Gandhi Before Gandhi

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

Page 79

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
नवकारमंत्र
forms and expressions from the spire of grass protecting the lowly violet in the vale, to the songs of birds which rise on graceful wings in the pulsating atmosphere, whose pulsations are notes of worship, to the stately forest, bending under the pressure and expanding in the light of nature's glow up in the vaulted heavens singing as they shine, the sound that made us is divine and still up into the higher sentient life, the souls of men, and still up to the perfect life to the dwellers and realizers of the perfect bliss-through all these, the same spirit inspires and leads and makes the worship one.
नमो अरिहंताणं
will say my Christian brothers and sisters, that this act of homage and worship should be directed to the Supreme being only, whom you call God; but you also worship the name of Christ, and who is he if he be not a manifestation and accommodation of some element, especially-Love, that is the worshipful in the divine being.: And in the recognition and devout worship of that same manifestation which is the cause of our conquests and of all perfected lives, do not we bring ourselves into closer relations, and is not, therefore our worship truer and worthier to be accepted?
नमो सिहाणं
नमो आयरियाणं
नमो उवज्झायाण
नमो लोए सव्यसाहूर्ण
एसो पंच नमुक्कारो
This is the true idea of Hindu worship. How do you like it? Does it not touch the cord of sympathy and acceptance in your heart? My American brothers and sisters, it is not a propagandist that I speak of but a spirit, a universal spirit of love and power answerable for the practical realization of brotherhood, the brotherhood not only of men, but of all living things which by the prophets of all nations is indeed taught, but which by the practice of the world is yet ignored.
सव्वपावप्पणासणो
मंगलाणं च सव्वेर्सि
पढम हवइ मंगलं
Does Hindus worship God of destruction?
And this also is the universal worship, the tribute that all life bows in spontaneous gratitude and devotion to the Infinite! In this act of worship we are in fellowship with all living beings. This worship may have no voice, no particular ceremony and no
outward expression cognizable
to the senses, but it must be and it is, the prostration of the soul before the Supreme, in adoration, and in the conformity of love, the lesson of life. In all nature, animate and inanimate, in all graces and
My statement may be objected by distinguished ecclesiasties, such as Bishop Caldwell, who has lived in India for many years, that the Hindus worship gods of destruction, but acquaintance with us will prove that we do not worship gods in the sense conveyed, but they represent to us ideas of retribution and penalty and destruction of the wrongdoing and misdoing of man, and we as to appease wrath and propitiate justice by approaching the methods of a holy life. This same Bishop says " The people of India worship as gods, Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna and various similar