________________
Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi
an individual now is, is the effect of his action, his habits of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting etc. Man makes himself through all these diverse activities. They appear to be so insignificant separately, but, taken together, they create powerful forces that shapes his health, character and his entire destiny. But a man must thoroughly understand his peculiar nature and try to perfect it. He can degrade himself by ignoring truth, neglecting conscience and pandering to the animal passions. And in this state man can turn himself into a brute. But a man can also raise himself towards perfectness if he follows the path of righteousness by loving his fellowbeings. Gandhiji has firm belief in the fact that the Divine powers within us are infinite. By the experience of his life, Gandhi asserts that :
Raise yourself by yourself, do not depress yourself. You are your friend, you are your foe.17
Further more :
The brute by nature known no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises self-restraint.18
79
Consequently, Gandhiji believes that God, as love and reason is working through man to raise himself. He also believes that God has given freedom to man to play the game of life independently. But he trusts that man would learn to improve himself even by his failures, making them the pillars of success. So Gandhiji speaks in a balanced tone :
If we believe that mankind has steadily progressed towards ahimsa (i.e. love), it follows that it has to progress towards it still further: Nothing in this world is static, everything is kinetic. If there is no progression, than there is inevitable retrogression. No one can remain without the cternal cycle, unless it be God himself.19
As a believer in the theory of evolution, Gandhiji is conscious of man's animal origin, and so, he does not subscribe
