All World
Gayatri Pariwar

  The Satyagraha Ashram

During my boyhood I had already been attracted by Bengal and the Himalayas, and dreamed of going there. On the one hand I was drawn to Bengal by the revolutionary spirit of Bande Mataram, while on the other hand the path of spiritual quest led to the Himalayas. Kashi was on the way to both places, and some good Karma had brought me as far as that. In the event I went neither to Bengal nor to the Himalayas; I went to Gandhiji, and found with him both the peace of the Himalayas and the revolutionary spirit of Bengal. Peaceful revolution, revolutionary peace: the two streams united in him in a way that was altogether new.

When I had reached Kashi the air had been full of a speech which Bapu had delivered at the Hindu University there. In it he had said a great deal about non-violence, his main point being that there could be no non-violence without fearlessness. The violence of the mind, shown in violent attitudes and feelings was, he said, worse than open, physical violence. It follows from that that the most important aspect of non-violence is inward non-violence, which is not possible without fearlessness. In the same speech he had referred critically to those Indian Princes who had come to the meeting decked out in all kinds of finery. This had all taken place a month before I arrived, but it was still the talk of the town. I read the speech, and it raised all kinds of problems in my mind. I wrote to Bapu with my questions and received a very good reply, so after some ten or fifteen days I wrote again, raising some further points. Then came a postcard. ‘Questions about non-violence,’ he wrote, ‘cannot be settled by letters; the touch of life is needed. Come and stay with me for a few days in the Ashram, so that we can meet now and again.’ The idea that doubts could be set at rest by living rather than by talking was something that greatly appealed to me.

Along with the postcard came a copy of the Ashram rules which attracted me still more. I had never before encountered anything like them in any institution. 'The object of this Ashram, I read, 'is service of our country in such ways as are consistent with the welfare of the world as a whole. We accept the following vows as needful to attain that object.' Then followed the eleven vows: truth, non-violence, non-stealing, self-control, bodily labour and so on. This struck me as very surprising indeed. I had read a great deal of history, but I had never heard of vows being regarded as necessary for national freedom. Such matters, I thought, are found in religious texts, in the Yoga Shastra, and for the guidance of devotees; but here is someone who insists that they are necessary for national service too. That was what drew me to Bapu. Here was a man, I felt, who timed at one and the same time at both political freedom and spiritual development. I was delighted. He had said ‘Come’, and I went.

I alighted at Ahmedabad railway station on June 7, 1916. I had not much luggage, so I put it on my head and started out, asking my way as I went. I crossed Ellis Bridge and reached the Ashram at Kochrab about eight in the morning. Bapu was told that a new man had come, and sent word for me to meet him after I had taken my bath. I found him busy cutting vegetables. This too was something new; I had never heard of any national leader who occupied himself with such a job, and the sight of it was a lesson in what was meant by bodily labour. Bapu put a knife in my hand, and set me to work at a job I had never done before. That was my first lesson, my ‘initiation’.

As we sat cutting the vegetables Bapu asked me some questions, and then said: ‘If you like this place, and want to spend your life in service, I should be very glad to have you stay here.’ Then he went on: 'But you look very weak. It is true that those who seek self-knowledge are not usually physically robust, but you look ill. Those who attain self-knowledge never fall ill. That was my second lesson! I can never forget what Bapu said to me then.

At twenty-one I was a very raw youth, and as my friends know, I had very little of what is called polish or good manners. I hardly talked to anyone; I busied myself in my work, or was engrossed in study, meditation or reflection. I had risen early one morning and was reciting an Upanishad in my room. Some of the others heard me, and told Bapu that I knew Sanskrit. He asked me some questions and from that time he occasionally asked me to say something during the time of common prayer. So life went on.

