Gandhis Teachers Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta

Author(s): Satish Sharma
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyapith Ahmedabad

Page 21

Introduction
Gandhi's guru and Gandhi's search for one continued throughout his life. People who had come close to being Gandhi's guru in this realm were Rajchandra, Leo Tolstoy, and John Ruskin, as they had made great impression on Gandhi through their writings and exemplary lives. According to Gandhi's own ranking, the first among them was Rajchandra, a householder and a businessman who was a "seeker of Truth" and led life in the spirit of highest detachment. His influence on Gandhi was through personal contact, discourses, and correspondence Gandhi had with him from South Africa. In many ways, Gandhi attempted to model his life after his in terms of his efforts for equanimity, simplicity, diet reforms, vow of brahmcharya, and his determination to achieve moksha and see God face-to-face. When Gandhi's Christian and Muslim friends in South Africa had tried to convert him to Christianity and Islam, it was Rajchandra who had cleared Gandhi's doubts about Hindu religion and pacified him. !2
Leo Tolstoy was second in the ranking and his influence on Gandhi was through the book The Kingdom of God is Within You." Gandhi understood from this book that "God's kingdom is in our hearts and that if we search it outside, we shall find it nowhere."'4 Later, Gandhi also read Tolstoy's other works!5 and exchanged a few letters with him. Gandhi admits that before reading Tolstoy's book, he was skeptical about many things and entertained atheistic ideas. When he went to England, he was a votary of violence, had faith in it, and none in nonviolence. After reading The Kingdom of God is Within You, Gandhi's faith in violence vanished and he embedded his life firmly in nonviolence.!6 Gandhi was impressed by Tolstoy's life and felt that he actually lived based on what he preached. He was also impressed by Tolstoy's extraordinary simplicity and straightforwardness."
John Ruskin was third in the ranking and his influence on Gandhi was through the book Unto This Lost. 18 The theme of this book was that in any society each and every person was important and had to be shown due regard and consideration. Ruskin mentions that in the life of the nations material