for an eye") violence. This has caused some distrust for Christianity as a whole, especially among non-Christians, such as Gandhi, who have sometimes borne the burden of this violence. The second difficulty has to do with some Christians' failing to seriously consider expanding their belief system(s) to accommodate reason-based scientific concepts such as evolution and discoveries in physics. These discoveries that the universe and people are continually changing and evolving, tend to displace the static Western, linear, Aristotelian philosophical belief system which allowed little room for an evolution of thinking in relation to what is true and what is untrue, especially in relation to degrees of truth, which promotes dualism and minimizes the spiritual element of life for some people. When recent scientific theories such as evolution and the Big Bang Theory are considered, they naturally require some expansion of the Christian vision of the individual's relationship with Ultimate Reality or at least a spiritual recognition that earth-bound individuals cannot yet know God's Absolute Truth or Will until that knowledge is given to them by God Himself. An increasing dualism results from this lack of reconciliation between the spiritual and the rational, and since contemporary daily life demands reason-based solutions, it is easy to see how the spirituality of dualistic humans might be minimized. This same scenario, with exceptions due to specific beliefs, might also be said to hold true for Judaism and Islam to a greater or lesser extent, depending on specific individual and group beliefs. The difficulty of the Western religions expanding their belief systems to accommodate contemporary discoveries, it can be asserted, is doctrinal and is due to linear aspects of Western thinking in which reality is often seen as being static. While foundations remain true, some belief systems appear to be unwilling or are fearful of taking accommodating steps that might lead in directions of greater spiritual truth which would fit the contemporary world view that most people hold.
In Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, words defining such concepts as God, Vishnu, Rama, Krishna or the Great Silence, in their relationship to the concept of Ultimate Truth, appear to be somewhat more homogeneous and integrated in meaning, and truth, in the ordinary sense, appears to be thought of as being more closely related to Truth in the divine sense, at least in Gandhian thought. It must be emphasized that this does not mean that the term Truth, in the divine sense, possesses an entirely different meaning because of the different ways people envision God or Divine Otherness. Neither does it in any way invalidate the Christian, Jewish and Islamic visions of God and His relationship to Divine Truth. Divine Truth means much the same thing in all religions that worship God or envision Divine Ultimacy, and, in most cases, this is thought of as Divine Love. However, it can be argued that in Eastern religions, devotion to Truth and a more flexibly apprehended Way of Truth is believed to put one into direct contact with or "enlighten" one into direct harmony with Divine Otherness and an immediate oneness, with some accompanying spiritual peace, develops between Divine Otherness and the believer. In these religions, it appears that the believer's main aim is to maintain this harmony and oneness for an extended period of time so that permanent eternal peace might eventually be found at some point in the future of the soul. Where Christians believe in salvation through acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior, and Jews and Moslems believe that salvation is attained by closely following God's given scriptural Laws, Hindus and Buddhists believe that the Way to salvation is through the elimination of disharmonious self-serving human beliefs and violent actions that conflict with the Truth of Divine Will. This is, incidentally, how Tolstoy believed "true" Christians would feel about their relationship with God if they followed Jesus's teachings. Since, in Hinduism, God's Truth is believed to come into the believer's heart when it has been purged of evil intent and becomes pure, the believer must make his or her heart more perfect in order to attain divine Truth. While Buddhists carry this principle to greater extremes in recognizing that a unification with Ultimacy is difficult to attain, like the Hindus they believe that purification of the heart will ultimately enlighten and unify the true believer with Ultimate Truth. In both Hinduism and Buddhism, this Truth is equated with non-violent intent and perfect love. Therefore, it might be argued that in the Eastern religions, belief in Ultimate Truth becomes more intertwined with ordinary daily life and possibly somewhat less dualism exists in them because believers are less devoted to patterns of linear reasoning. It can be said, therefore, that there is considerable difference in how Truth is viewed in Hinduism and in Buddhism as opposed to how it is presently viewed in Western religions and Islam. This difference is due, in part, to differences in basic doctrines on how to attain unification with God or Divine Otherness. As was mentioned above, Christians, Jews and Moslems have to find the way to salvation in a single lifetime or the soul is believed to be lost for eternity. Allowance for normal human error must at least be partially recognized and built into the theological belief systems. This is usually accomplished by recognizing that mankind has a sinful nature, and that error must be overcome through faith and God's forgiveness. In these belief systems, there must be some recognition that humans often fail and that continual striving to have faith and (or) obey the Law is taken into account by God, especially the sincerity of the effort, and that God does forgive frail human errors through His divine love. Arguably, error-allowance and some relativity does exist and must exist, but there is also an immediate urgency or compacted tightness in Western and Islamic belief systems that demands continual striving if one is to deserve heaven upon death, which might come at any moment. It might be argued that this psychologically motivates the believer to become more action-oriented in relation to solving moral dilemmas. Moral problems must be resolved as soon as they arise, or they must be justified in some way that allows the believer an escape from his or her dilemma. The Christian, while perhaps being allowed more room for error than Jewish and Moslem believers, is faced with making the ultimate decision to believe as he or she moves steadily toward the end of an uncertain life. The psychological pressure to put aside the sinful human nature and believe is ever-increasing as the time of reckoning with death grows nearer. This might have considerable psychological impact on everyday affairs with people possibly perceiving that there is an immediacy to life that cannot be denied. A look at Western civilization will confirm that many Westerners are action-oriented and have little patience with far-reaching goals that might require generations to accomplish. It can be argued that goal-setting is often for the short term and that people often demand immediate solutions to problems, especially moral problems, but in some cases that these solutions are short-sighted.
