Gandhi 22
Education was a touchy subject with Gandhi. He tried to teach his wife to read, but failed and she remained illiterate all her life and yet he would say, “If I had to choose a companion for myself life after life, I would choose only Ba”…his pet name for her.
Gandhi had four sons. Three of them turned out well, the fourth was a drug addict/alcoholic prostitute who hated him after age sixteen because Gandhi would not allow him to leave India to go to England and become a lawyer as he had done…It cost him. There is a book about his son, heartbreakingly called “Gandhi’s Lost Jewel”.
“A man's real teacher is himself.”
“Under ideal conditions, true education could be imparted only by the parents.”
“My ideal was never to entrust children to common place teachers. Their literary qualification was not so essential as their moral fiber.”
Gandhi 23
Gandhi laughingly called himself a “quack“, when it came to medicine, but he was honest with himself about what he saw, in himself, regardless of how repugnant it might appear to others:
"How foolish it is intentionally to dissipate vital energy in sensual enjoyment! It is a grave misuse to fritter away for physical gratification that which is given to man and woman for full development of their bodily and mental powers. Such misuse is the root cause of many a disease."
"Men and women who indulge in lascivious looks at one's own, or another's wife, or to touch her in the same manner deceive themselves and the world, and growing weaker day by day, making themselves easily susceptible to disease."
"A man dissipates his physical strength through ordinary incontinence."
Tough stuff…but no different from what is heard in 1st Corinthians in Protestant Churches around the world on Sundays.
Gandhi 24
Gandhi took a vow of poverty and died with only six small possessions, but, he was scrupulous with money.
“I...should have been driven to incur debt – a thing I have never done in my life and always abhorred.”
“Every little item would be entered and the balance struck every evening before going to bed. Make it a point to account for everything that comes into and goes out your pocket, and you will sure to be a gainer in the end.”
“Carefully kept accounts are the sine qua non for any organization. Without them it falls into disrepute.”
“I have no doubt that the ideal is for public institutions to live, like nature, from day to day. The institution that fails to win public support has no right to exist as such.”
“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
Gandhi 25
What puts most people off of Gandhi was his vow of celibacy, but the Gospel of Matthew talks about it and even the SLAA book, chapter 5 talks about a “Withdrawal period”.
There is something about chosen chastity that gives a person power…Even Rocky Balboa talks about it in Rocky I.
“I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of taking the vow. She had no objection.” (I always feel sad for his wife, here)
“Before the vow I had been open to being overcome by temptation at any moment. Now the vow was a sure shield against temptation.
The great potentiality of celibacy daily became more and more apparent to me.”
But look at the magnitude of the gift he received from this sacrifice.
“Nonviolent noncooperation had not been a preconceived plan. It came on spontaneously, without my having willed it. But I could see that all my previous steps had led up to that goal.”
Gandhi 26
Gandhi was the first person I have ever read about who really understood the connection between food and sex. That’s pretty good information if you are a sex addict and having trouble getting sober. He never went to a meeting, had a sponsor or worked Steps….He just worked a very simple and rigorous food plan.
“Control of the palate is the first essential in the observation of the vow.”
“So, I now pursued my dietetic experiments not merely from the vegetarian's but also from the celibate's point of view.”
“I saw that the celibate's food should be limited, simple, spiceless, and, if possible, uncooked.”
“Six years of experiment showed me that the celibate's ideal food is fresh fruit and nuts.”
“I had deduced that a celibate benefited from a saltless diet.”
“Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons, and olive oil composed our usual diet.”
“The immunity from passion that I enjoyed when I lived off this food was unknown to me after I changed that diet.”
Gandhi 26
The Big Book says that the principal problem of the alcoholic “lies in his mind rather than in his body”. Gandhi agrees…
“The world will tell us that the senses cannot be controlled. We should reply they certainly can be.”
“Involuntary thought is an affectation of the mind, and curbing of thought, therefore, means curbing of the mind which is even more difficult to curb than the wind. Nevertheless the existence of God within makes even control of the mind possible.
When the mind is conquered, what power has lust?”
“It is indeed a subtle enemy, but once the senses, the mind and the reason are under the control of the subtlemost Self, lust is extinguished.”
“Knowledge is obscured by the enemy of the wise man, in the form of lust, the insatiable fire.”
Gandhi 27
There were two guys whose work I really admire who were big walkers: Beethoven and Gandhi. While Mozart was the greater genius (he wrote an opera when he was 11) Beethoven, for my money, was the greater musician). Gandhi and Beethoven loved to walk all the time.
