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Religious equanimity and tolerance came to Gandhi through his childhood encounters with different religions and later through his association with the Theosophist, Muslim, Jew and Christian friends in England, South Africa, and India. Much, however, he owed to Rajchandra in this regard because of the valuable lessons he learned from him through frequent discourses. Gandhi was so much influenced by Rajchandra that he said|44:
He was always bored by religious controversy and rarely engaged himself in it. He would study and understand the excellence of each faith and explain it to the followers of that faith. Through my correspondence with him from South Africa, too, this is the lesson which I learned from him.......My own belief is that every religion is perfect from the point of view of its followers and imperfect from that of the followers of other faiths. Examined from an independent point of view, every religion is both perfect and imperfect. Beyond certain point, every Shastra becomes a fetter hindering further progress; but then, that is the stage reached by one who has transcends the Gunas. If we follow Raychand bhai's point of view, no one need to give up his faith and embrace another. Everyone may, following his own faith, with his freedom, that is, Moksha, for to win Moksha means to be perfectly free from attachments and aversions.
Gandhi visualized different faiths/religions as different rivers that ultimately converge into one ocean. Just as the waters of all the rivers are the same, so is the basic substance of all religions. The tenets of all religions have similar ethos and essence. It was this ethos that Gandhi emphasized upon, without dwelling in the intricacies of individual preaching. Gandhi said in an article in Young India: “I came to the conclusion long ago, after prayerful search and study and discussion with as many people as I could meet, that all religions were true and also that they had some error in them, and that, whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism, from which it logically follows that
Gandhi & Jainism Pg. 179
| SR No. | 007798 |
| Book Title | Gandhi And Jainism |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Shugan C Jain |
| Publisher | International School for Jain Studies |
| Publication Year | 2017 |
| Total Pages | 339 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 120 MB |