In the Eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, even though there are certainly divinely-inspired laws to be obeyed, the believer might not feel that complete unification with God or the Ultimate can be attained during a single lifetime. At death, the soul is believed to be reincarnated and cycled through many more births, lives and deaths until it attains increasingly higher levels of devotion and perfection, finally attaining the enlightened purity needed to join in a final unification with God or Divine Ultimacy. It might be argued by some that this is perhaps the most difficult of all ways to earn salvation because the Way to salvation is dependent on how devoted the imperfect person is in each earthly life. On the other hand, Easterners might suggest that the Christian way is perhaps too easy, and considering mankind's human tendency toward selfish, sinful behavior, one lifetime might not be long enough to purify the soul and earn the right to be unified with God as is required of Christians, Jews and Moslems.
In Hinduism and Buddhism, if the person is especially sinful in one life, the debt causes rebirth of the soul to a lower station in the next life and compensatory suffering must be endured until the soul's debt is repaid through extraordinary devotion, good works and love. The relationship of the soul to Divine Otherness is always dependent on past and present earthly actions. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna explains:
Without faith in sacred duty,
men fail to reach me, Arjuna;
they return to the cycle
of death and rebirth.(10)
Through many rebirths, the believer has many chances to raise himself or herself to increasingly higher levels of Truth until the soul is united with God, Truth or Divine Ultimacy and no longer has to suffer continuous, ever-changing cycles of birth, life and death with all of life's accompanying joys, sorrows and suffering. In regard to discipline needed, Krishna explained:
The man of discipline, striving
with effort, purified of his sins,
perfected through many births,
finds a higher way.(11)
In these religions, the difficulty of reaching the kind of perfection needed to attain final and complete unification with God or Divine Otherness is humbling because of the high standard of spiritual perfection required by them. Mahatma Gandhi, for all of his devotion, felt that he was but an unworthy searcher for Divine Truth. In regard to the humbleness and devotion needed, he explained:
The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after Truth should be so humble himself
that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not until then, will he have a glimpse of
[Divine] Truth.(12)
From the above discussion, it becomes clearer why Mahatma Gandhi felt that discovering Truth is the equivalent of finding God. For a devoted Hindu such as Gandhi, the approach toward salvation required continual dedicated service and daily utilitarian devotion to the ideal of a more divine and powerful vision of Truth than ordinary logic-based truth would imply. In addition to this, Gandhi felt that change and human evolution in spiritual and practical thought is a naturally-continuing process, that attaining perfection might take many lifetimes and that the Truth discovered in one lifetime is a stepping stone to Truth that might be discovered in a future life. This Truth might not mean the same things to the believer in the future that it means in the present. From his Hindu perspective, Gandhi understood that any form of idealized perfection is very difficult to attain, but he had faith that mankind is continually evolving toward perfection and is required to continually strive toward that end. In the Bhagavad Gita, God in the incarnation of Krishna explains that attaining perfection is not necessarily the way to salvation, but that devotion to God's Truth is salvation. This implies that there is a possibility of salvation through grace if the believer is devout enough. Krishna explains:
His spirit quickens to sacred duty,
and he finds eternal peace;
Arjuna, know that no one
devoted to me is lost.
Keep men in your mind and devotion,
Sacrifice to me, bow to me,
discipline your self toward me,
and you will reach me!(13)
From this passage it becomes clear that the Gita implies that there is hope of salvation through God's grace in Hinduism, but that devotion and sacrifice are at the root of this salvation. In relation to this, Gandhi mentioned a story from his childhood which confirms the Hindu belief that God is active in the daily lives of believers who have enough faith, and that Divine Truth and God might be thought of as being the same spiritual entities.
