MAHATAMA GANDHI – THE IDEAL SADHAKA

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MAHATAMA GANDHI – THE IDEAL SADHAKA

 

 

The following extracts from the Introduction dated November1925,

to An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, are

presented on the occasion of the Gandhi Jyanti.

 

What I want to achieve – what I have been striving and pining to

achieve these thirty years – is self-realization, to see God face to

face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit

of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing, and all

my ventures in the political field, are directed to this same end.

 

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 yet found

Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the

things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest. Even if the sacrifice

demanded be my very life, I hope I may be prepared to give it. Though

this path is strait and narrow and sharp as the razor's edge, for me

it has been the quickest and easiest.

 

Often in my progress I have 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. Let those, who wish, realize how the

conviction has grown upon me; let them share my experiments and share

also my conviction if they can. The further conviction has been

growing upon me that whatever is possible for me is possible even for

a child, and I have sound reasons for saying so. The instruments for

the quest of truth are as simple as they are difficult.

 

[Emphasizing the need for total eradication of the ego for the seeker

of the Self, Gandhiji adds]: The seeker after truth should be humbler

than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the

seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could

crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of

truth. The dialogue between Vasishtha and Vishvamitra makes this

abundantly clear.

 

[Regarding the burning desire to realize the Self, he says]: It is an

unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from Him, who as I

fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I

am.

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain)

 

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad

This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,

monthly magazine of the Kendram.