by M K Gandhi
I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my ad-vantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the366 certificate that a thoughtlessM9 word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to367 regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it.368 A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time.369 My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow.M10 It has helped me in my discernmentM11 of truth.
XIX
THE CANKERM1 OF UNTRUTH
There were comparatively few Indian students inM2 England forty years ago. It was a practice with them to affect the bachelor even though they might be married. School or college students in England are all bachelors, studies being regarded as incompatible with married life. We had that tradition in the good old days, a student then being invariably known as a brahmachari.370 But in these days we have child-marriages, a thingM3 practically unknown in England. Indian youths in England,371 therefore, felt ashamed to confess that they were married. There was also another reason for dissembling,372 namely that in the event of the fact being known it would be impossible for the young man to go about or flirt with the young girls of the family in which they lived. The flirting was more or less innocent. Parents even encouraged it;M4 and that sort of association between young men and young women may even beM5 a necessity there, in view of the fact that every young man has to choose his mate. If, however, Indian youths on arrival in England indulge in these relations, quite natural to English youths, the result is likely to be disastrous, as has often been found. I saw that our youths had succumbed to the temptation and chosen a life of untruth for the sake of companionships which, however innocent in the case of English youths, were for them undesirable. I too caught the contagion.M6 I did not hesitate to pass myself off as a bachelor though I was married373 and the father of a son. But I was none the happier for being a dissembler.M7 Only374 my reserveM8 and my reticence saved me from going into deeper waters.375 If I did not talk, no girl would think it worth her while to enter into conversation with me or to go out with me.M9
My cowardice was on a par with my reserve.M10 It was customary in families like the one in which I was staying at Ventnor376 for the daughter of the landlady to take out guests for a walk.377 My landlady’s daughter378 took me one day to the lovely hills round Ventnor. I was no slow walker, but my companion walked even faster, dragging me after her and chattering away all the while. I responded to her chatter sometimes with a whispered ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or at the most ‘yes, how beautiful!’ She was flying like a bird whilst I was wondering when I should get back home.379 We thus reached the top of a hill. How to get down again was the question. In spite of her high-heeled boots this sprightly young lady of twenty-five darted down the hill like an arrow.M11 I was shamefacedly struggling toM12 get down. She stood at the foot smiling and cheering me and offering to come and drag me. How could I be so chicken-hearted?M13 With the greatest difficulty, and crawling at intervals, I somehow managed to scramble to the bottom. She loudly laughed ‘bravo’ and shamed me all the more, as well she might.380
But I could not escape scatheless everywhere. For God wanted to rid me of the cankerM14 of untruth. I once went to Brighton,381 another watering-place like Ventnor. This was before the Ventnor visit.382 I met there at a hotel an old widow of moderate means.M15 This was my first year in England.383 The courses on the menu were all described in French, which I did not understand. I sat at the same table as the old lady. She saw that I was a stranger and puzzled, and immediately came to my aid.M16 ‘You seem to be a stranger,’ she said, ‘and look perplexed. Why have you not ordered anything?’ I was spelling through the menu and preparing to ascertain the ingredients of the courses from the waiter, when the good lady thus intervened. I thanked her, and explaining my difficulty told her that I was at a loss to know which of the courses were vegetarian as I did not understand French.M17
‘Let me help you,’ she said. ‘I shall explain the card to you and show you what you may eat.’ I gratefully availed of her help. This was the beginning of an acquaintance that ripened into friendship and was kept up all through my stay in England and long after. She gave me her London address and invited me to dine at her house every Sunday. On special occasions also she would invite me, help me to conquer my bashfulness and introduce me to young ladies and draw me into conversation with them. Particularly marked out for these conversations was a young lady who stayed with her, and often we would be left entirely alone together.
I found all this very trying at first. I could not start a conversation nor could I indulge in any jokes. But she put me in the way. I began to learn; and in course of time looked forward to every Sunday and came to like the conversations with the young friend.
The old lady went on spreading her net wider every day.M18 She felt interested in our meetings. Possibly she had her own plans about us.
I was in a quandary. ‘How I wished I had told the good lady that I was married!’ I said to myself. ‘She would then have not thought of an engagement between us.M19 It is, however, never too late to mend. If I declare the truth, I might yet be saved more misery.’ With these thoughts in my mind, I wrote a letter to her somewhat to this effect:
‘Ever since we met at Brighton you have been kind to me. You have taken care of me even as a mother of her son. You also think that I should get married and with that view you have been introducing me to young ladies. Rather than allow matters to go further, I must confess to you that I have been unworthy of your affection. I should have told you when I began my visits to you that I was married. I knew that Indian students in England dissembled the fact of their marriage and I followed suit. I now see that I should not have done so. I must also add that I was married while yet a boy, and am the father of a son. I am pained that I should have kept this knowledge from you so long. But I am glad God has now given me the courage to speak out the truth. Will you forgive me? I assure you I have taken no improper liberties with the young ladyM20 you were good enough to introduce to me. I knew my limits. You, not knowing that I was married, naturally desired that we should be engaged. In order that things should not go beyond the present stage, I must tell you the truth.M21
‘If on receipt of this, you feel that I have been unworthy of your hospitality, I assure you I shall not take it amiss. You have laid me under an everlasting debt of gratitude by your kindness and solicitude. If, after this, you do not reject me but continue to regard me as worthy of your hospitality, which I will spare no pains to deserve, I shall naturally be happy and count it a further token of your kindness.’