When Gandhi was a small boy and became afraid, his nurse taught him to speak the Ramanama of God in the form of Rama. "One of the commonest ejaculations of popular north Indian Vaisnavism [popular Hinduism], is Ram-nam sac hai, 'The Name of Ram is true (or is Truth)." Since the modern Indian sac means the same thing as the sanskrit satya and may be either an adjective or a noun, what Gandhi's nurse taught him is one possible source of his often equating God with Truth.(14) A further confirmation of the devoutness of Gandhi's belief that focusing on God's truth can relieve one from the fears of the present occurred when he was fatally shot by an assassin. It is commonly known that at the moment of his death, Gandhi called out, "Oh Ram! [Oh God!]." He remained sincerely faithful to the end.
Truth for Gandhi also seems to incorporate some of the content of the pregnant Indian word Dharma, especially in its Buddhist usage, as the eternal moral law by following which man may achieve bliss. His knowledge of Buddhism does not appear to have been very profound and, as was seen in Section I, came primarily from his study of Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia which is a second-hand source. "The coincidence is striking, however, for Buddhism tends to exalt Dharma to the status of divinity, and in Mahayana Buddhism, the Absolute is often called Dharmakaya, The Body of Dharma."(15) Thus, as asserted at the beginning of this discussion, the Gandhian meaning of Truth is much more homogeneous with Hindu and Buddhist visions of Ultimate Truth or God than Westerners and others possessing dualistic, logic-based thought systems would usually understand it.
As was seen earlier, both Hinduism and Buddhism see life, death, rebirth and the changing world
as a continually evolving theological system that leads devoted believers toward God or Ultimate
Reality. This places connotations of change and progressive evolution on all things understood by
mankind, including mankind's understanding of Truth in both a utilitarian and a divine sense.
Thus, in Gandhi's philosophy, Truth, at least as people presently understand it, becomes a
progressive concept because, as far as mankind is concerned, it is a continually evolving process.
The implications of this are considerable, especially in daily life, where the believer might not see
an urgency to quickly resolve situational or moral dilemmas since naturally-occurring changes
might resolve such dilemmas without human interference according to a system of divine Truth
which guides all things. In this, Gandhi, at first, appears to be somewhat different since he was
very much an action-oriented individual. However, in the Bhagavad-Gita, there is a recognition
that human action is needed in order to carry out Divine Will and come nearer to God's Truth.
Krishna advises Arjuna:
Renunciation and discipline in action
both effect good beyond measure;
but of the two, discipline in action
surpasses renunciation of action...
Simpletons separate philosophy
and discipline, but the learned do not;
applying one correctly, a man
finds the fruit of both.(16)
Thus, action is important in Hinduism, but it must be disciplined action, taken in the name of divine Truth. Following his Eastern religious and philosophical foundations, Gandhi saw divine Truth as being a progressive concept. For him, as more understanding came to him, his vision of Truth naturally changed, evolved and, in his eyes, became more perfect. Action taken in the name of Truth had to follow a similar course and feel "right" at the moment.
In a final analysis, Gandhi's vision of Truth is seen as God's Truth and this vision leaves little room
for a different kind of utilitarian truth based entirely on reason. In Gandhian thought, God's Truth
is reason. As far as people can understand it, it is very powerful, but the human view of it might
be changeable--people must continually update their vision of this Truth as they discover more
about It. For humans, seeking Truth is a progressive, evolutionary process that demands devotion
and taking an active, non-violent stance toward all of God's creation, as far as is humanly possible.
In the Hindu and Buddhist view, this non-violence is called ahimsa.
Gandhian Ahimsa (courageous non-violence and renunciation of desire)
Mahatma Gandhi believed that ahimsa (non-violence) is one way that people can come closer to Ultimate Truth or God. "Contemporary [Gandhian] ahimsa signifies social, economic and political non-exploitation of sentient creatures, especially human beings, for the benefit of others."(17) In the Gita, Krishna explains true knowledge and non-violent intent:
When ignorance is destroyed
by knowledge of self,
then, like the sun, knowledge
illuminates ultimate reality...
Learned men see with an equal eye
a scholarly and dignified priest,
a cow, an elephant, a dog,
and even an outcaste scavenger...
Seers who can destroy their sins,
cut through doubt, master the self,
and delight in the good of all creatures
attain the pure calm of infinity.(18)
As seen in the above passage, the Bhagavad-Gita taught that all of creation is to be viewed as possessing the spirit of ultimate reality, and that courage to master the desirous human self means overcoming fear, ignorance and violent intent toward all of creation. This is consistent with the Gandhian conception of ahimsa.