Bapu, it seems, had decided to take me in hand and get me into shape, and later, when enquirers visited him at Sevagram, he would ask: 'Did you meet Vinoba? If not, you must certainly do so.' One of these friends was a well-known Indian revolutionary. As Bapu suggested it he walked over to Paunar to see me. When he arrived, I was digging in the field. I happened to raise my head, and seeing him standing there asked why he had come. ‘Simply to have your darshan,’ he replied. What could I say? He remained there for some time, but said no more. Later he complained to Bapu: ‘What kind of a man did you send me to see? He didn’t even speak to me!’ Bapu had a shrewd idea of what had happened. 'What was he doing?' he asked. ‘Digging in the field? Then what is there to be angry about? Vinoba was working; how could he have talked to you then? My dear man, don’t, you know that if you want to meet someone you should first make an appointment?

That was how Bapu dealt with the visitor, but the next time saw him he scolded me: 'My dear fellow, when someone comes to see you, it’s part of your Job to meet him and talk with him. In this way, little by little, Bapu moulded me into shape; wild creature that I naturally am, he tamed me, and as I sat at his feet he transformed me from a barbarian into a servant of all. It was in his company that I began to hunger for service, that service which is now for me an instrument of worship, seeing the Lord in humanity.

I don't know whether Bapu ever tested me, but I certainly tested him, and if he had seemed to me to fall short in any way I would not have stayed. He kept me with him, in spite of all the failings which his scrutiny must have revealed, but for my part would not have remained if I had found anything wanting in his devotion to truth. I have seen reputed ‘Mahatmas’ who regarded themselves as liberated spirits, perfect beings; none of them had any attraction for me. But Bapu, who always considered himself imperfect, attracted me enormously. ‘I am still very far from perfect truth,’ he would say, and he had a far greater influence on me than any of those who claimed to have attained it.

When I met Bapu, I was enchanted by the unity in him between the inward and the outward. It was from him too that I learned the meaning of Karma-yoga, the path of spiritual action. This is spoken of in the Gita, of course, but it was personified in Bapu’s life; in him I saw it in practical terms. The Gita has a description of a Sthitaprajna, one who lives in steadfast wisdom. To meet such a person in the flesh would be the greatest of blessings; I have seen with my own eyes one who came very near to that great ideal.


At one point there was a plan that Bapu should go to help Abdul Gaffar Khan (Nationalist leader of the North West Frontier Province, popularly known as ‘the Frontier Gandhi’). He felt that it was possible that he might not return, so he called me to talk things over. I spent about fifteen days with him, and after he had spent two or three days questioning me I began to question him, and asked him about his own experience of God. 'You say that Truth is God,' I said. 'All right, but you also told us that before you undertook your fast an inner Voice spoke to you. What do you mean by that? Is there something mysterious about it?' 'Yes', he said, 'there certainly is. It is something quite out of the ordinary. The Voice spoke to me very clearly. I asked what I should do, and was answered, you must fast. For how long? I asked, and was answered, twenty-one days.'

That is the story of a personal encounter, in which one party asks and the other answers, just as (in the Gita) the Lord Krishna talks with Arjuna. Bapu was a votary of truth, so the accuracy of his report is not in doubt. He said that the Lord had spoken to him in person, so I asked him, 'Do you think it possible for the Lord to take visible form?' He said: 'No, I don't think so, but I did hear a voice clearly.' 'How can that be?' I replied. 'If the form is transient, so is the voice. And if He speaks in a voice, why should He also not appear in a form? Others all over the world have had similar mysterious experiences; I too have had them. Why should we think it impossible for the Lord to appear in visible form?' In the end he agreed that although he himself had heard only a voice and seen no visible presence that did not mean that a vision of God is impossible.

At the time when his Autobiography was being published, he asked me what I thought of it. 'You are a votary of truth,' I replied, 'and you would write nothing false, so it can do no harm. I can't say how useful it will be, for each reader will take from it what suits himself.' 'You have given me what I wanted,' said Bapu. 'It is enough if it will do no harm.' He drew a big circle in the air with his finger. 'In the end,' he said, 'all our efforts come to zero. All we can do is to serve, and leave it at that.' Those words of his are enthroned in my heart; they contain Bapu's whole philosophy.

