Mahatama Gandhi Cannot Be Like This...

Sex Antics of Mohandas Gandhi: His Failures, Pedophilia, Adultery, Incest, Sexual Perversi

May 30 2008 at 3:45 PM

Sexual Antics of Gandhi–His political and personal failures, urine drinking habit, love for enemas, consumption of his own piss, his drinking of Holy Cow urine, Pedophilia Incest, Adultery, weird fetishes, and Sexual Perversion.

“it costs the nation millions to keep Gandhi living in poverty.” Sarojini Naidu

Updated March 4th, 2008

This issue contains these articles: 1) “Sexual Antics of Gandhi” 2) “Gandhi’s Girls”:- very comprehensive article with blow by blow details of the exploding news about Gandhi’s indiscretions, 3) “Was Gandhi a Tantric:” Well researched article on the details of his liaisons, 4) Other articles are being included and updated

Mohandas (not Mahatma) Gandhi’s Failed Leadership in Politics and Gandhi’s Domestic Violence and weird Sexual Perversion in his private life.

Sex Life of Nehru: Menege De trios:-Tryst with Homosexuality:-Love triangle Edwina, Nehru and Lord Mountbatten changed history

PERSONAL FAILURE: The Dark side of the pedophile

If gandhi was alive today, he would be arrested for sexual abuse and put away for life as a sexual offender.

“We know from his autobiography how shamefully he treated his wife. He was transparently honest and he had much less to hide from anyone else. Nothing can be found if other public figures are to be scrutinized because things have been carefully hidden and suppressed.” Gandhi, the family man. Gandhi’s Grandson.

Gandhi used to beat his wife up routinely.
Gandhi was having sex when his father lay breathing his last upstairs.
Gandhi denied sex to his wife for decades
Gandhi was an adulterer and had a spiritual marriage with two British women who were in the Ashram
Gandhi slept naked with his niece and other women to prove that he could control his manliness.
Gandhi would do enemas twice a day and if he liked you allowed you to enter the piece up his rectum.
Gandhi used to drink his own urine and also the urine of cows.
Chilled Urine drinking hot in India. From Gandhi to Prime Minister Desai to common man
Hindu India: A gift from the Hindu Gods:Cows Urine: UK Telegraph reports by Julian West

Gandhi son left him and converted to Islam
Gandhi was a total failure in South Africa where he tried to stratify the society, Whites, Indians and Africans. His racism towards the Africans was horrendous. His horrific advice to all Jews to commit suicide was abomible. His atrocious letters to his friend Hitler were the height of stupidiy.
Gandhi condones Zulu massacres and defends the British. Aug 4 1906The sex life of Mr. Gandhi, and his failures as a politicianThe myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independenceWhich war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society.

Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.

Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.

Sex life of Mohandas Gandhi, his failures and sexual perversion

The Indian government contributed $10 million for the movie Gandhi (Detailed debunking on this site). It is based on a book of fiction called “Freedom at Midnight” by Collins et al. You can see glossed over failures and the perversion in the movie Gandhi but it is not overt and explicitly shown. You have to be smart and familiar with the history to see it embedded in the movie.

For all his vaunted selflessness and modesty, he made no move to object when Jinnah was attacked during a Congress session for calling him “Mr. Gandhi” instead of “Mahatma”, and booed off the stage by the Gandhi’s supporters.

He was determined to live his life as an ascetic, a symbol of a religious man. As the poet Sarojini Naidu, who was known as the “Nightingale of India joked, “it costs the nation a fortune(millions) to keep Gandhi living in poverty.” An entire village including an Ashram was built for him His philosophy privileged the village way over that of the city, yet he was always financially dependent on the support of industrial billionaires like Birla. Birlas were the ones who controlled his every move and were responsible for marketing Gandhi Inc.

