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Conclusion: From Darkness to Light The multifaceted Mahatma Gandhi played many a role in his life. The “Father of India’s Independence” was also the beloved father (Bapu) to all his ashram residents, close colleagues, and followers around the world. Gandhi, the charismatic leader and wielder of satyagraha, was not only an astute politician but also a bold social reformer, religious visionary, and a servant of humanity. These myriad images of Gandhi, however, only highlight his outer achievements and tell half the story. The other half of the story of Gandhi, the inner man, the serious spiritual seeker, has not been explored in its entirety until now. Gandhi himself started out telling his story in his Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, but could not finish because of his intense political involvement during the last two decades of his life. This book has attempted to finish that unfinished story of Mohandas Gandhi’s faith pilgrimage by providing a comprehensive study of an ordinary man’s extraordinary efforts to first find and build a strong self-identity, and then relinquish it in order to find his higher Self or Truth. The book has undertaken the task of exploring Gandhi’s interior journey to Truth in light of Fowler’s Theory of Stages of Faith, which allows us to focus on the internal structural developmental process of Gandhi’s gradually evolving identity and spirituality. Gandhi claimed to be neither a Mahatma nor a prophet, but only a votary of Truth. As we discussed in the book, the title Mahatma, which implied sainthood, actually pained him because he knew he was far from being a perfect man, much less a saint. The only claim Gandhi ever made 12 233 was that he was a “humble seeker after Truth,” a “weak aspirant ever failing , yet ever trying.” (Harijan, September 14, 1934, 244) Gandhi’s “ordinariness ,” however, had two self-redeeming aspects. First, he was painfully aware of his human imperfections—his angers, passions, and other weaknesses of the flesh—which kept him humble. Second, because he was selfaware or conscious of his limitations, he continued to struggle with himself to become a “fitter instrument of God.” In Gandhi’s words, “This consciousness is my only strength. Whatever I might have been able to do in my life has proceeded out of the realization of my limitations” (1958, 38). This very humanness of Gandhi that the book has endeavored to show made him not only a beloved leader but also a believable man of faith who was approachable by all. Because Gandhi was as weak and vulnerable as any other mortal, people in general were interested in his ongoing battles with himself, and their results. This was one of the secrets of Gandhi’s universal appeal—that people found him to be like them, yet above them; he inspired them by his example that even an ordinary person can climb the Mount Everest of Truth if he has a deep faith in God, in himself, and others . Gandhi considered his failures as much a blessing from God as his successes . He said, “A perfect man would have been their (people’s) despair. When they found that one with their failings was marching towards ahimsa, they too had confidence in their own capacity” (ibid., 51). Two major points of this book cannot be overstressed. First, that Gandhi was, above all, a man of deep and abiding faith in God or Truth. Second, his journey to Truth was neither as smooth nor rapid as taking one giant leap to the mountaintop. Gandhi’s faith pilgrimage was a long process, protracted and painful every step of the way. However, as Gandhi said, “it is by a process of trial and error, self-search and austere discipline, that a human being moves step by painful step along the road to fulfillment” (ibid., xiii). Gandhi’s approach to faith was not pedantic, doctrinaire, or sectarian. To him, faith was not confined to structured religion, ritual worship, sectarian beliefs, dogmas, or caste rules; it was, rather, a deep yearning of the human soul to connect and unite with its Maker. Gandhi said, “Faith is not a thing to grasp; it is a state to grow to. And growth comes only from within” (Desai 1932). Notice how Gandhi ties in his concept of faith with the inwardness of the human spirit pining for God, and with the idea of growth. Gandhi was a deeply religious man, but as he wrote...

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