Gandhi's Religious Thought - (review part-2)

INNER VOICE

Chatterjee has dedicated one complete chapter to talk about Gandhi’s view of spirituality. From Indian perspective, it is hard to talk about religion and spirituality in rigid terms like what it means to the west. These terms have no exact counterpart in either Hinduism or Indian languages which would mean and express the same sentiments that these terms express. Hinduism is centred on the concept of Dharma where questions of God’s existence become ancillary. For Gandhi, God is Truth and his spiritual and physical endeavours are directed towards the search of the latter. Chatterjee mentions how Gandhi has digressed from traditional Hindu practices of YajnA and PUjA and has replaced them with soul-force and prayer respectively. This is where Chatterjee embarks upon understanding an important concept in Gandhi’s scheme of things, the inner voice. She says that the link between the soul-force and prayer is the inner voice. It is the power which is released through self-sacrificing acts especially when embarked upon collectively.

Her efforts are to understand this inner voice and Gandhi’s experience of prayer. She starts by understanding Gandhi’s attitude towards rituals and sacraments. It is important over here to mention his views on this topic. He said that works done without faith and prayers were like artificial flowers without fragrance. Nevertheless, Gandhi was sensitive to the presence of symbolism in religious life. He thought symbolism was instrumental to give shape to what was invisible to the human eye but clearly visible to the eye of human imagination.

Indian religious life was full of symbolism whether in food, dress, dances, Kirtan so on and so forth. Gandhi accepted them gladly but was also critical of the accompanying cruelty, unhygienic conditions, rudimentary practices like untouchability etc. He himself introduced new symbols like wearing Khadi - a symbol of self-sufficiency and doing one’s own things that would reduce dependencies. Chatterjee is trying to show that for Gandhi, the insistence on prayer and devotion was also somehow linked to the expression of symbols like those mentioned above.

Chatterjee pays special attention to digging deep in Gandhi’s inner voice. For Gandhi, the inner voice could mean a message from either God or Devil since both wrestle in the human breast. Act determine the nature of voice. This is his attempt at ultimately making the man responsible for his acts done out of responding to the inner voice. The purity of the final act would determine if it was the God or the Devil who spoke initially. This is similar to saying that everything is pre-defined however we can still shape our destiny. Whatever shape we give to it, it was pre-destined to receive that shape.

Gandhi clarifies his position on inner voice, for those to whom it sounded obstructionist in current form, as it simply being the dictates of reason. He said that these dictates contained both authority and power but revealed themselves only to those men who had undergone purificatory discipline of a Satyagrahi and have faith in God. Gandhi held the view that if one listened to his inner voice then he would come in tune with the universe which will gives the power to stand alone in the harshest of the harsh conditions. He was very fond of a song that Tagore wrote during independence movement. ‘Ekla Cholo’- the song motivates the lone worker to struggle for freedom even when no one responds to the call in dark.

Chatterjee mentions that Gandhi never really liked the titles that were given to him. Neither Karmaveer nor Mahatma. He considered himself a humble seeker after truth and a devotee of God. Gandhi found it hard to accept anything that made him stand apart from his fellow brothers and sisters. His belief in Advaita stood in front of him as a roadblock. In one of the paragraphs that Chatterjee mentions, his belief in Advaita is clearly stated by him. He said God and his laws were one. Anything attributed to God was not a mere attribute. God was the attribute. God was the truth, love, law and a million things that human ingenuity could name. That if one individual gained spiritually, all gained around him. If he fell the whole world would fall.

As the chapter closes, Chatterjee explores that important conduit through which the inner voice is approached- prayer. For Gandhi, prayer was a means of self-purification. It arose from the hunger of the soul. When he prayed for an ailing friend, we also see his rational outlook towards prayer. He said that he didn’t know if prayer would add even a single second to the life for which he prayed. But it definitely comforted those who were prayed for and elevated those who prayed. Gandhi paid special attention to congregational prayers. These were accompanied not by a sermon or homily but a public address which dealt with very practical day to day matters of the ashram, the political events of the day and social challenges needed to be met. These mass prayer sessions were also a lesson in self-discipline. Even when no idols and images were used in his prayer gatherings, even when they were held under open skies, hundreds of thousands flocked. Gandhi was training them to listen to their inner voice.