This is what Time Magazine says:

“Exceptions to the author’s reserve mostly center on Gandhi’s limitations as a family man. Where the world sees a saint, Rajmohan Gandhi sees a cruel husband and a mostly absent father, paying scant attention to his children’s schooling and dragging wife Kasturba across continents at will, belittling her desire for the simplest of material possessions, then expecting her to comply when he turns from amorous husband to platonic companion to apparent adulterer.

Gandhi took on a magnetic personality in the presence of young women, and was able to persuade them to join him in peculiar experiments of sleeping and bathing naked together, without touching, all apparently to strengthen his chastity. (Whether these experiments were always successful is anyone’s guess.) It is also revealed that Gandhi began a romantic liaison with Saraladevi Chaudhurani, niece of the great poet Rabindranath Tagore—a disclosure that has created a buzz in the Indian press. The author tells us that Gandhi, perhaps disingenuously, called it a “spiritual marriage,” a “partnership between two persons of the opposite sex where the physical is wholly absent.”

This bombshell occupies only five pages, but it gives Rajmohan Gandhi enough material for his book’s redeeming feature—namely, the clear depiction of the tensions between Gandhi’s erratic emotional compass and his unswerving moral one. For despite the occasional salacious lapses, the overarching principle that infused Gandhi’s life was his intrinsic belief in the equality of all souls.

“Mahatma Gandhi was not shy of speaking about his relationship with his women associates, except in a few cases. He wanted the world to know of his tryst with Brahmacharya in which women constituted an integral part. He kept a meticulous record and tried to make the players keep the records too. Alas! Most of them seem to have either destroyed the records or refused to disclose the intensity of their feelings. A construct, however, is still possible based on Gandhiji’s writings and on basis of writings of some of them, who were involved. Gandhiji persuaded Kanchan Shah, his role model for Married Brahmacharya, and Prabhavati, wife of Jaiprakash Narayan, to practice married Brahmacharya. It was a difficult odyssey and the book tries to analyse why it was difficult.”

“It was the revulsion from sex that forced Gandhiji to take the vow of Brahamacharya in 1906. Then onwards, till the laboratory experiment in Noakhali, Gandhiji kept trying to find out if it was possible to overcome desire and remain a brahmachari. There were more than a dozen women who came to closely associated with him at one time or the other. Some of them were foreigners - Millie Graham Polak, Sonja Schlesin, Esther Faering, Nilla Cram Cook, Margarete Spiegel and Mirabehn. Prabhavati, Kanchan Shah, Shushila Nayyar and Manu Gandhi formed a part of his entourage at various points in time. He called JEKI “the Only Adopted Daughter”. Gandhiji was too found of Saraldevi Chowdharani, Rabindranath Tagore’s niece, and often displayed her as his mannequin for popularizing Khadi. He called her his “spiritual wife”.

His closeness to Saraladevi or arguments on Brahmacharya with Premabehn Kantak created a storm in the ashram and exposed him to public glare. He was undaunted and made a tactical retreat to allow the storm to subside. Soon things were back to normal. While the world was unsure, the Mahatma was sure of his actions.

There was a definite attraction in Gandhiji that brought womenfolk to him. It is quite possible that they were looking for glory and he provided the opportunity. Some like Mirabehn were inspired by his ideals and wanted to devote their entire life to his cause. But once they came close, Gandhiji and not his cause became their obsession. They hardly knew this was the next step to losing him, as the Mahatma could not be chained. He had higher goals. The book is a psycho-biography and a study of man-woman relationship involving one of the greatest men in living memory.”

