Gandhi Before Gandhi

SR No.: 007501
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 198
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & History
File Size: 34 MB

Page 142

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHIA
Virchand R. Gandhi, the Hindu philosopher, lectured at 810 Masonic Temple last evening to a fine and interested audience. It was the first address of a series to be given on successive Saturday night at the same place, and all are on the general subject of the occult.
Last night, in particular, he talked about hypnotism, which he defined as a natural sleep artificially produced. He said that all might come to possess this power but that only by high and good thinking and living could it be beneficially exercised. All that was impure in character must be sloughed off if, the best results were to be obtained.
He went on to explain the significance of colors, and said yellow and white represented the highest moral conditions, He said the body gave out different lights, black sometimes, and sometimes blue, and these aura were real, if not visible by all.
He traced the history of hypnotism, and said it was practiced thousands of years ago in Greece, it was discouraged by the infant church, and to escape this ostracism it was carried on under cover, thus explaining the rise of secret societies. Catholicism and Masonry had always been antagonists.
At this juncture to illustrate a point, all lights were dimmed, and the figure of the whiteclad Indian, in his purple turban and sash, as seen dimly in the shade, caused a weird sensation, as at some spiritualistic séance.
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There were those who later said they felt an impulse quite uncontrollable to close their eyes and even dose quite off into the land of God.
Then came a pretty little prayer, composed 5,000 years ago to the sun god, as the source of all life.
The speaker said this learning was a scientifically expressed truth, for the sun was a positive force of life. The aura which sheathed every one was an emanation from the sun. Thoughts were vibrations, and faith a state of mind.
Of course, it was necessary that the manipulator of the occult forces of hypnotism should be wise and virtuous, as otherwise he might work the loss, even the ruin in himself and on others. Many tried to operate without going through the preliminary moral life and ruined themselves. A person well fortified in the use of such a force could perform marvels.
He illustrated by taking the case of a child. Unless very stubborn, a child received impressions that were very lasting, and even controlling in the future. In a sense all men were but children of a larger growth. We were hypnotized now and then without knowing it and to understand this we must think deep of the significance of the form of life called passive existence. Neither popular and scientific hypnotism were very different, nor was it to be supposed that a profound science like occultism could all be understood in a jiffy. To many, all such things were as foolish as would have been thought, the possibility of the marvels of electricity a while ago; many sensational things were palmed off as hypnotism that were quite extraneous to it.