Let the reader know that I could not have written such a letter in a moment. I must have drafted and redrafted it many times over. But it lifted a burden that was weighing me down. Almost by return post came her reply somewhat as follows:
‘I have your frank letter. We were both very glad and had a hearty laugh over it. The untruth you say you have been guilty of is pardonable. But it is well that you have acquainted us with the real state of things. My invitation still stands and we shall certainly expe
ct you next Sunday and look forward to hearing all about your child-marriage and to the pleasure of laughing at your expense. Need I assure you that our friendship is not in the least affected by this incident?’
I thus purged myself of the cankerM22 of untruth, and I never thenceforward hesitated to talk of my married state wherever necessary.
XX
ACQUAINTANCE WITH RELIGIONS
Towards the end of my second yearM1 in England I came across two Theosophists,384 brothers,385 and both unmarried. They talked to me about the Gita. They were reading Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation—The Song Celestial386—and they invited me to read the originalM2 with them. I felt ashamed, as I had read the divine poemM3 neither in Samskrit nor in Gujarati.M4 I was constrained to tell them that I had not read the Gita,387 but that I would gladly read it with them, and that though my knowledge of Samskrit was meagre, still I hoped to be able to understand the original to the extent of telling where the translation failed to bring out the meaning. I began reading the Gita with them.M5 The verses inM6 the second chapter
If one
Ponders on objects of the sense, there springs
Attraction; from attraction grows desire,
Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds
Recklessness; then the memory – all betrayed –
Lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind,
Till purpose, mind, and man are all undone.388
made a deep impression on my mind, and they still ring in my ears. The bookM7 struck me as one of priceless worth. The impression has ever since been growing on me with the result that I regard it today as the book par excellence for the knowledge of Truth.M8 It has afforded me invaluable help in my moments of gloom. I have read almost all the English translations of it, and I regard Sir Edwin Arnold’s as the best. He has been faithful to the text,M9 and yet it does not read like a translation. Though I read the Gita with these friends,389 I cannot pretend to have studied it then. It was only after some years that it became a book of daily reading.390
The brothers also recommended The Light of Asia391 by Sir Edwin Arnold, whom I knew till then as the author only of The Song Celestial,M10 and I read it with even greater interest than I did the Bhagavad Gita. Once I had begun it I could not leave off. They also took me on one occasion to the Blavatsky Lodge392 and introduced me toM11 Madame Blavatsky393 and Mrs. Besant.394 The latter had just then joined the Theosophical Society,395 and I was following with great interest the controversy about her conversion. The friends advised me to join the Society, but I politely declined saying, ‘With my meagre knowledge of my ownM12 religion I do not want to belong to any religious body.’M13 I recall having read, at the brothers’ instance, Madame Blavatsky’s Key to Theosophy.396 This book stimulated in me the desire to read books on Hinduism, and disabused me of the notion fostered by the missionaries that Hinduism was rife with superstition.
About the same time I met a good Christian from Manchester in a vegetarian boarding house. He talked to me about Christianity. I narrated to him my Rajkot recollections. He was pained to hear them. He said, ‘I am a vegetarian. I do not drink. Many Christians are meat-eaters and drink, no doubt; but neither meat-eating nor drinking is enjoined by Scripture.M14 Do please read the Bible.’ I accepted his advice, and he got me a copy. I have a faint recollection that he himself used to sell copies of the Bible, and I purchased from him an edition containing maps, concordance, and other aids. I began reading it, but I could not possibly read through the Old Testament. I read the Book of Genesis,397 and the chapters that followed invariably sent me to sleep. But just for the sake of being able to say that I had read it, I plodded through the other books with much difficulty and without the least interest or understanding. I disliked reading the Book of Numbers.398
But the New Testament produced a different impression, especially the Sermon on the Mount which went straight to my heart. IM15 compared it with the Gita. The verses, ‘But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man take away thy coat let him have thy cloak too,’ delighted me beyond measure and put me in mind of Shamal Bhatt’s399 ‘For a bowl of water, give a goodly meal’, etc.400 My young mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, The Light of Asia and the Sermon on the Mount. That renunciation was the highest form of religionM16 appealed to me greatly.