Gandhi certainly believed in non-violence in the physical sense; non-killing, non-assaulting and non-oppression of others with physical, militant actions, but he extended his beliefs even further. Hatred, he felt, was wrong at any time. He even felt that, if necessary, one might have to give up physical life in the face of violence rather than bow to evil or commit violence on others in order to fulfill selfish desires. While Gandhi extended his philosophy of ahimsa to lesser creatures, it is apparently modified to some extent by reason and is different from how the concept is seen in some other Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Jainism. Where some Buddhists and others believe that ahimsa should be extended to all biological life, Gandhi felt that the realities of life itself limit ahimsa and that human non-violence should be extended only to those higher "beings" with complex enough nervous systems to endure suffering from violence.(19)
Non-violence, in relation to humankind, is where the teachings of Jesus heavily influenced Gandhian philosophy and extended its Eastern foundations. Writing a Christmas message in New India on December 25, 1931, Gandhi explained:
The teaching of The Sermon on The Mount echoed something I had learnt in childhood and something which seemed to be part of my being and which I felt was being acted up to in the daily life around me... This teaching was non-retaliation, or non-resistance to evil. Of all the things I read what remained with me forever was that Jesus came almost to give a new law--though He of course had said He had not come to give a new law, but to tack something onto the old Mosaic law. Well, He changed it so that it became a new law--not an eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth, but to be ready to receive two blows when one was given, and to go two miles when you were asked to go one... The more I think of fundamental religion, and the more I think of the miraculous conceptions of so many teachers... the more I see that there is behind them the eternal truth that I have narrated. That needs no label or declaration. It consist in the living of life, never ceasing, ever progressing toward peace.(20)
In addition to non-violence toward people and sentient creatures, Gandhi felt that the concept of ahimsa should include non-destruction of property because homes, bridges, crops and other necessary things are the means whereby people sustain themselves. To destroy property is to cause others harm and suffering and is unacceptable in fulfilling the concept of ahimsa. This indicates that Gandhi believed that ahimsa is essentially mental or spiritual behavior which means the absence of ill-will and that the believer in ahimsa should dissociate himself or herself from all evil thoughts and activities that would harm others.(21) Besides the spiritual notion of suffering to do God's will behind the concept of ahimsa, there are powerful practical psychological implications in the concept of non-violence. Because structured oppression imposed by governments and others is justified in the name of punishing wrongdoing or as self-defense, refusing to cooperate with or resisting the violent natures and evil of oppressors by refusing to provoke them with violent acts against people and property, even when the oppressors initiate provocation, removes the rational justification for oppression.(22)
It can be argued from a psychological standpoint that Gandhi was correct when he taught his followers to refuse to provoke oppressors by repaying violence with violence. With continued non-violence, even in the face of violence, a heavy burden is placed upon the oppressor, whether the oppressor is a government or an individual. If non-violent resistance is based on Truth,ahimsa gives its practitioners the moral high ground and it then becomes very difficult and, in many instances, morally and politically self-defeating for oppressors to impose violence on non-violent individuals. Even though the oppressor might enact violence on non-violent resistors, the oppressor is soon forced to justify such violence with rationalizations or with a belief in doing some sort of greater good. A failure to do so creates considerable conflict in the minds of most non-psychopathic oppressors--it becomes painful to harm others who refuse to do you harm--and only cowards and psychopaths can continue to oppress people without enduring some level of suffering themselves once they are confronted with the truth of their oppressions. However, in the case of heartless psychopathic and sociopathic individuals and movements, Gandhi recognized that ahimsa or non-violence might not always work.
While there is tremendous power in Gandhi's philosophical version of ahimsa, it must be reasonably considered that with the use of ahimsa, it might require an extended period of time to realize improvements, but as was seen in previous discussion, the Eastern philosophical concept of Truth does not demand immediate solutions to moral dilemmas, only that people remain devoted to Truth and to resolving moral issues by non-violent means. It is reasonable to assert that some oppressors have a well-developed intellectual capacity for self-delusion and for rationalizing their oppressions. It is also reasonable to expect that some oppressors might be able to distance themselves from their oppressions while reaping material gain from the sufferings of the distantly-oppressed as occurred in India where landowners lived luxuriously in England while Indian tenants of their holdings were starving. The human competitive spirit is strong, and when an overly-competitive, materialistic human spirit is combined with intellectual rationalizations or with perceived or projected fears, oppression sometimes becomes extremely violent as was seen earlier in the twentieth century in Germany and many other places. Gandhi noted that fear is an important factor in the justification of oppressions. Ahimsa does not intentionally provoke fear or anger.
Fear, Gandhi believed, stimulates structured violence and exploitation. "Gandhi shows that a coward, in need of protection, can never be (or become) non-violent. Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, Gandhi would advise violence."(23) With the non-psychopathic violent offender, there is hope for reform, but for the coward, there is less hope because it is often his or her nature to be fearful.
While Gandhi made no allowance for violence because of hatred or ill-will or for selfish gain, he did sometimes justify killing out of natural necessity. "Mosquitos and attacking carnivorous beasts can be killed. Even a mad man running amuck with a weapon in his hand, can legitimately be stopped by force. A co-worker who suffered from incurable leprosy decided to fast unto death, and Gandhi approved this."(24) The use of violence, however, must be done with a total absence of ill-will, selfish intent or evil intent. Gandhi qualified his view of non-violence, but he extolled the concept of non-violence as mankind's highest ideal whereby human beings might live peacefully and in devotion to Truth, God or Divine Ultimacy.
