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

There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me. But I worship God as Truth only. (Introduction.6)

God equals truth. Gandhi says there are infinite manifestations of God, though, which means that God can appear to be any number of various things. But, according to Gandhi, behind the appearance lies the reality that God is truth.

The outstanding impression my mother has left on my memory is that of saintliness. She was deeply religious. She would not think of taking her meals without her daily prayers. [...] She would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. Illness was no excuse for relaxing them. (1.1.7)

Gandhi's mother played no small part in influencing him to be such a deeply religious person. Surely he gained strength to maintain his own vows by thinking of her devoutness.

The term "religion" I am using in its broadest sense, meaning thereby self-realization or knowledge of self. (1.10.1)

For Gandhi, the self-realized by religious practice is someone that is humble and devoted to service.

He [Gandhi's father] had, besides, Musalman and Parsi friends, who would talk to him about their own faiths, and he would listen to them always with respect, and often with interest. Being his nurse, I often had a chance to be present at these talks. These many things combined to inculcate in me a toleration for all faiths. (1.10.8)

Gandhi developed tolerance for all religions very early on in life. It's a striking contrast to his assassin, who rejected Gandhi's tolerant approach to Muslims.

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. (1.21.7)

Well, this is pretty much what it means to say someone is "otherworldly." To many, Gandhi may seem to be not of this world. The division between appearance and reality was fundamental to how he viewed the world.

What, I thought, can be the meaning of Mr. Baker's interest in me? What shall I gain from his religious co-workers? How far should I undertake the study of Christianity? How was I to obtain literature about Hinduism? And how was I to understand Christianity in its proper perspective without thoroughly knowing my own religion? I could come to only one conclusion: I should make a dispassionate study of all that came to me, and deal with Mr. Baker's group as God might guide me; I should not think of embracing another religion before I had fully understood my own. (2.10.20)

Many people simply assume the religion they grow up in is the correct one. Gandhi decides early in life to make a serious study of all the religions he comes across before deciding which one is for him.

It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate son of God, and that only he who believed in him would have everlasting life. If God could have sons, all of us were His sons. If Jesus was like God, or God Himself, then all men were like God and could be God Himself. My reason was not ready to believe literally that Jesus by his death and by his blood redeemed the sins of the world. Metaphorically there might be some truth in it. Again, according to Christianity only human beings had souls, and not other living beings, for whom death meant complete extinction; while I held a contrary belief. I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the Cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept. [...] Philosophically there was nothing extraordinary in Christian principles. From the point of view of sacrifice, it seemed to me that the Hindus greatly surpassed the Christians. It was impossible for me to regard Christianity as a perfect religion or the greatest of all religions. (2.15.7)

Here, Gandhi outlines his differences with Christianity. He evidently put a lot of thought into his position.

I have not seen Him, neither have I known Him. I have made the world's faith in God my own, and as my faith is ineffaceable, I regard that faith as amounting to experience. However, as it may be said that to describe faith as experience is to tamper with truth, it may perhaps be more correct to say that I have no word for characterizing my belief in God. (4.11.3)

Faith and experience are two separate things, Gandhi says. But he appreciates the value of experience in confirming or disconfirming his experiments with truth. The puzzle of reconciling faith and experience leaves him saying he can't find a word to describe his belief in God.

"I will not wear the sacred thread [...] the sacred thread should be a symbol of spiritual regeneration, presupposing a deliberate attempt on the part of the wearer a higher and purer life. I doubt whether in the present state of Hinduism and of India, Hindus can vindicate the right to wear a symbol charged with such a meaning. That right can come only after Hinduism has purged itself of untouchability, has removed all distinctions of superiority and inferiority, and shed a host of other evils and shams that have become rampant in it." (5.8.12)

Just because Gandhi disagreed with Christianity doesn't mean he thought Hinduism was a perfect religion. Here, he takes issue with untouchability and other problems in Hinduism.

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. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to 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. (Farewell.5)

Many think religion and politics don't mix and that they are topics you shouldn't talk about at the dinner table. Gandhi clearly disagrees. He thinks seeking truth means participating in all areas of life, including politics.