Excerpts from Gandhi’ grandson’s Book “Mohandas”:

“Saraladevi was the topic of discussion in undertones and overtones among his friends, associated and family members. How could Ba not be affected? The years 1919 and 1920 were years of mental torture and agony for her”. (page 220)

Gandhiji referred to “small-talks, whispers and innuendos” going around of which he was well aware: “He was already in the midst of so much suspicion and distrust, he told the gathering, that he did not want his most innocent acts to be misunderstood and misrepresented”. (page 339)

“The Sarla Devi episode in his life establishes his humanity. To suppress any information on Gandhi would have meant doing injustice to what he stood for all his life - truth. I have only presented the facts as a scholar not a sensationalist journalist” (Mr Gandhi the grandson of Mohandas Gandhi



The book “Mohandas” also describes Gandhi’s practice of brahmacharya in his life. He would sleep nude with his niece Manu. “It’s a matter of historical record. This has been written about many times. Even Gandhi wrote about it. In doing so, he was surrendering his sexuality and that of his partner’s, after passing a huge test,“

Dr. Sushila Nayar told Ved Mehta that she used to sleep with Gandhi as she regarded him as a Hindu god.

Responding to noted Gandhian Rajmohan Gandhi’s recent claim about Mahatma Gandhi’s fondness for Sarla Devi, his granddaughter Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee on Friday said as a man of great aesthetic sensibility, if Gandhi felt attracted to a “woman of intellect”it could be natural. Elaborating her point, Bhattacharjee said Mahatma Gandhi also admired the way Rajkumari Amrit Kaur held her pen.

In another book “Mira and the Mahatma”, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakkar delves deep into the desires that lay buried in the “Mahatma’s” heart. The hero pines for the company of his Mira who is away from him. “You are on the brain. I look about me, and I miss you. I open the charkha and miss you,” (Excerpt from Sudhir Kakkar’s book).

Indira Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi. How close were they?

Behold the God that supported the British wars, did not oppose “Apartheid” in South Africa, beat his wife, slept naked with his niece and had affairs with various women.



In his book The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress: Secrets of the Female Taoist Masters, Hsi Lai writes that Mahatma Gandhi “periodically slept between two twelve-year-old female virgins. …as an ancient practice of rejuvenating his male energy. . . . Taoists called this method ‘using the ultimate yin to replenish the yang.’”

Thackeray questions Gandhi’s celibacy:

NEW DELHI, Dec. 27: Remarks by right-wing politician Bal Thackeray questioning the celibacy of Mahatma Gandhi, father of the Indian nation, have caused a furore, reports said on Friday.

“Gandhiji was always accompanied by two girls. Yet that was okay with everyone. If we do something, we are criticised. Gandhi’s celibacy was a fraud,” press reports quoted Thackeray, chief of the regional Shiv Sena party which rules the western sate of Maharashtra in coalition with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as having said”.

“Freedom at Midnight”: Interested readers may look up Chapter 4 (A Last Tattoo

“…at the age of sixty-seven, thirty years after he had sworn his vow of brahmacharya, Gandhi awoke after an arousing dream with what would have been to most men of that age a source of some satisfaction, but was to Gandhi a calamity, an erection.” [Page 81, Freedom at Midnight, Simon& Schuster Edition,1975].

The following is a quote from Collins and La Pierre in Freedom at Midnight.Chapter 4 (A Last Tattoo For A Dieing Raj)

“Gandhi saw in Manu’s words the chance to make her the perfect female votary. “If out of India’s millions of daughters, I can train even one into an ideal woman by becoming an ideal mother to you” he told he “I shall have remembered a unique service to womankind”. But first he felt he had to be sure she was telling the truth. Only his closest collaborators were accompanying him to Noakhali, he informed her, but she would be welcome, provided she submitted to his discipline and went through the test which he meant to subject her.


They would, he decreed, share each night the crude straw pallet which passed for his bed. He regarded himself her mother; she had said that she found nothing but a mothers love for him. If they were both truthful, if he remained firm in his ancient vow of chastity and she had never know sexual arousal, then they would be able to lie together in the innocence of a mother daughter. If one of them was not being truthful, they would soon discover it.

“…at the age of sixty-seven, thirty years after he had sworn his vow of Brahmacharya, Gandhi awoke after an arousing dream with what would have been to most men of that age a source of some satisfaction, but was to Gandhi a calamity, an erection.”[Page 81, Freedom at Midnight , Simon & Schuster Edition,1975].

