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| Journal Gandhi In India: In His Own Words By Tam Zelig I think I have found, in this book, some definite points of comparison between Gandhi and Buber. I think that we would be well advised to reject Western Civilization, that is our dharma to do so. By Western Civilization, I mean the ideals, which people in the West have embraced in modern times and the pursuits based on these ideals. The supremacy of brute force, worshipping money as God, spending most of one’s time in seeking worldly happiness, breathtaking risks in seeking worldly enjoyment of all kinds, the expenditure of limitless mental energy on efforts to multiply the power of machinery, the expenditure of crores on the invention of means of destruction, the moral righteousness which looks down upon people outside Europe – this civilization, in my view, deserves to be altogether rejected (5). This is a very clear demarcation between the ideals of Gandhi and Western Civilization. I can also see that we have not managed to improve our condition in the last four decades since Gandhi made that statement. I am especially vocal against our worship of a symbol of a symbol. The money that we so lust after is not even real. It simply represents, in theory, the value of something we have stored somewhere – gold. We have established with our system of finances, a form of slavery that is often more heinous then the one we abolished in our humanitarian efforts. At least, as a general rule, slave owners provided their workers with food, clothing, and lodging. Granted, they were often not much, but something. Today’s workers cannot provide even these basics on the salary of many employers. Now please, do not misunderstand me, I am not advocating a return to slavery. I am simply pointing out that it still exists, and we are doing nothing about it. The answer....community. “I am full of error, but ever ready to correct myself. There is nothing in my life which I wish to conceal” (7). Gandhi exemplified this characteristic of truly spiritual men. An acceptance that I do not have all of the answers, and a willingness to learn as well as teach. “Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity to me, the female sex, not the weaker sex. It is the nobler of the two, for it is even today the embodiment of sacrifice, silent suffering, humility, faith and knowledge” (16). Gandhi always had high praise for women, especially his wife. I am still not certain, especially as I plan to embark on another adventure in marriage, that the only way to respect women is not to have sexual relations with them. But, I certainly agree that we (men) will never be able to make up for the stupidity we demonstrate in our historical dealings with them. Would the return of Goddess worship make for a better world? Probably not, although it couldn’t hurt to try, but I believe it is only through the equality of greeting all people, all sexes, as I-Thou relationships that we will find true peace. “It is a million times better to appear untrue before the world than to be untrue to ourselves” (27). Overcoming the fear of embarrassment, and the fear of not being liked are two necessary steps on the road to enlightenment. “And so long as we regard anyone as irreplaceable, we have not fitted ourselves for organized work.” (40) I refer you back to my tirade against money. Human beings have become a commodity that is expendable to most business owners. I add to this quote one from an article that I may use for my short paper, as it embodies so much of what Gandhi spoke against. The article is entitles “Money versus Wealth,” by David C. Korten. The following is the story of a company that attempted to honor its workers, and what happened to them. Pacific Lumber Company for years pioneered the development of sustainable logging practices on its substantial holdings of ancient redwood timber stands in California. It also provided generous benefits to its employees, fully funded its pension fund, and maintained a no-layoffs policy during downturns in the timber market. This made it a good citizen. It also made it a prime takeover target. Corporate raider Charles Hurwitz gained control in a hostile takeover. He immediately doubled the cutting rate....He then drained $55 million from the company’s $93 million dollar pension fund and invested the remaining $38 million in annuities of the Executive Life Insurance Company – which had financed the junk bonds used to make the purchase and subsequently failed. This is the world we are allowing to exist. “One has always to be vigilant, however busy one may be, and must constantly try to enter the heart of the person with whom one is talking…. A person without discrimination is a brute” (68). This is very close to Buber’s I-Thou philosophy. Gandhi believed that you had to make time and room for other people in your life. That is what he believed and practiced. My friend begs the question when he says a revolutionary is one who ‘does the good and dies.’ That is precisely what I question. In my opinion he does the evil and dies. I do not regard killing or assassination or terrorism as good in any circumstances whatsoever. I do believe that ideas ripen quickly when nourished by the blood of martyrs. But a man who dies slowly of jungle fever in service bleeds as certainly as the one on the gallows. And if the one who dies on the gallows is not innocent of another’s blood, he never had ideas that deserved to ripen (73). This same argument can be used against the terrorism that we see in our world today, and against the terrorism employed by the Israeli, Hagannah in their battle to win Israel. Buber was also against such tactics. “The suffering of the animal was so great that it could not even turn on its side without excruciating pain. In these circumstances I felt that humanity demanded that the agony should be ended by ending life itself” (89). Here is an example of doing what is right in spite of appearances. See also the quote below. We must always be willing to exchange laws for humanity. We’ll see a similar example in the next book I journal on about Buber. “I have all along held that one is bound to act according to what to one appears to be right, even though it may appear wrong to others” (90). I have already written on this, but that similar quotes appear so often demonstrate the importance of this concept to Gandhi. “But I found in the field of journalism as in many others that the strictest honesty and fair dealing was undoubtedly the best policy” (120). If this were adopted as standard business policy, many would be forced to close, but that would be a good thing. “But I am not a man to be easily taken in by appearances. All over the world, the common mass of men move like sheep following one another” (122). Study after study seem to point out the truth of Gandhi’s second statement. I