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Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi
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attainable through yoga. In this state, the body and the senses, the mind and the intellect cease to function. So, there is no consciousness of any object, including eternal mental states. Still, it is not a state of unconsciousness. One who attains the state of tūriya, does not die. In this state, one continues to exist to be conscious, although one has not existed as a particular individual and is not conscious of any particular object. As free from conflicts of ordinary objects and interests of life, it is also a state of permanent peace or bliss. It is a state in which the self abides in its own essence as pure consciousness. As compared with these, allt physical, psychical and even moral characteristics, are external and accidental to the self.
Gandhiji points out that the physical world, with man has its beginning in the absolute. How the absolute translated itself into the universe we do not know, we cannot know, but it is a beginningless process. Physical man, as a part of the world, finds himself subject to this apparently endless process, but his position in the world is unique. He observes, thinks, reflects and finds himself captive, and struggles against the captivity. His reflection tells him that he is the subject of an objective world. This subjectivity is not only of his inside nature, viz., composed of his body, senses, intellect etc. but also of the objective world that surrounds him. With both these changes, there is an abiding something in him which certainly does not change. And if it does not change, in spite of ceaseless change, how can it perish. The world of change and the world of morality give him limitations of an eternality and immortality. There is a sacred thing in him which makes the finite, imperfect mortal in him to hanker after the Infinite, Perfect and Immortal. To quote Mahatma Gandhi : “Bound up as he is with the world of sense, he has fleeting glimpses of this oneness with the universal self, but those glimpses are few and far between. Unless he can completely isolate himself from all that differentiates and separates, he cannot abide in this unity."15
As already pointed out, Gandhiji was a follower of Advaita philosophy. Now, Gandhiji says that even Sankara and his followers do not believe in the ultimate reality of separate
