All World
Gayatri Pariwar

Fundamental Principles

During the thirty years from 1921 to 1951, except for the unavoidable trips to prison, I spent my whole time in educational and constructive work, and I also thought a great deal about the principles on which it should be based. I was teaching, studying, reflecting and so on, but I took little or no part in the political movement as such, except in the Flag Satyagraha, Individual Satyagraha and the ‘1942 Movement’, which were matters of inescapable duty. Apart from that, the whole thirty-year period was spent in one place. I kept in touch with events in the outside world, but my own time was given to an effort to discover how far my work could be carried on in the spirit of the Gita, of ‘non-action in action’.

I entered on this task with such single-mindedness that it was something peculiarly my own. But I knew that ‘single-minded’ must not mean ‘narrow-minded’, that one must keep the whole in view. So while I was working in the Ashram, attending to village service and teaching students, I also kept myself informed about the various movements going on in the world. I studied them from the outside, but I took no part in them. I was in fact in the position of the onlooker who, it is said, sees most of the game. If any leader or thinker visited Bapu at Sevagram he would direct him to me; it was not my habit to impose my ideas on others, but there were useful exchanges of thought, and in this way, even though I remained in one place, I had good opportunities to get to know what was going on and to reflect on it.

These thirty years of my life were shaped by faith in the power of meditation. I never left the place, I stuck like a calm to Paramdham Asharam and the river Dham. After the painful events in Maharashtra which followed Gandhiji’s demise, Sane Guruji[1] was much perturbed and undertook a twenty-one day fast. He sent me a letter. ‘Vinoba,’ he wrote, ‘won’t you come to Maharashtra? You are badly needed.’ I wrote back: ‘I have wheels in my feet, and from time to time I have a urge to travel, but not now. When the time comes, no one in the world will be able to stop me. (It’s possible of course that God might stop me, He might take away my power to walk, but that is a different matter.) And until my time comes, no one in the world can make me get up and move.’ That reply shows the stubborn and obstinate spirit in which I stuck to my own work.

Nevertheless the touchstone of all my constructive work was whether it would contribute, however little, to self-realization. I did my best to nurture in those around me a spirit of goodwill, and to turn out good workers. Both we and the government are interested in constructive work. The government will certainly take it up, and no doubt there will be beneficial results. But these benefits, and a revolution in one’s values, are not the same thing. They would be the same, of course, if we measure ‘benefits’ in terms of the eternities; but if our constructive work aims at temporal, worldly benefits only, it brings no change in values.

This change of values is what we mean by ‘peaceful revolution’. A revolution is not just any kind of change; a real revolution means a fundamental change, a change in values, and that sort of change can only take place peacefully, for it takes place in the realm of thought. This principle was the foundation of all my thinking, and my experiments were conducted on this basis.

I look upon myself as a manual labourer, for I have spent thirty-two years, the best years of my life, in that kind of labour. I concentrated on those forms of work which human society cannot do without, but which in India are looked down upon as low and mean-scavenging (removing human excreta), weaving, carpentry, agricultural labour and so on. Had Gandhi lived I would never have left these jobs; the world would have found me totally absorbed in some work of that kind. I am a manual labourer by choice, though by birth I am a ‘Brahmin’, which means one who is steadfast in Brahman, the Supreme. I cannot give up that faith in Brahman, and all that I do has one basic purpose, a deeper and wider realization of the self.

At the earnest request of Jamnalalji Bajaj, Bapu decided to open a branch of the Satyagraha Ashram at Wardha, and directed me to take charge of it. So with one fellow-worker and four students I started work there on April 8, 1921.

