Bharatiya Chintan ki Parampara me Navin Sambhavanae Part 2

Author(s): Radheshyamdhar Dvivedi
Publisher: Sampurnanand Sanskrut Vishvavidyalaya Varanasi

Page 139

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भारतीय चिन्तन की परम्परा में नवीन सम्भावनाएं
He said that God is not a person. At the same time he said, God is available as a person if one invokes Him as a person.
This means, God is neither personal nor impersonal. He is beyond these man-made dualities, But man, when invokes God as a person, he makes his presence falt as a person. When Gandhi was asked as to the meaning of prayer, and when the prayer is for a specific purpose under some particular circumstances, Gandhi is said to have replied, prayer is a communion by a devotee with the highest and mightiest power that be, and it is as if there is a dialogue. In the three talks I gave long age on the topic, "Gandhi the spiritual Seeker, I have pointed out some signficant facts in this connection, Gandhi never tried of saying that 'seeing God face to face was his goal in life. When asked if he had seen God, he said 'not yet, but he added, that he did not remember to have done anything except 'in the presence of God'. Self-realization and God-realisation are used as synonyms in the dictionary of spirituality. On the significant occasion of his undertaking a fast in Yerawada Jail in 1932, Gandhi has described in his own word his experience. He says that his mind and heart were ful of excitement and agony about the Communal Award which the British Prime Minister had announced conceding separate electorates to Harijans, that is the untouchables. At night at about eleven O'clock on that day, he said, he heard 'a voice as distinct as any voice could be, first as a distant voice, then far nearer and that voice decided his determination to fast unto death on that issue. Then he says a kind of infinite calm and peace descended on him and he slept soundly the rest of the night. People are likely to call this a kind of hallucination, a fantasy and so on. But to Gandhi it was an unforgettable experience with the totality of his being, in which, it could be
परिसंवाद-३