Collins does not mention what Manu said or did, or what the collaborators heard!! Apparently Bose did. He raised Cane, and alerted many around Gandhi.

Erik H Erikson (american psychoanalys) while doing his research in india on Ghandi wrote about Ghandis episodes with other women besides Manu the articles were also published in new yorker of 1996. He gives the reference of a book by Nirmal Bose : My days with Gandhi. It deals with this problem and other, very respectfully in two chapters

On 3.2.1947 he said, as Nirmal Bose quotes :

” What [ he was ?]doing was not for imitation. It was undoubtedly dangerous, but it ceased to be so if the conditions were rigidly observed. ”

GANDHI GETS CAUGHT WITH HIS PANTS DOWN:-LITERALLY

“During his Noakhali tour of 1946, Gandhi used to sleep with the nineteen-year-old Manu. When Nirmal Bose, his Bengali interpreter, saw this he protested, asserting that the experiments must be having bad psychological effects on the girl.

In his book “My Days with Gandhi”, published in 1953 with great difficulty and at his own expense, he offers a Freudian interpretation to Gandhi’s experiments. It is generally believed that Gandhi started sleeping with women toward the close of his life. According to Sushila Nayar, he started much earlier. However, at the time he called it ‘nature cure.’ She told Mehta, ‘long before Manu came into the picture I used to sleep with him just as I would with my mother. He might say my back aches. Put some pressure on it. So I might put some pressure on it or lie down on his back and he might just go to sleep. In the early days there was no question of calling this a brahamacharya experiment. It was just part of nature cure. Later on, when people started asking questions about his physical contact with women, the idea of brahamacharya experiments was developed. Don’t ask me any more questions about brahamacharya experiments. There is nothing to say, unless you have a dirty mind like Bose.’Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles is an extremely well-written book. Mehta has made it highly readable with his subtle expression and suave sarcasm, particularly when he reproduces his conversations with Gandhians. He has shown courage in unraveling some of the myths woven around Gandhi by his blind followers. The latter will certainly be dismayed by Mehta’s forthrightness. The book has created a tumult in the Indian Parliament. It will be a great pity if it is banned”. The Sikh Times - Book Reviews - Gandhi and Sex



POLITICAL FAILURE OF GANDHI:

The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence

Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties

Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society.

Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.

Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.

THE “MAHATMA” MONIKER WAS AWARDED TO GANDHI AS REWARD FOR HIS SUPPORT FOR THE WAR: GANDHI LET HIMSELF BE USED EVANGALIST MISSIONARIES IN THE SUBCONTINENT FOR CONVERSION.

The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence.
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society.
Mr. Mohandas Gandhi was converted into a “Mahatma” under the auspices of the British in South Africa. Its genesis was started by the white Christian clergy. Rev. Joseph J. Doke, a Baptist Minster was the first to write the biography of M. K. Gandhi.
What started as a ploy became an avalanche under a well planned scheme. Pastor John H. Holmes, a Unitarian ”priest” from New York praised Gandhi in his writings and sermons with titles like:

“Gandhi: The Modern Christ”,
“Mahatma Gandhi: The Greatest Man since Jesus Christ”,
“Mahatma Ji: Reincarnation of Christ”and
“Gandhi before Pilate.”
Romain Rolland, the French Nobel Laureate in literature thought of Gandhi not only as a Hindu saint, but also “another Christ”. He wrote Gandhi’s new biography in French which poured praise on the the deity— “Gandhi is the One Luminous, Creator of All,” “Mahatma.”

At this juncture the Nehru-Gandhi loyalist Hindus were brought in. Muslims and others from the Subcontinent were left aghast when Krishnalal Shridharni elevated Gandhi to the status of twentieth century Hindu god - “The seventh reincarnation of Vishnu, Lord Rama.”

One of the objectives of colonialism was the “civilize” the “natives” and the “tribes”. According to Rudyard Kipling this was the “White Man’s Burden”. The British machinery and their acolytes, the Christian clergy had an ulterior motive in building the Gandhi myth. Similar schemes had worked in Africa and Latin America. Local deities were “included” in Christian concepts to make it more palatable to the people. Later these “local influences” would be purged.

