Many of Gandhi's teachings are remarkably similar to those of the Bahá'í Faith. This book attempts to compare their religious, ethical, and socioeconomic teachings, and I hope that it will contribute to increase dialogue and cooperation between the Bahá'ís and the community of Gandhi's followers and admirers worldwide.
This work also represents my personal expression of deep thanks to Gandhi, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the culmination of his life of service--and ultimate sacrifice--in 1948, when he departed his earthly life with God's mention on his lips.
Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869, and I was born during his one hundredth birth anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, my parents named me Gandhimohan, meaning Gandhi-admirer. As a child I was deeply influenced by Gandhi through my parents' adherence to many of his ethical and moral teachings.
My association with the Bahá'í Faith began when I was a teenager. I learned then about the Bahá'í belief that the major world religions are different parts of a single progressive process of divine revelation. To me, the idea that all faiths have a divine origin and purpose resonated very well with Gandhi's teachings that Religion, like Truth, is One. Subsequently I joined the Bahá'í community.
The reader deserves to know something about my qualifications for writing this book. I am not a scholar of religion, nor am I trained in the humanities, but rather my training is in theoretical physics. My background in statistical physics, which deals with macroscopic phenomena that emerge from the interaction of many microscopic components, shapes to some extent my understanding of social, economic, political, and historical processes. I thus very briefly discuss this point here, since it may be of interest to the reader. When a substance approaches a phase transition, such as the change of state from solid ice to liquid water, local fluctuations (of say, density) grow until a ``critical state'' is reached. Near this critical point, fluctuations in every part of the system become ``correlated,'' no matter how great the distance between them, and the system appears ``fractal.'' As the phase transition continues past the critical point, the correlations become weaker again and finally the entire system changes over to the new ordered state. The ideas that emerged in the 1960's and 70's from the study of phase transitions eventually found application not only in related fields of physics, but also in other sciences, such as cardiology and economics. To a significant extent, such ideas also influenced my personal understanding of the transition process from the old world order, organized along the lines of ``sovereign'' and ``independent'' nations, to the new World Order foretold and described by Bahá'u'lláh, a spiritual civilization ordered and governed globally through interdependent institutions of planetary scope. In this book, I try to show that the moral, political, and social writings of both Gandhi and the Bahá'ís point to a deeply spiritual collective future for our planet. Ours is the privilege--and duty--to help complete this transition to the emerging World Order.
I have refrained from using the title ``Mahatma'' (great spirit)
because I feel that Gandhi may have disliked it were he alive
today.![[footnote]](img1.png){kind=small}
His
statements regarding his distaste for lofty titles include the
following:
``My Mahatmaship is worthless.''
``I hold it to be a blasphemy to represent me as Shri Krishna.''
``I have become literally sick of the adoration of the unthinking multitude.''
``Though a non-co-operator, I shall gladly subscribe to a Bill
to make it criminal for anybody to call me Mahatma and to touch my
feet. Where I can impose the law myself, i.e., at the Ashram, the
practice is criminal.''
``Truth to me is infinitely dearer than the 'mahatmaship', which is
purely a burden.''![[footnote]](img3.png){kind=small}
Please note that the views expressed in this book do not in any way represent authoritative Bahá'í doctrine, but rather my own personal understanding of the subject matter. Indeed, the Bahá'í Faith has no equivalent of clergy and teaches that each person is duty-bound to seek truth independently of others, especially when relating to religious, social, economic or political matters.
January 1998
Natal, Brazil
M. V. Gandhimohan
This book, though written by me, owes its existence to many others. Many people have helped directly, and countless others have contributed indirectly, perhaps without even being aware of it. I thus feel that it is impossible for me to express my gratitude adequately to all of them, nevertheless I wish to thank explicitly those who come to the forefront of my mind.
First, I thank those people who were directly involved in helping me write. I wish to acknowledge my deep thanks to Dr. Robert Stockman, without whose advice, encouragement, and feedback I would never have undertaken to write this book. I thank the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of India for very helpful comments. I thank the staff of the Office of External Affairs of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of India, and Dr. A. K. Merchant in particular, for providing extremely helpful historical information regarding Gandhi's contacts with the Bahá'ís. I thank Anil Sarwal and R. N. Shah for being so encouraging and for very helpful suggestions. I thank J. Doostdar, N. Doostdar, G. Kingdon, R. Kingdon and L. Yancy for help with early versions of Section 1.1 when it was still in the form of a pamphlet. To Jiten Mishra and the staff of the Bahá'í Publishing Trust of India I express my sincere thanks for their help. I thank Mark Towfiq, Mark Jolly and Cyrus Monadjemi for very inspiring discussions. I thank Robert W. Nowak for help at various stages of the manuscript and for the fantastic proof-reading.
I also express my deep thanks to my parents, Uma Viswanathan and Dr. Tenkasi Muthukrisha Viswanathan, who instilled me with spiritual values from childhood. I thank them especially for educating me about nonviolence and teaching me about Gandhi, as well as for proofreading the manuscript. I thank my brother M. V. Dhuruvan for his moral support. I thank my mother-in-law Gail Jennings for excellent feedback. I thank my wife, Heather Dea Jennings, for her in-depth critical evaluation, her excellent support, and her extensive proof-reading of the manuscript.
I also take the liberty, perhaps a little unusual, of thanking the creators of the free software I used to write this book. This book was written using the TEX and LATEX typesetting software using the GNU Emacs editor, often on systems running Linux. Aside from being among the best such software available at the time of writing, they are also completely free, consistent with the Gandhian ideal that intellectual property should be for the common good of all, rather than for the private gain of a small elite.
Finally, I thank God.
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