This reading whetted my appetite for studying the lives of other religious teachers. A friend recommended Carlyle’s Heroes and Hero-worship.401 I read the chapter on the Hero as a prophet and learnt of the Prophet’s greatness and bravery and austere living.
Beyond this acquaintance with religion402 I could not go at the moment, as reading for the examination left me scarcely any time for outside subjects. But I took mental note of the fact that I should read more religious books and acquaint myself with all the principal religions.
And how could I help knowing something of atheism too? Every Indian knew Bradlaugh’s403 name and his so-called atheism. I read some book about it, the name of which I forget. It had no effect on me, for I had already crossed the Sahara of atheism. Mrs. Besant who was then very much in the limelight, had turned to theism from atheism, and that fact also strengthened my aversion to atheism. I had read her bookM17 How I Became a Theosophist.
It was about this time that Bradlaugh died. He was buried in the Woking Cemetery.404 I attended the funeral, as I believe every Indian residing in London did. A few clergymen also were present to do him the last honours. On our way back from the funeral we had to wait at the station for our train. A championM18 atheist from the crowd heckled one of these clergymen. ‘Well, Sir, you believe in the existence of God?’
‘I do,’ said the good man in a low tone.
‘You also agree that the circumference of the Earth is 28,000 miles, don’t you?’ said the atheist with a smile of self-assurance.
‘Indeed.’
‘Pray tell me then the size of your God and where he may be?’
‘Well, if we but knew, He resides in the hearts of us both.’
‘Now, now, don’t take me to be a child,’ said the championM19 with a triumphant look at us. The clergyman assumed a humble silence. This talk still further increased my prejudice against atheism.
XXI
निर्बल के बलराम405
Though I had acquired a nodding acquaintance with Hinduism406 and other religions of the world, I should have known that it would not be enough to save me in my trials.M1 Of the thing that sustains him through trials man has no inkling, much less knowledge, at the time. If an unbeliever, he will attribute his safety to chance. If a believer, he will say God saved him. He will conclude as well he may, that his religious study or spiritual discipline was at the back of the state of grace within him.M2 But in the hour of his deliverance he does not know whether his spiritual discipline or something407 else saves him. Who that has prided himself on his spiritual strength has not seen it humbled to the dust? A knowledge of religion, as distinguished from experience, seems but chaff in such moments of trial.M3
It was in England that I first discovered the futility of mere religious knowledge. How I was saved on previous occasions is more than I can say, for I was very young then;408 but now I was twenty and had gained some experience as husband and father.M4
During the last year, as far as I can remember, of my stay in England, that is in 1890,409 there was a Vegetarian Conference at Portsmouth410 to which an Indian friend411 and I were invited.412 Portsmouth is a sea-port with a large naval population.M5 It has many houses with women of ill fame, women not actually prostitutes, but at the same time, not very scrupulous about their morals.M6 We were put up in one of these houses. Needless to say, the Reception Committee did not know anything about it.M7 It would have been difficult in a town like Portsmouth to find out which were good lodgings and which were bad for occasional travellers like us.413
We returned from the Conference in the evening. Af
ter dinner we sat down to play a rubber of bridge, in which our landlady joined, as is customary in England even in respectable households.M8 Every player indulges in innocent jokes as a matter of course, but here my companion and our hostess began to make indecent ones as well. I did not know that my friend was an adept in the art. It captured me and I also joined in. Just when I was about to go beyond the limit,M9 leaving the cards and the game to themselves, God through the good companion uttered the blessed warning: ‘Whence this devil in you, my boy? Be off, quick!’M10
I was ashamed. I took the warning and expressed within myself gratefulness to my friend. Remembering the vow I had taken before my mother, I fled from the scene. To my room I went quaking, trembling, and with beating heart, like a quarry escaped from its pursuer.
I recall this as the first occasion on which a woman, other than my wife, moved me to lust.414 I passed that night sleeplessly, all kinds of thoughts assailing me. Should I leave this house? Should I run away from the place? Where was I? What would happen to me if I had not my wits about me? I decided to act thenceforth with great caution; not to leave the house, but somehow leave Portsmouth.415 The Conference was not to go on for more than two days, and I remember I left Portsmouth the next evening, my companion staying there some time longer.
I did not then know the essence of religion or of God, and how He works in us. Only vaguely I understood that God had saved me on that occasion. On all occasions of trial He has saved me.M11 I know that the phrase ‘God saved me’ has a deeper meaning for me today, and still I feel that I have not yet grasped its entire meaning. Only richer experience can help me to a fuller understanding. But in allM12 my trials—of a spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and in politics—I can say that God saved me. When every hope is gone, ‘when helpers fail and comforts flee’,416 M13 I find417 that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.