In relation to the above-mentioned absence of evil intent, Gandhi applied the ideal of ahimsa to economics. Unto Tahtinen, an Indian writer on Gandhian ahimsa, explains:
Ahimsa means the abstentation from causing suffering out of evil purpose. Evil purpose may
include the amassing or hoarding of wealth above and beyond one's legitimate requirements. We
are not always aware of our real needs and may improperly multiply our wants, which, according
to Gandhi is theft. The legitimate needs also have a social standard. [Gandhi explained,]
"Whatever cannot be shared with the masses is taboo for me."(25)
While Gandhi recognized social and economic inequalities that are part of any society, he apparently felt that those whose natural talents allowed them to gain considerably more wealth than is necessary for their "legitimate" needs should use their excess wealth for the benefit of other people who do not possess the means or talents for accumulating wealth. Gandhi also recognized that people's self-deception in relation to their "legitimate" needs is the root of many problems and much suffering. "Gandhi did not understand economic equality as the possession of an equal amount of worldly goods by everyone. It does mean, however, that everyone will have a proper house to live in, adequate and balanced food to eat and sufficient home-spun and home-woven cloth to cover himself [or herself]."(26) Gandhi was moderate in his material goals for India's masses and, philosophically, what he felt were basic needs for India's people appears to be a very reasonable goal that should be acceptable for any nation that sincerely claims to be concerned about the welfare of its citizens.
Gandhi was not a socialist who felt that all people should be made economically equal. Instead, he felt that people should be allowed to progress economically according to their talents, but he wanted "excess" wealth put to work for the betterment of the nation and its people. He also "pleaded for the development of decentralized village-industries. This is consistent with unsophisticated material needs [or providing basic necessities for everyone]."(27)
Since major economic decentralization, at least in the case of the rural masses, was a goal of Gandhi, at first glance there appears to be some contradiction in his economic goals. One might question how the wealthy should be encouraged to invest their excess wealth in projects that might benefit the less-talented masses of poor people. If decentralization occurs, central governments, which might be democratically elected by the masses and that might help them in regard to encouraging the wealthy to reinvest wealth in liberal ways that would benefit everyone rather than hoarding it, have less power and are less able to control the flow of wealth. If, however, one considers that Gandhi's concept of decentralization was intended to empower the masses, his call for decentralization of sustenance industries such as food production and the making of clothing in the home makes more sense. Once poor individuals free themselves from dependency on large capitalist interests or on central governments for food, shelter and clothing, they have the option of refusing to support governments or those who might intend to oppress and enslave them for selfish, "excessive" material gains or for "excessive" profits.
If the production of basic necessities; food clothing and housing can be controlled at local "village" levels, Gandhi felt that people would be empowered. He felt that this form of life-simplification gave individuals considerable freedom that is often lost when individuals rely too heavily on distant profit-oriented interests that care little about their welfare other than in relation to obtaining cheap labor from them and as consumers of products. Gandhi's major goal was helping people overcome such dependencies. This is consistent with both Western and Eastern spiritual ideals of renunciation in relation to excessive human material desire. Consequently, people empower themselves because personal renunciation of excessive material desire enables individuals to refuse to cooperate with oppressors and with oppression. In relation to this, Gandhi referred to the teachings of Jesus:
Jesus, in my humble opinion, was a prince among politicians. He did render unto Caesar that
which was Caesar's. He gave the devil his due. He ever shunned him [the devil] and is reported
never once to have yielded to his incantations. The politics of his time consisted in securing the
welfare of the people by teaching them not to be seduced by the trinkets of the priests and
Pharisees [who in many cases were the lackeys of the Roman rulers]. The latter then controlled
and molded the life of the people... (28)
Expanding on Gandhi's reference to Jesus's teachings, it becomes clear that the power of oppressors over people is often rooted in their ability to entice people into believing that they must or should have more than is really necessary for sustaining their lives in a reasonably comfortable fashion. Numerous deceptive practices and even violent criminal activities are often derived from the desire for excess wealth. Those who possess excess wealth seek to preserve it and those who think they should have it, struggle, sometimes in violent ways, to get it. In order to suppress violence that results from this struggle, people organize governments which, in turn, use violence to suppress offenders who strive to obtain excess wealth from those who have it. The stage is set for ongoing conflict, all in the name of preserving or obtaining excess material wealth. In the end, governments must sometimes violently restrict freedoms to prevent further violence and the excessive restriction of freedom sometimes leads to rebellion and even more violence--the cycles of violence and counter violence continue ad infinitum unless they are checked by non-violent means. Therefore, according to Gandhi's version of ahimsa, the problem of violence is moral and philosophical and any lasting solution must have a moral and philosophical foundation, a foundation resting on people realizing that human desire is at the root of all oppression and violence--that selfish human desire for excessive material wealth ultimately leads to unhappiness for many people, both oppressors and the oppressed. Of course, standards of what is excessive and what is not excessive material wealth, even according to Gandhi, are related to the overall well-being of the society in question. John Ruskin noted that if many people are very poor and a few people are hoarding large amounts of wealth, the entire society suffers. However, if the controllers of wealth are reinvesting excess wealth in projects that benefit everyone and the majority of people, although not wealthy, are relatively comfortable, healthy and happy, then the entire society will prosper. If most people, out of feelings of good will, are striving to help their neighbors rather than only themselves, then it is reasonable to believe that there will be less conflict and violence.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, in Jesus's teachings on non-violence and non-resistance toward evil and in The Light of Asia, Gandhi found that minimization of personal desire is a universal spiritual ideal that gives the believer freedom, peace and power. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna advises Arjuna to give up desire.
