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Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi
creation or manifestation. But, unlike an ordinary Pantheist, he believed that God was also transcendent. He is in the world as well as beyond the world. He is not fully expressed by this world. He is in the world in the sense that this world is His creation and he dwells in the heart of every creature of His creation. He is beyond this world in the sense that He is not only the sum total of this physical world. He is much more than this. God cannot be fully expressed by His creation.
In the history of religious philosophy, God has been conceived either as a power struggling against opposite principle, viz., principles responsible for the world's evil, or God has been regarded as the only and all-inclusive reality. In accordance with the first conception, God may be conceived as ultimately capable of overcoming the evils. But it makes God subject to partial limitation by an opposite principle. The religious sentiments require an all-perfect and all-complete object of worship as an unfailing source of help. Nothing but Moreover, the second conception of God fully satisfies it. religious belief is encouraged to posit the idea of an all-inclusive God by the monistic tendency. It tries to explain the diverse phenomena of the world by bringing them under some principles. But the problem is that all-inclusiveness of God includes evil also. Trying to describe this all-inclusive idea of God, Gandhiji is realistic enough to include His aspect of suffering, terror and tyranny.
Gandhiji asserts, "Rāma, Rahman, Ahurmazdā, God or Krishna are all attempts on the part of man to name that invincible force which is the greatest of all."
Gandhiji is of the opinion that there is perfection in man but, due to ignorance, he always strives for perfection. In this attempt, he falls in the rivers of impurities. Just as a child, who tries to stand but falls down again and again and at last he learns how to walk, man with all his intelligence is a mere child as compared to the infinite and ageless God. Man can only describe God by his poor language but God defies all descriptions. It is the man who needs this attitude for his mental satisfaction. God is a vast and boundless ocean and man is like the smallest drop of water of that ocean. How
