An imaginary interview with Mahatma Gandhi, with real questions and real answers.

Don't let your Soul starve! Feed her by serving Love! 

                                                                               - Sean Dragon

The Dream

I have this strange belief -created by personal experience- that we live two lives at the same time. One in this Earthly world, when we are awake, and one in the Astral Plane, while we are sleeping. The Astral Plane is the world of dreams, the world beyond, where Spirits can all meet up!

This was the place where I first met my beloved figure, Albert Einstein, and he gave me the instructions to write my interview with him (you can read it here).

Some weeks ago, while India and the whole world were celebrating 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Einstein found me there, again, and told me with a stern tone:

"I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil."

Then he walked away before I can say a word. This was the spark I needed! I decided to request an interview from this great Spirit, Mahatma Gandhi!

So I sent him my wish, in a spiritual way, and the very next night, Mr Gandhi found me in a dream! I bowed before his luminous shape, and he embraced me in a way my beloved Master used to do! He spoke with a singing voice:

"My dear friend, as my brother, Albert, has told you before, all the questions you would like to ask me have already been answered by me, so you can have your interview. Use your Love. Remember: Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts, and everything will be well."

And so it happened! I searched, and I found the answers to my questions. Hence this interview has been done with questions that have been asked in the present and answered in the past! After all, Love has no restrictions on space and time!

I hope you'll enjoy it.

"I offer you peace.
I offer you love.
I offer you friendship.
I see your beauty.
I hear your need.
I feel your feelings.
My wisdom flows from the highest Source.
I salute that Source in you.
Let us work together. For unity and peace." 

                                                     ― Mahatma Gandhi

The Interview

Sean: My dear Mr Gandhi, in my mind you are one of the most significant examples of the saying "My Life is My Message"! I know that it is challenging to live life the way you did, especially in the period you lived. How did you manage it?

Gandhi: Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.

It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

Don't talk about it. The rose doesn't have to propagate its perfume. It just gives it forth, and people are drawn to it. Live it, and people will come to see the source of your power.

Sean: And who or what was the source of your power?

Gandhi: Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.

There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results. Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable. Nothing is impossible for pure love.

To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself.

Sean: I couldn't agree more! Love is my religion. What is your standpoint on religion?

Gandhi: I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. Yes, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian. God has no religion. "Do not worry in the least about yourself, leave all worry to God," - this appears to be the commandment in all religions.

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into. Truth is one, paths are many. The various religions are like different roads converging on the same point. What difference does it make if we follow different routes, provided we arrive at the same destination?

True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.

If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.

Where love is, there, God is also.

Sean: Oh! You make it sound so easy, but for me, it is usually very hard. I have tried many times to follow the path you have just described, but, no matter my good intentions, my way is full of failures.

Gandhi: I was, too, but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed. Still, I was ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It was a painful climb, but each step upwards made me feel stronger and fit for the next.

I understood that my imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at His feet.

The inner voice is something which cannot be described in words. But sometimes we have a positive feeling that something in us prompts us to do a certain thing. The time when I learnt to recognise this voice was, I may say, the time when I started praying regularly.

When every hope is gone, "when helpers fail and comforts flee," I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

Sean: Yes, prayer has been a life-changer for me too! I always wanted to follow your motto "Be the change that you wish to see in the world", and the communication with my Father proved to be the best way to achieve this high goal. What is a prayer for you?

Gandhi: Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

God speaks to us every day only we don't know how to listen.

If you would ask God to help you, you would go to God in all your nakedness, approach God without reservations, also without fear or doubts as to how God can help a fallen being like you. God, who has helped millions who have approached him, is God going to desert you? God makes no exceptions whatsoever, and you will find that every one of your prayers will be answered. I am telling this out of my personal experience. I have gone through the purgatory. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and everything will be added to you.

But also remember this, to give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

Sean: Serving others is the best prayer! Offering unconditional love is the safest path to happiness! Your life was evidence of this truth. Unfortunately, most of the people believe that this way of life shortens personal pleasure. What is your answer to this belief?

Gandhi: Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness can be spread without diminishing that of yourself. This need not frighten anyone. He who devotes himself to service with a clear conscience, will day by day grasp the necessity for it in greater measure, and will continually grow richer in faith. The path of service can hardly be trodden by one who is not prepared to renounce self-interest, and to recognize the conditions of his birth. Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger. It will make not only for our own happiness but that of the world at large.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

Sean: I know many good people who would like to live this spirit of joy, but their greatest fear is the opposition they will face. The war from a world which has learnt to worship the ego and the false gods of materialism. This world punishes anyone who speaks about Love and serving! Like it did with my beloved Jesus!

Gandhi: I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. Nothing has saddened me so much in life as the hardness of heart of educated people.

Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you're right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth. Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems. 

Sean: As I said before, you were always a perfect example to use when I talk with young people. You have proven your words with your life. But there are still their torturing questions:

"How can I speak the truth when evil people seem to rule the world? How can I love the murderers and the tyrants? How can I forgive?"

Gandhi: When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it -always.

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. Nobody can hurt me without my permission. You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral. There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid. Whenever you are confronted with an opponent conquer him with love.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Sean: Your answers are so full of... I am trying to find the right word... Peace! Yes, that's the word! Peace! As I was investigating your life, I was filled up, more and more, with the sense of a peaceful aura. An aura, radiated, from every word you said, and from every act you did! So let me ask you a silly question, for the benefit of our discussion. How had you always stayed so calm? Didn't you ever get angry?

