Truth Quotes - Quotes, The Story Of My Experiments With Truth | The Story of My Experiments with Truth - Summary & Themes - Novels PDF Download

I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. (Introduction.3)

Given Gandhi's power and conviction, it's sometimes tough to remember that he regarded his practices as experimental. He saw his actions as tests, open to modification in light of experience.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. (Introduction.6)

Humility is a virtue Gandhi espouses. It's the opposite of pride. You might say proud people think they already understand the truth, but a humble person maintains an experimental approach, recognizing he might be wrong.

Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. (1.18.8)

A man of few words picks what he does say carefully. Makes us wonder what Gandhi would have said about Facebook and Twitter…

I had always heard the merchants say that truth was not possible in business. I did not think so then, nor do I now. Even today there are merchant friends who contend that truth is inconsistent with business. Business, they say, is a very practical affair, and truth a matter of religion; and they argue that practical affairs are one thing, while religion is quite another. Pure truth, they hold, is out of the question in business, one can speak it only so far as is suitable. (2.12.4)

Think about lying on a resume or during a job interview. People say everyone inflates their qualifications when they're trying to get a job, and if you don't, another applicant will get the gig and not you. But what would Gandhi say? Is it acceptable to stretch the truth if it's expected for the situation that you're in? Why or why not?

I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one's wagon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life. (3.23.13)

In classical philosophy (that means Greek and Roman), the summum bonum is the greatest good, the best thing. Gandhi says that's the quest for truth, even though everything but God is uncertain. To Gandhi, God is truth and certainty, and we should strive for it.

I cannot claim complete success for any experiment. Even medical men can make no such claim for their experiments. My object is only to show that he who would go in for novel experiments must begin with himself. That leads to a quicker discovery of truth, and God always protects the honest experimenter. (4.22.5)

According to Karl Popper's falsificationism view of science, experiments don't obtain truth but rather rule out falsehoods, which still advance our knowledge. Gandhi doesn't talk about Popper, who uses the word "truth" differently, but Gandhi does seem to maintain the questioning attitude Popper advises. That doesn't stop Gandhi from coming to strong conclusions.

In the march towards Truth, anger, selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way, for otherwise Truth would be impossible to attain. A man who is swayed by passions may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will never find the Truth. A successful search for Truth means complete deliverance from the dual throng such as of love and hate, happiness and misery. (4.37.11)

We should free ourselves from our passions, according to Gandhi. The Romantics took the opposite view: they were all in favor of passions. What do you think?

As I was proceeding to arrange for my wife's bath, Sjt. Kaul of the Servants of India Society, recognizing us, came up. [...] He offered to take my wife to the second-class bathroom. I hesitated to accept the courteous offer. I knew that my wife had no right to avail herself of the second-class bathroom, but I ultimately connived at the impropriety. This, I know, does not become a votary of Truth. Not that my wife was eager to use the bath room, but a husband's partiality for his wife got the better of his partiality for Truth. The face of Truth is hidden behind the golden veil of maya, says the Upanishad. (5.5.10)

Gandhi acknowledges that he isn't perfect. Even he does things that are against truth. This is just one example.

I succumbed. My intense eagerness to take up the Satyagraha fight had created in me a strong desire to live, and so I contented myself with adhering to the letter of my vow only, and sacrificed its spirit. For although I had only the milk of the cow and the she-buffalo in mind when I took the vow, by natural implication it covered the milk of all animals. Nor could it be right for me to use milk at all, so long as I held that milk is not the natural diet of man. Yet knowing all this I agreed to take goat's milk. The will to live proved stronger than the devotion to truth, and for once the votary of truth compromised his sacred ideal by his eagerness to take up the Satyagraha fight. The memory of this action even now rankles in my breast and fills me with remorse, and I am constantly thinking how to give up goat's milk. But I cannot yet free myself from that subtlest of temptations, the desire to serve, which still holds me. (5.29.8)

Here's another example of Gandhi, in his opinion, going against truth—his vow not to drink milk. How might his deviations from truth fit in with his concept that truth seekers should be humble?

And if every page of these chapters does not proclaim to the reader that the only means for the realization of Truth is Ahimsa, I shall deem all my labour in writing these chapters to have been in vain. (Farewell.4)

If you want truth, you've gotta be non-violent. That's Gandhi's message here.