When he gives up desires in his mind
Is content with the self within himself,
Then he is said to be a man
whose insight is sure, Arjuna.
When suffering does not disturb his mind
when his craving for pleasures has vanished,
his attraction, fear and anger are gone,
he is called a sage whose thought is sure.(29)
Thus, from Jesus', the Gita and Gautama's teachings, Gandhi discovered that he was faced with a twofold problem. The first part of the problem is teaching people to willingly suppress their desires (or as in Buddhism, eliminate all desires) for excessive pleasure and excessive material wealth, not at all an easy task. By lowering their expectations in relation to hoarding more than they really need to live comfortably, people free themselves from anger, resentment and hatred that often comes from falsely-founded desires for excessive pleasure and wealth. Combined with this, if people can learn to replace false desire with an ideal of service to others, they become freer in mind and spirit and the stage is set for finding more spiritual and physical peace on earth. If renunciation of material desire is carried to extremes, one questions whether this renunciation of desire for material prosperity would inhibit human material progress that is derived from materialistic competitions. After all, if materialistic competitions are kept within reasonable bounds, they do promote some progress and generate improvements in providing for people's material needs.
The second part of the problem is how to control excessively competitive individuals and groups who would oppress the masses by reducing even the necessary sustenance for their lives in order to enslave them and gain power over their labors. This is the most difficult part of the problem to solve because overly-competitive, materialistic people and enterprises, according to John Ruskin, as previously discussed, judge their true wealth by the amount of labor they can command in order to sustain and exponentially multiply their wealth. Convincing these individuals and groups that it is in their overall best interests to elevate everyone to a reasonably decent standard of living is sometimes difficult. Highly competitive or manipulative controllers of wealth often delude themselves into thinking that because their natural talents and work skills allowed them to materially succeed, everyone has an equal chance to gain wealth. As was seen in previous discussion of Ruskin's ideas, this is just not true.
According to John Ruskin, natural talents and circumstances often do favor some people over others in relation to gaining material wealth. For some people to command excessive amounts of wealth requires that others be partially stripped of their legitimate shares of the overall general wealth. This is where Gandhian philosophy differs from ordinary market economics. All wealth in Gandhi's eyes belongs to God and each person should have only what is needed to comfortably sustain life according to God's will. With this idea, when combined with Gandhian spiritual respect for all living things and non-sentient nature, comes a powerful imperative that people should not harm each other or nature because of excessive human material desires. This concept is extremely important in regard to a contemporary need to "save the planet." While the excessively materialistic natures of some people will always be difficult to control, the masses of non-wealthy people must have some means of demanding their "legitimate" shares of the overall wealth that will enable them to live modestly comfortable lives. This implies that many property ownership laws that enable some people to hoard excessive amounts of wealth for their own pleasure are illegitimate, and that when governments attempt to enforce such laws, governments that do so then become illegitimate and the people have a God-given right to demand revisions of laws or even to overthrow such governments if necessary.
If peaceful means are not used by people in obtaining "legitimate" shares of the nation's wealth,
chains of violence occur and repeat themselves in cycles of oppression, rebellion, suppression, the
overthrow of the wealthy, the empowerment of the newly-rich, and the oppression begins anew,
which will eventually set in motion cycle after cycle of violence and counter violence. Democratic
governments attempt to provide the means for some peaceful replacement of non-productive,
self-serving leaders and for ongoing reforms, but too often democratic processes are diverted by
highly-manipulative interest groups and people are sometimes offered unsatisfactory choices
unless they make their demands known in such a way that will force change and increased
fairness. This is especially true in the case of oppressed minorities and others who have little
influence on large power structures. Based on his vision of Truth and ahimsa, Mahatma Gandhi
developed a philosophy of non-violent resistance, Satyagraha, that was intended to empower
ordinary people and offer them a way of resisting oppression and calling oppressors to task
without setting in motion cycles of violence and counter-violence that often accompany political
and economic change.
