The Biography of Mahatma Gandhi

By: Carly Le Blanc

9/7/07

I have slowly been reading Louis Fischer’s The Life of Mahatma Gandhi for some time now and I was very interested in the passage where Gandhi explains the name for his movement, satyagraha. The word satya is the Sanskrit word for truth (and sometimes love), and graha can be translated to loosely mean force. Gandhi referred to his movement as a Truth Force. Gandhi disliked the term “passive resistance” he felt that it did not fully explain the entirety of their message. Passive resistance has led to violence and was claimed to be “a weapon of the weak” as it can be used in pursuits other than that of Truth. Through satyagraha Gandhi did not wish to hurt or weaken the opponent in any way, he wanted to change their minds with patience and sympathy. Gandhi was a very devout man and I found it interesting that he preferred a word of action to describe his movement. He also lived extremely modestly on a large farm with several friends and family members. He slept on the dirt floor of a mud hut and was a strict vegetarian. He later evolved his diet into including very little, always flavorless bits of fruits or nuts. Gandhi seemed to be participating in “demystification in reverse,” many of his daily routines resembled a primal cultures’ lifestyle. He viewed his body as merely a tool for sustaining his life. Primal cultures may view the body and spirit as one, but both share the use of the body to interact with the sacred. Gandhi deeply believed in his diet and encouraged others to join him in order to give up the restraints of desire. He did everything with his religious views in mind; he believed he was acting for the “Wholly Other.”