am amazed at how long change takes mostly because of this fact. Over the years we allowed the government in this country to take our rights and freedoms, to enslave us with a system that stamps us with numbers and makes us enmeshed with bureaucratic red tape. We also have the power to take back the system, and yet we are unwilling to do that. One of the easiest ways for us to send a clear message is to give power to a third party. We have had opportunities to do that for the last two elections, and we chose instead to continue on with life as it has been. What a shame. I know that Perot’s party or the Libertarian Party does not have all of the right answer, but it’s the same principle as in any business. If you don’t like the way something is run, start your own, and watch how fast the other business pays attention. “It will be impossible to sustain a mass movement with money….Extravagance has no room in this campaign. If we cannot gather crowds unless we carry on a hurricane expensive propaganda, I would be satisfied to address a half dozen men and women” (124). What a concept. If we could recognize, as I have said before, that money is not a resource, people are. I find it very distressing that the sign of a thriving church or synagogue is not how well each individual member is doing, but whether or not they can afford to spend millions of dollars on a new building. Imagine if that same money were spent ensuring that every single member had adequate healthcare, lodging, employment, basic needs. I have been told, although I have not researched it, that this is exactly what the Mormons do. No wonder they are thriving, if this is so. If they can do it, why can’t all religious groups. We wouldn’t need to change the government from the top, if we could establish caring communities that took care of the needs of their people keeping them off the government dole projects designed to further enslave them. “Truth exists, it alone exists. It is the only God and there is but one way of realizing it; … ahimsa” (130). Non-violence to Gandhi represented the only truth. Whether or not I agree with that, I certainly believe that it is worth supporting. “How much happier, healthier, and more peaceful would the world become if the remaining tenth followed the example of the overwhelming majority at least to the extent of labouring enough for their food” (133). The way to enslave a people is to take a way their individual ability to sustain themselves, and replace it with a dependence on your means of provision. We have made this a science in today’s economy. The answer is self-sustaining communities, and a return to simplicity. This does not have to mean depravation or loss of individuality. How individual can you be in the world as it exists today. The person who fears the loss of his individuality who has managed to become the slave to one bank or another always amazes me. In both the depression and the Savings and Loan crisis more recently, it was we, the slaves of the tyrannical banking industry, who gave our hard-earned money to bail them out. “But it is a mistake hastily to imagine that anything that we cannot understand is necessarily wrong” (135). This is another of those steps to enlightenment. “A lover of truth feels undiminished joy till the end of his life. He never regards himself as too old to keep on striving for a vision of the God of Truth. He…will not find old age an obstacle. So far as that quest is concerned, the seeker regards himself as immortal and forever young” (169). This is a beautiful vision of life in the truth lane. As Joseph Campbell put it, we should follow our bliss. I more and more understand the truth of this. I believe that we come into this life to learn, but what if the only lesson that we have to learn is that life is about joy or bliss and the following of it. The end, according to a Roman philosopher whose name now escapes me, should always be happiness. It is not about dying with the most toys, but rather about living with the most joys. “There is no doubt that every obstacle that we place between ourselves and the sky harms us physically, mentally and spiritually” (171). I like this foray of Gandhi into architecture. I have often felt sadness in the “big city” when I could not see the stars. When I design my own house, it will include a large skylight in the bedroom that allows me to sleep under the stars. “…life does not consist of outward rites and ceremonial, but it consists in the uttermost inner purification and merging oneself, body, soul, and mind, in the divine essence” (196). Again, while I am not certain I would take it to the extreme that Gandhi did, I do believe that this is the essence of spirituality. It is the internal communion of I-Thou with the creator Thou that enables us to live life to the fullest and to find the most contentment and joy. It is recognizing that rites and ceremonies are a means to an end, not the end itself. The end is happiness or bliss, and we get there by merging our self with the divine. Rituals and ceremonies can often be effectively employed to get us there, but too often, we allow the ritual over time to become the only goal. This is where most religions end up until some martyred saint points the way to a new understanding of this concept of oneness with God. “There is an indissoluble marriage between matter and spirit…. With me the connection between cosmic phenomena and human behaviour is a living faith that draws me nearer to my God, humbles me and makes me readier to face Him” (222). This is another way of saying the same thing that was said above. Matter and spirit are one in the same way that radio waves and sound is one. The waves exist all around us and seemingly are invisible to us unless we have a tuner to translate those waves into something tangible – sound. So too is it with spirit and matter. Matter is the tuning in of spirit in such a way as to make it tangible. Our thoughts exist all around us, but they only become manifest by a conscious effort of belief. This is the principle behind many Positive thought philosophies today, and I believe that this is also the heart of Gandhi’s message. We must acknowledge this connection in order to act on the faith that draws us into the realms of God. “Love becomes lust the moment you make it a means for the satisfaction of animal needs….My definition of purity is not merely of the body, but of speech and thought also” (237). I acknowledge that there is a higher form of all things that transcend the physical, but I disagree that the physical is unimportant. If it were not necessary for us to experience the physical, then I do not believe we would continually come back to it. We, in my opinion, take on the physical form precisely because it is only in this way that we can experience physical sensations. The goal is to be master to those sensations rather then slave to them. I do not believe that asceticism is the key to saving the world or the self. “I have also derived solace from the New Testament and the Koran. They are to me as important as the Bhagavad Gita.” (249). Another place of absolute agreement with Gandhi. I would love to be a part of a church that honors and studies all faiths in their similarities rather than condemns the differences. Someone once said, “I would like to be part of a group that is for everything and against nothing.” This may be an extreme, but I certainly think we can accentuate the positive. “High schools were schools of cultural conquest by the English” (256). They still are by the Americans. “Universities must be made self-supporting. The state should simply educate those whose services it would need. I would prefer temporary chaos in higher education to the criminal waste that is daily accumulating” (258). Another area of no change. I like the idea of educating for specific service. “My sympathies are all with the Jews. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by the Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close….What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct….Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home….The nobler course of action would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred” (262). Here is an area of direct connection with the philosophies of Buber. I am certain that Buber would have agreed with this concept of Gandhi’s. I also like the analogy that Gandhi uses to compare the treatment of Jews as “untouchables.” “If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war” (263). I don’t know for certain if Buber would agree with the complete package of non-violence espoused by Gandhi, although I suspect that he would. An interesting side note is that Einstein was offered the Presidency of Israel, and he turned it down. One reason that he gave is that as a pacifist he could not lead the nation into a war, no matter how justified. “If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment…. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant” (264). This is the first time that I have thought about this, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes. Had the Jews in Germany and Poland practiced Ahimsa, it is very possible the Holocaust as we know it might have been averted. Had those Jews forced German soldiers to kill the vast numbers it would have had to in front of the German people rather than in secret, it is entirely possible that both soldiers and citizens alike would have stopped the slaughter before long. The real secret behind the diabolical plan of Hitler was to do the killing in a hidden way. This is of course unimportant speculation since it could neither be proven nor altered, but perhaps if we spent some more time truly thinking about it, we could alter the plans of future tyrants in the same manner. “And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts….They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart….Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth” (265). This is a definite point of agreement with Buber. In all of his writings on this subject, he is very clear that there should be peaceful co-existence between these relatives. I would also, however, not place total blame on either Arabs or Jews for the sad situation in Israel. A great portion of the blame, to my mind, must go to the British, who behaved as badly, if not worse than they did in India. They seem to have a legacy of egoistic, egalitarian, tyrannical rule in their former provinces. From all the history that I’ve read about this, it strikes me as England behaving like a spoiled child, who having been told he couldn’t play here anymore tries to destroy the playground so no one can play. The world is still paying the price for this spoiled brat. “I think that man has a perfect right to dispose of his life under certain circumstances…. The criterion is not that one is tired of life, but that one feels that one has become a burden on others and therefore wants to leave the world. One does not want to fly from pain but from having to become an utter burden on others” (269). I find this an interesting rationale for the right to die. I agree with the concept, but I see a definite problem when you compare his stance here that a person should not choose to die based on pain but on burden with his stance on killing an animal who’s in pain. Is a man to receive less compassion than an animal? “Every religion seems to have found a natural setting in the prayer book…. There should be within us equal reverence for all religions” (287, 288). I agree. See my comment above on religious education. “Just as knowledge without faith is useless, even so faith without knowledge is blind” (309). Christianity teaches that faith without works is useless. Gandhi expands this to include knowledge as an important component to faith. On the surface, there may seem to be some contradiction to his earlier statements about some things not able to be reasoned, but I believe that there really is no contradiction. One of the explanations I can give relates to the Kabalistic teaching regarding knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. I never quite understood the reason that knowledge was seen as the balance between wisdom and understanding until I learned that a root for this word is found in Genesis which is translated, “And Adam knew Eve and she conceived and brought forth a son.” Knowledge is an intimate and fruitful relationship towards the thing known. As such faith requires that intimate connection with the divine, but it does not require reason and analysis. “I believe that if India, and through India the world, is to achieve real freedom, then sooner or later we shall have to go back and live in the villages – in huts, not in palaces. Millions of people can never live in cities and palaces in comfort and in peace….We can have the vision of that truth and non-violence only in the simplicity of the villages…. You will not be able to understand me if you think that I am talking about the villages of today. My ideal village still exists only in my imagination” (329). I believe this to be the same vision that Buber had for the Kibbutz in Israel. The fact is that there are many who believe that Israel would not have survived without the strength and character that came from her Kibbutzim. There may also be a feeling that the problems of integrity that are growing in Israel are due to the loss of the power of the Kibbutz to the cities that are engulfing them and taking the youth away. Time will tell if Israel can survive along the path now being traveled, or if the world, for that matter can survive. I imagine that it will, but I also have an ideal village in my imagination, and it is from this village that the salvation of the world will come. |