Satyagraha (Truth force)
Gandhi believed that injustice and oppression demanded non-violent action. "Citing Jesus and Buddha, Hindu and Islamic man as practitioners of the ideal variety of non-violence, he [Gandhi] further holds that violence is preferable to cowardice or passivity, and that some violence is unavoidable in the process of living."(30) In answer to the question of whether people can realistically expect themselves to practice non-violence, Gandhi replied, "With the use of reason and faith, people can live a nearly pacific life thereby fulfilling the duty to reach fearlessly for Truth. It is the duty of the quest, however, rather than the perfectibility of man...[that offers] hope for the living of non-violence."(31) This also means that Satyagraha requires courage above and beyond that which would normally be required when on a violent quest for truth and justice. In a violent quest for truth and justice, the person uses violence to combat violence in order to enforce justice, but this does not lead to lasting peace and harmony. It can therefore be seen that Gandhi would advise that a non-violent quest for truth is the only way to gain any level of permanent peace.
"In Satyagraha, it is 'agaraha' or moral pleasure for the sake of Truth which adds a clearer dimension to God's and the inspired prophets' exhortations for people to practice non-violence. Satyagraha, Truth force, is a powerful assertion of spiritual and non-violent forces over the immoral and violent."(32) If Truth is the foundation of Gandhian philosophy and ahimsa is its guiding light, then Satyagraha is the active and utilitarian essence and culmination of all elements of Gandhian philosophy. Satyagraha is very flexible. The concept of Satyagraha can be so simple that a child can understand it and, in fact, most probably do until contact with the overly-materialistic, desire-ridden world teaches them the ways of violence. In its simple form, Satyagraha means doing what the heart tells one is right; dealing truthfully with others and practicing love towards all people and all sentient living creatures. Yet Satyagraha can be a very powerful and complex tool that can be used to defeat evil, injustice and oppression in its many forms. In its more complex forms, it can mean seeking to understand the ultimate will and Truth of God or Divine Otherness and applying this Truth in resisting evil, unfairness and oppression in practical human endeavors, whether in politics, economics, personal relationships or in lesser everyday matters of conscience and thought.
The ethic of non-injury [to others] is included in vows which Gandhiji observed and recommended
to this closest followers. These pledges, which are similar to the five principles of righteous living
found in Buddhism, consist of faith in Absolute Truth or God; physical and psychical courage [to
endure suffering in the face of violence]; non-violence; Swadeshi; loyalty to one's native
institutions; dietary self-control [vegetarianism]; honesty; chastity; belief in religious equality
[trusting that God shows Himself in different ways to different people]; manual labor [doing some
work with one's hands on a daily basis] and the removal of untouchability [treating everyone as
being of equal worth in God's eyes].(33)
It will be noted that Gandhi set extremely high standards for himself and his close followers. In relation to ordinary individuals, however, he recognized that many people could only practice some of the above vows because of the realities of family life, different religious beliefs and for other reasons. Because of this, Gandhi exhorted that ordinary people who practice Satyagrahaonly have to meet one general basic condition:
[This condition is] suffering in body and soul as a substitute for injury to others, especially when one is tempted to use violence to combat injustice and oppression. Gandhi recognized that people have a right to combat injustice and would say that it is everyone's duty to combat injustice and oppression. He recognized that this requires struggle. Struggle against injustice, which Gandhi believed takes its purest form in Satyagraha, is central to the Gandhian system or approach.(34)
Gandhi had few illusions about the amount of suffering the satyagrahi might have to endure. "According to the science of Satyagraha, the greater the repression and lawlessness, including the imposition of violence on people, on the part of authority, the greater should be the suffering courted by the victims. Success is the certain result of suffering of the extremist character voluntarily undergone."(35) What this means is that the person who practices Satyagraha should be willing to openly and truthfully confront an oppressor and non-violently refuse to cooperate or be intimidated by the violence and fear that oppressors often attempt to impose upon people while continually openly demanding that the oppression be stopped. The satyagrahi should be willing to face mental and physical assaults, the loss of money and property, threats to family, imprisonment and even death without giving in. The practitioner of Satyagraha will refuse to be moved by the fear that the violent oppressor attempts to instill in him or her and will continue an active course of non-violent opposition in any way possible except with deceit and violence. Gandhi himself was sentenced to six years in prison because he refused to stop spreading "seditious" ideas and organizing non-violent protests and strikes against the British rulers of India. Even in prison, he remained unmoved and did not withdraw his support of non-violent protests against the British or recant any of his beliefs. The British slowly came to understand that Gandhi and his followers held the moral high ground. Even though he was physically subdued, his demand for Indian independence lived on and flourished because of the violence and suffering the British imposed on him and others. After only two years, he was released. From this, it can be seen that Satyagrahais different from passive resistance where the passive resister simply refuses to cooperate and when he or she has the means, uses violence when it becomes feasible. In the practice of Satyagraha, violence is not allowed in any circumstance, even to preserve the life of the resister. If violence becomes necessary, which Gandhi recognized as a real possibility, such violence, no matter what the cause, would be a departure from Satyagraha, and would lead to only a temporary solution to the problem instead of a more permanent one.