Gandhi: It is not that I do not get angry. I don't give vent to my anger. I cultivate the quality of patience as angerlessness, and generally speaking, I succeed. But I only control my anger when it comes. How I find it possible to control it would be a useless question, for it is a habit that everyone must cultivate and must succeed in forming by constant practice.

I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger. And as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so, our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.

This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.

The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall always see Truth in fragment and from different points of vision. Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.

Sean: Wow! Astonishing answer! This one with the critics is really a life-changer! I always had the sense that you never wanted to "infect" the world with negativity like anger or brutality. I know that you have repeatedly declared that violence could never be a solution, and I stand for the same idea. I have always disagreed with Machiavelli's saying "the ends justify the means", and I believe that is the cause of many woes in this world. What is your opinion?

Gandhi: I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.

I believe in trusting. Trust begets trust. Suspicion is foetid and only stinks. He who trusts has never yet lost in the world.

A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.

Sean: You see unity through variety, while humanity answers to diversity with violence! With your peaceful revolution, the movement of non-violence, you accomplished something that seemed impossible! You achieved to free an entire nation! You really have changed the world! Tell us about this endeavour.

Gandhi: I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

I learnt the lesson on non-violence from my wife when I tried to bend her to my will. Her determined resistance to my will on the one hand, and her quiet submission to the suffering my stupidity involved on the other, ultimately made me ashamed of myself and cured me of my stupidity in thinking that I was born to rule over her. In the end, she became my teacher in non-violence.

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation. The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane. It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

Poverty is the worst form of violence. An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of non-violence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by non-violence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain. It is a weapon of the strong, the summit of bravery, is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals. The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it is really fear.

Sean: Love over fear!It seems to me like you have linked politics and religion somehow!

Gandhi: Truth has drawn me into the field of politics. And I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.

An armed conflict between nations horrifies us. But the economic war is no better than an armed conflict. This is like a surgical operation. An economic war is prolonged torture. And its ravages are no less terrible than those depicted in the literature on war property so-called. We think nothing of the other because we are used to its deadly effects. The movement against war is sound. I pray for its success. But I cannot help the gnawing fear that the movement will fail if it does not touch the root of all evil-human greed. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

Words like aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability) gripped me. How to cultivate and preserve that equability was the question. How was one to treat alike insulting, insolent and corrupt officials, co-workers of yesterday raising meaningless opposition, and men who had always been good to one? How was one to divest oneself of all possessions? Was not the body itself possession enough? Were not wife and children possessions? Was I to destroy all the cupboards of books I had? Was I to give up all I had and follow Him? Straight came the answer: I could not follow Him unless I gave up all I had.

Sean: And giving up all is the ultimate victory against fear and ego! Then you can taste the fruits of Truth and be a mirror of Love to the world! Isn't so?

Gandhi: Truth is like a vast tree which yields more and more fruit the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mind of truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried there.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.

Sean: My dear Master, I humbly bow before the mystical beauty of your words. Please, give me some guidance for my young students.

Gandhi: Remember: there is only one time that is important-- Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!

Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Sean: I really can't find the right words to thank you for the Light you have brought to our lives. My prayers are with you. Please, let us close this conversation with your beloved prayer.

Gandhi: God, help me to tell the truth to the strong and to avoid telling lies to get the weak's applause. If you give me success, do not take away my humility. If you give me humility, do not take away my dignity. God, help me to see the other side of the medal. Don't let me blame others of treason just because they don't think they like me. God, teach me to love people as I love myself and to judge me as I judge others. Please, don't let me be proud if I succeed, or fall in despair if I fall. Remind me that failure is the experience that precedes triumph. Teach me that forgiving is the most important in the strong and that revenge is the most primitive sigh in the weak. If you take away my success, let me keep my strength to succeed from failure. If I fall people, give me courage to apologize and if people fail me, give me courage to forgive them. God, if I forget you, please do not forget me.

Comments

William D Holland: Cleverly-written. Universal truths. A beautiful way to begin my day. Thanks to you both and blessings always.

Sean: Thank you my brother, Bill! Is a blessing to know you!

Doris James: You never cease to amaze me. You truly are an old soul, either that or a master researcher, or both. What a beautiful message. I felt like I was listening to Gandhi himself.

Sean: Ha! Ha! And I am always amazed by your beautiful comments, my dear Doris, and by your ability to make someone's day! Gratitude!
 

Li-Jen Hew: Hey Sean, it's creative of you to share your's and Gandhi's wisdom through the format of an "interview". It's like saying that the wisdom that Gandhi imparted lives on to be shared to the world. I've learnt a lot in one sitting: Right Action, Power based on Love, the Truth in Religions and the Inner Voice, Happiness by serving others with a good heart, Forgiveness by the strong, Peace by understanding and open-mindedness, wars are not different from another as they come from Greed. Thank you for sharing and if you have anything to add, please do!

Sean: My dear, Li-Jen, thank you for your beautiful comment! You gave a great value to my effort. I am so proud to know you!

Nikki Khan: You just surprise me always Sean brother with your special abilities. What a wonderful way of writing an interview with someone who is passed away.

Sean: I Love you, my dear sister, you know I do! Your spirit is always great power for me. Thank you for your beautiful words! They mean a lot to me. 

I'll be back to HP soon enough. And of course, I want to read the last chapter of your story.

Give big hugs to all your beautiful family for me!

Gratitude!

Πρόσφατες δημοσιεύσεις