Celebrating The First International Day of Yoga

LIVES OF THE SAINTS
Fight Against Racial Prejudice in South Africa
At this time, Gandhiji accepted an offer from the Meman firm
of Porbander to go to South Africa as their legal representative.
He arrived in Natal in 1893 and was immediately requested to
go to Pretoria where his presence was required. He confronted
difficulty when he entered a first-class compartment on a train
to the Transvaal. At Pietermaritzburg he was ejected from the
train together with all of his luggage. He now resolved to fight
colour prejudice.
The ill-treatment that the Indians received at the hands of
colonialists was abhorrent to Gandhiji, and he was determined
to champion their cause. This led him, in 1894, to found the
Natal Indian Congress. In 1899, on the outbreak of the Anglo-
Boer War, he led the Indian Ambulance Corps of one thousand
members. They engaged in active service and on one occasion
were under attack of heavy fire.
In 1901, Gandhiji’s health broke down and he returned
to India. After a year or two he was again summoned to South
Africa. While there, in 1901, he founded the newspaper, Indian
Opinion. Five years later, when a native rebellion broke out
in Natal, Gandhiji offered a Stretcher-Bearer Corps. During the
First World War he raised an Ambulance Corps and conducted
a recruiting campaign in Karia.
It was in South Africa that Gandhiji first adopted Satyagraha,
the method of non-violence, to fight the injustice to which Indians
were subjected. The entire Indian community rallied around him
magnificently, for he had readily identified himself with all.
His powerful Satyagraha campaign with which he confronted
the unjust laws of the local government was overwhelmingly
successful. He showed that this “soul force”, as he called it,
could be universally applied to bring peace and abolish
despotism and ever-growing militarism.
Struggle for Independence
His mission accomplished, Gandhiji arrived in India in 1915.
In 1918, he assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress
and associated himself with the Khilafat movement. He used
the peaceful method of non-co-operation and non-violence for
achieving freedom for his country from the yoke of foreign rule.
The Gandhi movement spread like wild fire. He roused the
masses to political consciousness and proved to them that they
possessed immense soul-force. He was sentenced to six years
imprisonment and was released in February, 1924. In that same
year he became President of the Indian National Congress.
In April 1930, the Salt Satyagraha was started by Gandhiji.
For his breach of the Salt Laws he was interned on the 5th May,
1930. He was released on the 25th January, 1931 in order to
attend the Round Table Conference in London. He was again
arrested in January, 1933 and released in May of the same year.
Gandhiji’s intense love for his fellow men, his long fasts,
his great sacrifices for his country’s cause, indomitable will,
moral force and deep spiritual life, won for him the hearts
of his countrymen.
In their excessive devotion, love and reverence for him they
bestowed upon him the title of “Mahatma”, meaning “Great
Soul”. They addressed him affectionately as Bapuji. It means
“beloved father”.
The tremendous soul-power of which Gandhiji spoke was
essentially derived from the chanting of Ram-Nam and the
study of the Gita and Ramayana. Not a day passed without a
study of the second chapter of the Gita, in which, Gandhiji felt,
was contained its entire philosophy.
On the 15th of August, 1947, Gandhiji won freedom for
India. Soon after this he was shot three times at point-blank
range by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a Hindu extremist.
On Gandhiji’s lips, just before he gave up his last breath,
were the words “Hey Ram!”
“ Mahatma Gandhi’s life is a monument
to the triumph of spirit over flesh,
a living witness to the victory of the
divine over the base nature of man”
The Pattern of a Perfect Life
Bharatavarsha, as India is known, has always been a land
of eternal ideals and sublime idealism, and of supermen who
converted these ideals into actuality in their everyday life.
Gandhiji was such an ideal superman. His name has become
synonymous with unbending moral rectitude, heroic allegiance
to truth, and perfect righteousness both in private and public life.
Mahatma Gandhi’s life is a monument to the triumph of
spirit over flesh, a living witness to the victory of the divine over
the base nature of man. A continuous exercise of self-restraint
and discipline, along with deep prayer and an invincible faith
in the Divine, enabled him to successfully resist all kinds of
temptations, overcome all obstacles and gain full mastery
over himself.
Gandhiji’s firm and tenacious adherence to the cause of the
poor, the downtrodden Harijans, and the common man of the
Indian village, is indeed worthy of emulation. Through all the
vicissitudes of time and power and fame, he kept before the
vision of the Indian Congress the fundamental purpose for
which it came into being – the amelioration of the suffering
of the poor. Uncrowned king of the land, he remained a friend
of the poor; he lived for them, moved among them as one of
them, and served them with all his heart. He saw God in them,
and in their service wore out his body.
As the Father of the Nation in every sense of the term,
Gandhiji brought about a re-orientation in the outlook of the
average Indian, and instilled into him the love of God, his
religion and his motherland, all of which had been eclipsed for
more than a century by the unhealthy influence of Western
culture, manners and language.
Mahatmaji demonstrated how a life of complete detachment
and renunciation may be led while remaining in the thick of
battle. His was a supreme example of one who had completely
annihilated the ego, the little “I”, and led a divine life in the
world. His life was like that of a lotus leaf in water.
Albert Einstein, the famous scientist who propounded the
theory of relativity, said of Gandhiji: “Generations to come will
scarcely believe that such a man in flesh and blood once trod
upon this earth”.
May the Mahatma’s light of love illuminate the hearts
of nations and individuals! May his dream of world unity
materialise this very day! May his spirit bless us all with the
vision and strength to realise in our everyday life all his lofty
ideals of truth, purity, non-violence and faith in the Divine! n
YOGALife |Autumn/Winter 2015
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