Under Bapu’s Command

In 1925, there was a Satyagraha campaign at Vykom in Kerala on the issue of temple entry. The Harijans were not only kept out of the temple, they were not even allowed to use the road which led to it. Satyagraha had been in progress for some time, but seemed to be having no effect. I was then at Wardha, while Bapu was at Sabarmati. He sent word for me to go to Vykom and have a look at what was going on. He gave me a double job to meet the learned, orthodox pandits and see whether anything could be done from their side, and also to make any suggestions I might have about Satyagraha itself. I had neither knowledge nor experience then, yet Bapu put his faith in me, and I also in faith plucked up the courage to go. I had many discussions with the pandits at several places, and as they preferred to speak Sanskrit I did my best to speak it also, but I did not succeed in bringing about any change of heart. As for the rest, any Satyagraha, if it is pure, is bound in the end to prove effective. I was able to make a few suggestions to those who were conducting it, and reported to Bapu what I had done. Later Bapu went there in person, and the problem was solved.


Village Services

From 1932 onwards, with Nalwadi [2] as our base, we began going from village to village, trying to be of service to the people. After two or three years we came to the conclusion that a solid integrated plan ought to be chalked out for the whole neighbourhood. As a result of this thinking, in 1934 we set up the Gram Seva Mandal (Village Service Society), drew up a scheme of village work for the whole of Wardha tebsil, and started Khadi, Harijan uplift and other activities in a few selected villages.

I have no particular liking for institutions. I have lived in Ashrams such as Sabarmati, of course, and I even directed the Wardha Ashram. These Ashrams have moulded my life, and become a part of me, but I was not responsible for starting them. It was Gandhiji who started the Sabarmati Ashram and Jamnalalji who was responsible for that at Wardha.

In 1959, when the Gram Seva Mandal was twenty-five years old, I wrote to the management and said that in spite of my lack of interest in institutions as such, I had so far founded three of them. These were the Vidyarthi Mandal of Baroda (in 1911-12), the Gram Seva Mandal of Nalwadi (in 1934) and the Brahmavidya Mandir at Paunar (in 1959). One was the work of my early youth, the second of the prime of my life, and the third of my old age.

The first was not meant to continue indefinitely: it was active for the five or six years of our lives as students. It fully achieved its purpose. Of its members Babaji Moghe, Gopalrao Kale, Raghunath Dhotre, Madhvrao Deshpande, Dwarkanath Harkare and a few others joined me in public service and were engaged for the rest of their lives in one activity or another. Mogheji was with me even in the Brahmavidya Mandir.

The second institution is the Gram Seva Mandal. The seed-idea had in fact been sown in the Vidyarthi Mandal in 1912. This institution cannot be said to have succeeded one hundred per cent but I am well content with it, for it has done many kinds of service and produced a number of good workers.

In 1957, during the bhoodan (land-gift) movement, I suggested to the Mandal that the time had come for it to base itself on bhoodan. From the very beginning it had given the first place to non-violence and village industries; it should also work now for the establishment of a party-less society in the Wardha District. To this end those who were working for bhoodan in the district should be enrolled as members, and the Mandal should thus become the centre of work for the Gramdan-Gramraj revolution. Its emphasis on productive work and self-sufficiency should be maintained, but it should also do as much extensive work as possible. In other words, one aspect should be work of a permanent, self-reliant nature, while the other aspect should have wider scope and be financed by Sampatti-dan.

There is one more view of mine regarding the planning of our lives: it is not right that one individual should spend his whole life in one kind of work. When the work has taken shape, perhaps after twenty or twenty-five years, the senior workers should gradually withdraw and become Vanaprasthis [3]. I have always held this view, and there are not many senior workers in Paramdham. Like the ever-new waters of the river Dham, Paramdham itself remains ever new. I would like the Gram Seva Mandal to do the same.

Serving Broken Images

During our visits to the villages (from 1932 onwards) we made it a point to observe what was needed, and to hold regular discussions of how the needs might be met. We had no idea that we should find leprosy to be so terribly common, but it quickly compelled our attention, and the question of how to tackle it arose. We agreed that we could not ignore it, though at that time leprosy work had not been included in Gandhiji’s constructive programme. With the vision of all-round service before my eyes I could not neglect this aspect of it.