“I had formed the habit of taking long walks, which still remains with me.”
“This habit of long walks has kept me practically free of illness and has given me a fairly strong body.”
Gandhi 28
Gandhi slammed hypocrisy…hard. He was particularly harsh on the Christians who he saw as “arrogant”. He had a clear idea of what religion he believed was really supposed to do:
“The term 'religion' I am using in its broadest sense, meaning thereby self-realization or knowledge of Self.”
“Religion and art have the identical aims...moral and spiritual elevation.”
“I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.”
Gandhi 29
Gandhi was known in history as a man who cherished celibacy, but he was not completely alone. Here are some other people who were famous for their chastity.
Mohammed Ali (for six weeks before a title fight)
Saint Augustine
Jesus
Pythagoras
Joan of Arc
Queen Elizabeth
Florence Nightingale
Leonardo da Vinci
Lewis Carroll
Isaac Newton
John Milton
Leo Tolstoy
Pythia...The Oracle of Delphi
Gandhi 30
Gandhi claimed to have a sense of humor and he is reported to have had one, privately, particularly with children, but I know of no public utterances when he was just plain damn funny.
He warns against frivolity, rather sternly.
He is not a guy you would want to take a long trip in a small car with.
As Jay Leno would say “Not everybody can do comedy”.
Gandhi 31
Vows are not something we do in 12 step. We live one day, three hours, one breath at a time. But, you can vow….for just one day.
“It goes without saying that moderation and sobriety are of the very essence of vow taking.”
“But if it was a matter of ever-increasing joy, let no one believe that it was an easy thing for me. Even when I am passed fifty six years, I realized how hard it is.”
“The taking of a vow does not mean that we are able to observe it completely from the very beginning; it does mean constant and honest effort in thought, word and deed with a view to its fulfillment.”
“It is not hypocrisy if, despite one's best efforts, one does not succeed in always remaining vigilant, for the evil habit has had a long hold over us.”
Gandhi 32
While AA warns us not to “Rest on our laurels”, Gandhi says that there are two stages of enlightenment: Action and Repose. But, he proposes a unique idea, contrary to the Hindu religion that he was so faithful to. Once you attain enlightenment, you are supposed to live one more life (Hindus believe in reincarnation) and this time “Enjoy your successes” …minus the addictions.
“For the man who seeks to scale the heights of spirituality, action is said to be the means. For the same man, when he has scaled those heights, repose is said to be the means.”
“For the man who aspires to master himself, the only means is work. If a person lets himself be beaten for a long time on the anvil of work, someday he may be enlightened. For him who has established himself in self-actualization, the right means of continuing in this state is repose.”
“After attaining freedom, one has one step further to go...To enjoy embodied existence as a consequence of one's good deeds as well.”
Gandhi 33
Gandhi was very difficult to get along with, financially.
On the one hand he had a vow of poverty so he always went third class rail railway when he traveled. I road third class railroad throughout the length of Thailand…and it is not pretty.
He also insisted on walking whenever he could. So, Gandhi was a constant source of perplexity and frustration to his many friends who were doing everything they could to rise out of the bone-crushing poverty that India has historically been known for.
On the other hand, people gave him enormous gifts. Hermann Kallenbach gave him 1000 acres of land to start his first chaste community.
Gandhi was scrupulously honest and accurate with his money and tallied it every night.
Sarojini Naidu, then president of the Indian National Congress, famously remarked about Gandhi that "it costs a lot of money to keep this man in poverty."
Still, Gandhi died with only six possessions…quite happy materially.
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs but not every man’s greeds."
"There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."
"Poverty is the worst form of violence."
"Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity."
"And, on the other hand, you find the less you possess, the less you want, the better you are. And better for what? Not for the enjoyment of this life, but for enjoyment of personal service to your fellow beings, service to which you dedicate yourselves, body, soul and mind."
Gandhi 34
As PrayerCall practices Step Eleven 28 times a week, we might benefit from Gandhi’s experience on prayer:
“Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.”
“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness."
“It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
“I have not the slightest doubt that prayer is an unfailing means of cleansing the heart of passions.”
“I have no doubt that there is a key to lock out undesirable thoughts, but everyone has to find it out for himself. Saints and seers have left their experiences for us, but they have given us no infallible and universal prescription.”
“Involuntary thought is an affectation of the mind, and curbing of thought, therefore, means curbing of the mind which is even more difficult to curb than the wind. Nevertheless the existence of God within makes even control of the mind possible.”