On Leave for a Year

In 1917, with Bapu's permission, I took a year's leave from the Ashram, partly in order to restore my health, partly for study. I planned first to study Sanskrit at Wai. Because of my love for the Gita I had already made a start at home with the help of any friend Gopalrao. At Wai there was a good opportunity, for Narayan Shastri Marathe, a scholar who was a lifelong brahmachari, was there teaching Vedanta and other systems of philosophy. I had a keen desire to study under him, and I stayed there a good long time, studying the Upanishads, the Gita, the Brahma-sutra (with Shankaracharya's commentary), and the Yoga philosophy of Patanjali. I also read the Nyaya-sutra, the Vaishesik-sutra, and the Smriti of Yajnavalkya. That satisfied me, for I now felt that I could go on with my studies, if I so wished, independently of a teacher.

My other purpose was to improve my health. The first step was to walk regularly ten or twelve miles a day. Next, I began to grind six or eight kilos of grain every morning; and finally I performed the yoga exercise called Surya-namaskar (salutation to the sun) three hundred times a day. These physical activities restored my health.

I also thought carefully about my food. During the first six months I took salt, but later gave it up. I did not use spices at all, and took a vow never to use them again. I lived for a month on bananas, limes and milk only, but found that that reduced my strength. In the end I settled for about three quarters of a kilo of milk, two chapatis (pancakes) of millet flour weighing about a hundred and twenty grams, four or five bananas and (when it could be had) one lime fruit. I had no desire to eat anything merely because it was tasty, but I felt uneasy that this diet was rather costly. I was spending about eleven paisa a day, four paisa for the fruit, two for the flour, five for the milk.

One reason for choosing this diet was to maintain my health, the other was to keep the eleven vows. I was away from the Ashram, but I was nevertheless determined to follow its way of life. I not only kept the vow about 'tasty' food, but also that of 'non-possession'. I possessed only a very few things-a wooden plate, a bowl, an Ashram Lota (brass vessel used as a mug), a pair of dhotis, a blanket and a few books. I had taken a vow not to wear a shirt, cap or coat, and I used only Indian hand-woven cloth and nothing of foreign make. This meant that I was also keeping the vow of swadeshi. I believe that I did also keep the three vows of truth, non-violence and brahmacharya, so far as I understand them.

Along with this personal discipline I took up some public service. I conducted a free class on the Gita for six students, taught them the whole text and explained the meaning. Four other students studied six chapters of jnaneshwari with me and two more studied nine of the Upanishads. I myself did not know Hindi well, but every day I read Hindi newspapers with my students and so did my share in popularizing Hindi in the Marathi-speaking areas of the country.

In Wai I started 'Vidyarthi Mandal', a students' club, and fifteen of the boys joined with me in grinding grain, so as to earn some money to equip a reading room. We charged people only one paisa for grinding two kilos of grain and the money so earned went to the reading room. My fifteen volunteers were all Brahmin boys in the High School, some of them very rich. Wai was an old-fashioned place and people thought we were fools, but nevertheless we carried on for about two months and the reading room got about four hundred books out of it.

During that year I also covered about four hundred miles on foot, visiting four or five districts of Maharashtra in order to extend my knowledge. I saw some of the forts renowned in history, such as Raigarh, Sinhagarh, Torangarh. I also visited places associated with the saints, mixed with people and observed what was going on. I was specially interested in some of the treasures of knowledge that were hidden away in people's houses, old books and manuscripts and so forth. I enjoyed historical research, and especially examining documents of a spiritual nature. I had a great advantage in being comparatively unknown. I could do what Saint Tukaram describes: Center the heart, touch a man's feet in humble reverence, and get from him his hidden treasure.' Nowadays I get no chance to bend and touch anyone's feet!