According to Gandhian philosophy, "passive resistance is defined as a weapon of the weak, while Satyagraha shows strength and dignity."(36) In passive resistance, there is little room for love, "but it is a breach of Satyagraha to wish ill will to an opponent or to say a harsh word to him or of him with the intention of harming him... In passive resistance, there is scope for the use of arms when a suitable occasion arises, but Satyagraha excludes the use of violence in any shape or form, whether in thought, speech or deed."(37) In addition to this, "no harassment or coercion is allowed in Satyagraha because, according to Gandhi, 'the greatest objective of the satyagrahi is to convert the opponent and the wrong-doer [to the ways of Truth]' and he taught people to resist the tyrannical system without any hatred for the individual who built it."(38)
It seems Gandhi felt that the greater the oppression, the more the evil intent of the oppressor comes to light before the world until, in the final analysis, the oppressor is forced to truthfully confront his own evil intent. Openly suffering for Truth might be especially helpful in cases where oppressors use clever propaganda campaigns to disguise the evil intent of their actions in the oppression and control of certain groups or people. If the opponent can be forced to somehow show his or her true colors, even if it means suffering or death for the satyagrahi, then the aim is accomplished and the oppressor is exposed and cannot disguise or deny the oppression. Saroj Malik points out that this is considerably easier to do where oppressors operate under the guise of democracy and the masses of citizens have at least some partial expectation of fair treatment from the governmental entity. However, this becomes more difficult in closed societies where acts of repression and injustice can be more easily concealed by oppressive regimes. Malik feels that Gandhi would have prescribed the same course of action regardless of the type of oppressive regime,(39) because, as was noted in Section I in the discussion on Leo Tolstoy's ideas on non-violence, it is almost impossible to conceal continued violent oppression. Malik explained, "it is important to realize that Gandhi vouched for the effectiveness of Satyagraha regardless of the nature of the opponent; claiming that it can reform anyone."(40) It is the above-discussed respect and love that the satyagrahi displays toward opponents that are major keys to the success of Satyagraha. Malik remarks:
Moreover, the success of Satyagraha may depend on the antagonists' realization that its user loves
him and is not a disarmed enemy planning a ruse, and who should therefore be suppressed. The
important point is that assumptions about the opponent's ability to be reformed and to perceive
goodwill, are essential to Gandhiji's concept of Satyagraha.(41)
It becomes clear that Satyagraha is the essence and practical application of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy. The overall brilliance of the idea is that it is a means whereby most people can actively resist untruth, injustice and oppression if they have the will to do so. Like most of Gandhi's philosophy, Satyagraha demands active, ongoing application by its practitioners. It is a practical tool that is simple enough for the masses of ordinary people to understand and use in their daily lives whether in their families, communities or national politics. Considering all of the discussion of Gandhian philosophy thus far, it appears that this is how Gandhi saw Satyagraha. When one considers that ordinary people, often lacking education, influence, money or political power would have much difficulty resisting clever, violent and powerful oppressors, they are left few choices except to suffer or bow to oppression. It can be argued that even the "simplest" people often have a well-developed sense of fairness. Because Gandhi understood this, it becomes apparent that Gandhi's philosophy was developed for everyone.
In India, during Gandhi's time, the people were already suffering terribly and held little hope for improvements in their lives. Gandhi felt that if he could teach all Indians how to use Satyagraha, they could use their suffering in such a way that it would empower them and give them the means for overcoming their oppressors and improving their lives. His further goal was to force powerful, self-deceptive British oppressors to accept the idea that what they were doing was wrong. It was wrong in relation to their own humanity and in relation to basic human ideals of justice and according to normal human conceptions of Divine Truth, whether in the Eastern or Western understanding. In this, Gandhi gave a practical definition to Jesus' and the inspired prophets' message of power through non-violence and love. It can be asserted that this practical definition offers the postmodern world a practical, but simple set of powerful principles that almost anyone might use to possibly improve his or her life now and in the future. Considering this, it becomes apparent that Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy is a clarified practical guide on how to apply the ageless law of love to contemporary times and contemporary problems.
Gaining some understanding of the nature of Gandhian philosophy naturally requires that one
consider whether Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy has applicability to the contemporary postmodern
world and the twenty-first century. Section III of this thesis is devoted to this consideration.
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