Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 153

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
realizations which imply a perfect condition in the outcome of the human society. I, as Hindu, interpret it to mean selfgovernance in the highest sense. I must own to some anxiety for the future of the theory in the practical
realization, when I consider the political contentions and extremes which seem to co-exist. Perhaps my view is superficial, perhaps these outward demonstrations and irreconcilable political antagonisms on party lines and for party supremacy may be mere excrescences or breaking waves upon the bottom of a deep sea whose unity and unifying power shall abide undisturbed and supreme. This is my hope.
therefore, I wonder why this spirit does not go in all directions. The spirit is true & it is universal, but its expression in dogmas and creeds and contending churches, seems in conflict with itself. How can narrowness, and bigotry, and limitations, and worldliness, and worship of mammon, and oppression and extortion, and enmity, and unbrotherly attitude and conduct, be natural expressions of the universal holy spirit of brotherly love? Can you tell me, since I cannot enlighten myself? If you say, these expressions are outward signs and mean nothing, I answer: Whence do they come; whither do they tend, why do they have place; why have they not been banished? If they mean nothing, they can have no mission, and need rejections by that great spirit of goodness which is; love to all living beings. I do not claim superiority, I do not arrogate to myself or to my people the right to judge or to criticize. But you say to me, you are our brother, and some of you say, you are our elder brother and therefore, if I am your brother and I am your brother); I ask you why do you persecute, condemn and devour one another in the sense in which one form of Christianity antagonizes another, and one sect of Christians excommunicates another, and why, in some instances, in your conception of missionary duty, you even excommunicate me? Only this I will say, "Because I am your brother, you shall not excommunicate me; my people, you shall not relegate us to the uncovenanted mercies of God? It is the spirit of your religion, as well as of my own, that the Supreme Being is the source for and essence of goodness, and that all living beings are in a sense, the children of that Supreme Being."
Religious conditions of American nation
Best
Congo
Church of England
Duran
Finally, my brothers and sisters, with your kind indulgence, I will speak somewhat of my impressions about the religion and the religious condition of American nation. Upon coming to this country and viewing you from higher and closer point of view, my first impression was in the nature of an agreeable surprise, I as a heathen, so-called, was received at the great Parliament of Religions, by you especially in the spirit of that brotherly love which is one of the fundamental principles of the universal religion. This great, welcoming spirit of brotherly love, of absolute tolerance, of unlimited fraternity, is the real expression of your national religion, and differs in, nothing from the spirit of my own religion, and
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Chade
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