While on this tour in Maharashtra I used to give talks on the Gita. I could not be said to have any real experience; I was only twenty-three, and only the Lord Krishna knows how far my understanding went. But I poured out my inward feelings, becoming totally absorbed as though in a kind of repetitive prayer. As water falls drop by drop on to the Shiva-linga, so do thoughts continually repeated imprint themselves on the heart. In that spirit I would give my talks; they were an expression of my inner devotion to the Gita.

I never stayed more than three days at any village. The first day I got to know the place and the people, and then at nine in the evening I gave my talk, and if interest was shown I stayed two days more. It usually happened that on the first evening sixteen or twenty men and women would assemble, but I addressed them as if they had been a thousand; the second day the number increased-two or three hundred would come.

At Tasgaon village I had to stay for a week; I was unable to wa1k because of an abscess on my leg. On the first day, before it could be lanced, it gave me continuous pain. For those seven days I sat on a bullock cart to give my evening talks. I noticed with interest that as soon as the crowd had gathered and I began speaking I no longer felt the pain, and only became conscious of it again when the people had gone to their homes at the end of the talk. During that enforced seven-day stay I spent my time reading, and finished my study of Shankaracharya's commentary on the Brahma-sutras.

In every village I would get in touch with the young people and invite them for walks. I would start very early, as soon as 1 had bathed, and if I had company, as I usually did, there were vigorous discussions. Occasionally I was alone, and spent the time in my own thoughts, returning by eleven or twelve o'clock. The days passed pleasantly, as I tried to make known the principles of the Satyagraha Ashram both by my words and by my conduct. Waking or sleeping, even in dreams, one prayer, one refrain, was always with me: may God accept my service, may this body be an instrument of His will.

I had told Bapu that I would come back in a year's time, and I returned to the Ashram exactly a year to the day from the time I had left it.

Bapu: an Abiding Presence

Bapu loved and trusted me very much, and I for my part had laid my whole being at his feet; so long as he lived I simply carried on my work untroubled. Now however I wonder whether, if I had left the Ashram and joined in the struggle a few years earlier, I might perhaps have had the privilege of giving my life for the cause before he did, even though I might not have been able to extinguish the fire which consumed him. After he had been shot, I had the feeling that at the least, if I had joined Bapu in his wider field of work when I was released from jail in 1945, the fatal attack might have been made on me rather than on him, so that I might have stopped the bullets with my own body.

But, by God's decree, things take their course. Gandhiji was killed by a man of unbalanced mind, and I got the bad news at Paunar two hours later. At first, for a day or two, I remained calm; I am by nature slow to feel the impact even of such a blow as this. It came home to me two or three days later and I broke down. It was my duty to speak daily at the evening prayer at Sevagram, and my tears overflowed as I spoke. 'What, Vinoba,' said one of the brothers present, 'are you weeping too?' 'Yes, brother,' I replied. 'I thank God that He has given a heart even to me.'

Nevertheless it was not Bapu's death that set my tears flowing. He had died, I believe, as it behoves any great man to die. I was upset because I could not prevent my brother men from putting their faith in murder. When I heard of Bapu's death my immediate reaction was: now he has become immortal. Time has only strengthened that conviction. When Bapu was in the body, it took time to go and meet him; now it takes no time at all. All I need do is close my eyes and I am with him. When he was alive I buried myself in his work, and went to talk with him only now and then. Now, I talk with him all the time and feel his presence near me.

There are sages who strive through birth after birth,' wrote Tulsidas' and yet at the moment of death they do not have the name of Rama in mind.' Not so with Gandhiji; his last words were 'He’ Rama; no devotee could have done more. When the last rites were performed some of his ashes were immersed in the river Dham at Paunar. As I stood that day on the banks of the Dham it was as though I were witnessing a new birth. What I felt as I recited the Isopanishad cannot be put into words. The sages speak to us of the immense range of the soul, the Self; we reverently accept their teaching, but only on that day did it come home to me as a reality .So long as a great soul lives in the body his power is limited, but when he is released from the body his power knows no bounds.