Gandhis Teachers Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta

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

Page 95

Rajchandra's Influences on Gandhi
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evolved out of his need to reduce the expenditures in England and gain more hygienic and healthy living. Religious ferment was not yet a part of these experiments. As time passed, religious ferment also became the motive in view of Gandhi's effort for spiritual purification, spiritual growth, and attainment of moksha. The same motive is evident in Gandhi's other personal, social, and political endeavors as well. He writes:31
"What I want to achieve - what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years - is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the political field, are directed to the same end."
Fasting
Fasting has long been practiced in the Indian tradition as a way of disciplining the body and mind and eventually gaining spiritual purification. Gandhi, as a boy, had seen his mother and other Jain families fasting and observing all kinds of physical and mental austerities. He was much influenced by these practices and Rajchandra later added his own impacts by way of a living example of such austerities.
Gandhi mentions that fasting is necessary as an external aid to the disciplining of mind and observing the vow of brahmacharya, just as proper selection and restriction of diet are also necessary for this purpose. All sense organs need nourishment and cooperation of the mind in order to have a free play and without these the sense organs feel powerless and become subdued. Fasting, thus, curbs animal passions and a fast undertaken with this goal in mind is very helpful. Fast, however, can not be mechanical or limited only to the body, the mind and will power also have to be a part of it. Those who fast physically, but keep on thinking of foods all the time, control neither the palate and nor the passions. Mind as the center of all sensuality needs to be bridled and one has to seek