Our friend Manoharji Diwan was inspired to take it up, for the situation distressed him very much. He was living in our Ashram, busy with spinning, weaving, cooking, scavenging and other community work, and taking part in the village service. He came and told me of his desire to take up leprosy work, and I warmly encouraged him. But his mother, who lived with him, had no wish to see her son devoting himself to such work, and she came to me. I said ‘Supposing that you yourself were to become a leper, would you still ask Manoharji not to serve you?’ She thought for a moment and replied: ‘He has my blessing.’

In 1936 therefore the Kushthadham (Leprosy Centre) was opened at Dattapur with Manoharji in charge. For the first time I came into contact with leprosy patients. Two years later I went to live at Paunar, and while I was digging there I unearthed several images of Gods. They were ancient figures, perhaps thirteen or fourteen hundred years old, and after lying in the ground so long they were defaced; noses were disfigured, arms or other limbs were missing. Their faces reminded me of those of the leprosy patients, and now whenever I see the patients I think of the images. They are all images of God. The most beautiful new statue cannot call out devotion such as I feel for these old ones from the field, and when I see the patients in Kushthadham I feel the same reverence for them, and I have the greatest respect for those who serve them.

On one of my visits to Kushthadham I asked to work alongside the patients for a time, and joined those who were sowing seed in the field. It is not possible for me to put into words the joy I felt then.

When the Brahmavidya Mandir was established I suggested to Manoharji that now that he had spent twenty-five years in this service he should withdraw and ‘just live’ in the Mandir. He agreed, and came. Then twelve years later I asked him to go back to the Kushthadham, and once more he agreed. I felt that we should undertake to teach Brahmavidya to leprosy patients, that someone should live among them twenty-four hours a day and give them spiritual teaching, prayers, sayings of the Saints, the Rig Veda and Upnishads, the slokas of the Gita, the verses of the Koran, the teachings of Jesus, the Buddha, Mahavira. The teaching should include asanas (bodily exercises of Yoga), the practice of meditation, and pranayam (the control of breathing). I hoped that in this way one of them might emerge as a fine worker, and be inspired inwardly to go and work in other places. As the patients were introduced to Brahmavidya they would understand that their disease was only of the body, that their true Self was other than the body. ‘Let the Self lift up Itself.’ If this teaching were neglected, our service would do them no real good.

Accumulating Love

In 1935 I was forty years of age. I do not usually remember my birthday, but on this occasion I had many reasons for doing some intensive reflection. I was responsible for a number of institutions and individuals, and it is not surprising that someone in such a position should take stock of his resources from time to time. On that occasion, with forty years completed, I examined both the past and the present. From the standpoint of arithmetic, forty years of one insignificant person’s life are as nothing in the endless vistas of time; yet from the point of view of that person, limited though it is, forty years is a period deserving of some attention.

Twenty years of my life had been spent in my home, and an equal number had been spent outside. Where would the future years be spent? A man is helpless regarding the past and blind to the future; he can only leave them aside and think about the present. So, in 1935 two segments of my life had been completed, and I had made up my mind about how I wanted to spend the remainder-though in practice the whole future is in the hands of God.

Broadly speaking, during my first twenty years or so I had accumulated knowledge, and during the following twenty years I had accumulated the power to observe the great vows. The next period, I decided, should be spent in accumulating love. In this task, as I realize, I have had the help of many noble-minded people. It is my great good fortune to have been in the company of the loving and the pure in heart. With such companionship one might spend many lives and come to no harm.
Notes:
1.    A well-known saintly national worker
2. The villages mentioned in the next few paragraphs, Nalwadi, Dattapur and Paunar, all lie off the main 
Wardha-Nagpur road, about two miles, four miles and six miles respectively from Wardha.
3.‘Dwellers in the forest’: in traditional Indian thought, people in the third stage of life, which follows
those of the brahmachari (youth and student) and the grihasthi (married householder). The  
vanprasthi lives in quiet retirement, ready to serve as needed.

[Published in abridged form with glad permission of Kalindi Behan, the original compiler in Hindi (and translated into English by late Marjorie Sykes) of Vinobaji’s Memoirs titled ‘MOVED BY LOVE’ of Brahmavidya Mandir, Paunar (Wardha).  – Editorial Team]