Acknowledgments
This is my second book baby that you are holding in your hands. I conceived it with great hope, nourished it for about six years with immense joy and now, with a sense of deep fulfillment, I present it to you—my readers—both actual and virtual online.
Hope you enjoy reading it with as much love and excitement as I enjoyed writing it.
Usually, an “acknowledgement” in a book is a sort of formality or a chore for writers to pay off their verbal dues to all those who helped them in one way or another.
For me, however, it is an outpouring of my heartfelt gratitude to all those living as well as non-living persons—who provided inspiration, encouragement, and spiritual support. Here I want to appreciate all my dear and near ones who kept goading me, even chiding me for procrastination, or for getting lost in researching more than in putting words on paper.
First comes my close-knit immediate family who believed in me and my work one hundred percent. With tears of pride and joy, I want to first thank Dr. Bhagirath Majmudar—the love of my life—my beloved husband and life-long friend of fifty-eight years! You never got tired of listening to me talk about my book at the dinner table! And you not only listened, you also gave me your honest feedback and critique for enhancement. And how can I formally thank you—my most beautiful and brilliant firstborn daughter, Nija—whose very name in Sanskrit—means “my own”! I can only give you a big virtual hug for helping me throughout the end by handling all the technical aspects of my book—from sending out email attachments and assisting me with all business correspondence to patiently seeing me through the indexing process. May God continue to bless you! And my secondborn daughter Sangini, my sweet little bundle of energy who is a budding writer and a terrific dancer/teacher as well, I do appreciate your enthusiastic prep talks over the phone and via email; thank you my darling for your long-distance love and support. And how can I ever be so ungrateful to not mention Joseph Meyer Junior—Nija’s husband who has self-appointed himself as “Mahatma, Junior” in our family? Thanks dear Joe, for teasing me lovingly and saying, “Nanima, it’s not how many hours you spend writing, it is how many pages you produce at the end of the day!” And last but not the least in importance is Ilja Bedner—my younger son-in-law who in his own laid back, gentle and sweet way kept asking me from time to time, “So, Nanima, when are we celebrating? When is your book coming out?” I also feel supremely blessed to have my four adorable grandchildren Hans Meyer (19), Arya Meyer (17), and two tiny tots—Indra Bedner (10) and Bodhi Bedner (8)—who say they cannot wait to read my book! What a blessing to have such an actively involved, loving family who takes pride in all my intellectual adventures of reading, writing, teaching, and public speaking! In addition, I would like to recognize the loving support of my extended family of cousins, sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews—with a special mention of my dearest older sister Veenaben Desai to whom I offer this book with deep pranams! Blessed am I for not only having the whole-hearted support of my “big, fat, large family” but also that of my lifelong friends Nalini Gandhi, Vimal Nikore, Rohit Zaveri, the Gandhi brothers, the Udeshis, the Parekhs, the Bahls, the Shahs, and last, but not the least, the Sheths, both Madhuben and her husband—“Padmubhushan” Jagdish Sheth!
Among the nonliving sources of inspiration, first and foremost I pay my most heartfelt homage to my dearest dad Janardan Mehta and my mother-like aunt, Ramaben Mehta, who both nurtured my love for books especially philosophical, biographical, and spiritual! And above all, I want to express my deep gratitude to all the dear departed souls of my professors and mentors including James W. Fowler, John Fenton, Edith Blicksilver, Beatrice Bruteau, John Schlenck. Among the living sources of spiritual inspiration, I’d like to seek the blessings of Swami Shri Yogeshanandaji and Brother Shankara of the Vedanta Center of Atlanta.
But where would this book be without a publisher like Lexington Books—an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield? I would like to especially acknowledge Michael Gibson, Mikayla Mislak, Jefferey Long, Chris Fischer, Niki Guinan, and all others working in the background for producing this book! Thank you all for making this book look so good.
And now the book is in your hands, dear readers! So grab it, read it, and tell me how you like it. And if you feel so moved, write a book review too. This book is just for you!
Introduction
Mahatma Gandhi continues to be an ongoing subject of worldwide interest for writers, readers, academics, movie makers, and playwrights, as well as for most laypeople in general. Surprisingly, however, despite a plethora of books on Gandhi already in the market, in addition to the fresh new ones which keep coming every year, one critically important topic still remains unaddressed or is addressed only perfunctorily!
In this book, I intend to bring up this overtly neglected subject which is crying out for attention. To put it in Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, “it is an idea whose time has come”; I’d say, it is overdue. What, then, is the subject of this book? Before I answer the question, I must first observe that unfortunately, the “spiritual Gandhi” is not as warmly received as the political Gandhi, especially in the West. And even among those who revere Gandhi as a “Mahatma,” only a few understand what the title entails. Most people seem to have a misconception that Gandhi was a “born Mahatma,” meaning that the “Mahatma-hood” came easily to him. On the contrary, as Gandhi himself admitted, he was quite an ordinary, erring, and falling human being like any other human on this planet with, however, one big difference: being a morally upright and deeply conscientious person, Gandhi was determined to overcome his character flaws by rigorous self-striving; given his immense passion for self-perfection and self-realization, he wanted to search for God as Truth only. Above anything else, Gandhi was an ardent and earnest seeker of Truth. Yet, he could not have done it single-handedly. At the threshold of youth, the London-returned barrister Gandhi needed spiritual guidance, and needed it desperately.
This is where Shrimad (Honorable) Rajchandra, or the “kavi” (poet), enters the stage. Just when a student feels hopelessly lost, the teacher appears to lead him as if from “darkness to Light!” Rajchandra is that teacher, who, when Gandhi met him first, was not completely self-realized but was still moving rapidly in that direction; or, as Gandhi put it in his Preface to Shrimad Rajchandra (November 5, 1926), “he was flying towards it with the speed of wind.”
As we shall see further in the book, there will be three major spiritual contenders to vie for Gandhi’s pupilage during his long pilgrimage of faith. However, among them all, Rajchandra alone would win Gandhi’s heart and soul because in his judgment, the kavi’s influence on him was far deeper and internal in comparison with that of Ruskin and Tolstoy. As Gandhi would gratefully acknowledge later, he was forever indebted to Rajchandra for “molding his inner life,” for shaping his character, and for forming his spiritual principles and ideals, thoughts, attitudes, and actions. Ever since Gandhi came closer to Rajchandra, he aspired to be like him and to live like him. Not only would Gandhi live by the beatific ideals imbibed from Rajchandra, he’d also incorporate them later in his Satyagrahas (truth campaigns) based on truth, nonviolence, and self-suffering for truth. Thus, the student will surpass his teacher one day by downloading some of his lofty, ethereal ideals onto the earthly, political plane!
Chapter 1
Mohandas Gandhi in London
His First Acquaintance with Religions
Three factors combined to propel the shy, provincial young man Gandhi onto a sea voyage to the shores of England: first, the financial woes and worries of his family after his father’s death; second, his desire to fulfill his late father’s wish for his youngest son “Manu” (Gandhi’s childhood nickname) to bring pride to the family and add luster to his name; and third, his own personal ambition to become a London-trained barrister-at-law. The most dominant of these three reasons was of course his own irresistible desire to see London—“the city of his dreams”—and the motherland of all the English romantic poets he had admired from afar! It was this—his starry-eyed, youthful fascination for the “London-wonderland”—that impelled the