Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Who Was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi?


In the Mother's War Sri Aurobindo took full charge of the situation. Behind Hitler's success Sri Aurobindo saw the working of a powerful Asura in the task of “enslavement of mankind to the tyranny of evil.” This would have been a setback for the course of spiritual evolution for which Sri Aurobindo was working.
Not only did he apply his yogic force when such catastrophic events were taking place; he and the Mother also made a monetary contribution to the War fund. In their letter to the Governor of Madras dated 19 September 1940 they declared: “We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the world-domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity. To this cause our support and sympathy will be unswerving whatever may happen; we look forward to the victory of Britain and, as the eventual result, an era of peace and union among the nations and a better and more secure world-order.” Who in this land of ours had the idea of the disaster that was waiting for mankind in the victory of the Nazi way of life, of Hitler's running over nations and countries? None. It seems that we had lost our heads and our souls. If at all there was the charismatic appeal to the gullible to side with the devil in his doings. The one who had proclaimed himself as the Lord of the Nations, the Asuric power of Falsehood, had found in Hitler his perfect instrument in the gruesome task of annihilation of the world
. Here was Mahatma Gandhi with the ethico-religious mind recommending submission to the Falsehood that was at the basis of this dark creation. The Times letter in July 1940 addressed to the Britishers runs as follows: “I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.” Putting such an ultra-Christian doctrine on the highest pedestal of ethical excellence, making it an eminent principle of administration in the daily mode of life of the individual as well as of a whole society is not only to dwarf them; in fact, in its cruellest sense it is to turn all towards anti-humanity...read more

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