The Colonial rulers thought that by elevating Gandhi to a 20th century messiah and then converting him would open the flood gate for evangelizing and converting the Hindu and masses. However Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was not Emperor Constantine, and was unable to fulfill the wishes of the colonial masters.

Many believe that this wish of foreign funded Christian Missionaries is being fulfilled by Christian Sonia Gandhi and her Christian lobby. Many Indians are upset that Glady Stains was awarded Padmshree. Many Indians are upset at the missionary activities of the faith healer Benny Hinn’s organized in Bangalore with the support of Andhra Government to please, Sonia Gandhi, the Pope and the Vatican City’s its Indian ambassador.

The biggest Urban Myth is that Mr. Gandhi led a movement for the independence from the British. Gandhi did not bring the British empire to its knees. By supporting the British war effort in South Africa as well as in the Subcontinent, he actually prolonged Britain’s occupation of the Subcontinent and prolonged the life of the British Empire. In 1945 the tottering “empire” was its knees already. Actually it had been knocked out (KO!).

WW2 with 50 million dead had totally destroyed London and decimated the infrastructure of the country. There was no appetite for empire. British voters threw out Churchill. The exhausted British had already decided to leave all her colonies after the 2nd world war.


After the Labor Atlee government took over in Britain, the only point of discussion was “when” to dismantle the colonies. Nigeria, Malaysia, Kuwait, Iraq all got their independence without any “Gandhi”.What kind of national leaders sits in a religious “Ashram” and wears a monk like religious uniform? Would this sort of enlightened soul be acceptable to a diverse population? The answer is no.

It is nonsensical to say that Gandhi won freedom for the Subcontinent “without spilling a drop of blood.”Non-violence was just a slogan. One million died in 1947. In the 40’s when the British colonial rule was taking its last breadth there was a strong wave of nationalism across the globe, in China, in Malaysia, in Nigeria, in South Africa, and in the Subcontinent. Many of the leaders were Tipu Sultan, Bahadar Shah Zafar, Alam Iqbal, Mohhammad Ali Jinnah, Maula Mohammad Azad, The Ali Brothers, Maulana Abdul Bari Farangi Mahali, Lokmanya Tilak, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, Gokhale, Lal Lajpat Rai, Veer Savarkar and many other unnamed heroes.

Their sacrifices were not less than Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi came to the political scene in India after Jinnah, Iqbal, and Sir Syed. He came after Tilak Yug, Subhash Chandra Bose launched the “Azad Hind Fauj.” The devastating affects of the 2nd Tribal War (World War II) forced the British government to abandon her Colonial Empire.





GANDHI WAS “CREATED” TO USE THE SOUTH AFRICANS IN THE BRITISH WARS: Gandhi was a creation of the British and they used him to get the South Africans to fight in the British wars. He also stratified the South African society. From Oct. 1899 to May 31st, 1902 Mahatma Gandhi did not mention in “Non-Violence.”At the beginning of the South African War, Gandhi argued that “Indians must support the War effort in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship. “


The “Prophet of Non-Violence“, the “apostle of peace” urged the Indians to support the British by enlisting in the army during World War I.

GANDHI WAS A TOTAL FAILURE IN SOUTH AFRICA: Gandhi was a failure in South Africa and a failed attorney in Bombay. His failure hardened “Apartheid” and it took decades to dismantle it. This created a rift with the Black of South Africa who rejected this. Gandhi urged the colonial authorities to raise a volunteer militia of Indians to fight for the Empire. Gandhi informed the “South African Natal Authorities” that it would be a “criminal folly” if they did not enlist Indians for the war. Mr. Gandhi urged the Indian community to show their loyalty to the British Empire by raising funds for the War. He reminded them that they were in South Africa due to the courtesy of the Empire.

• “A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to
the position of a raw Kaffir.” (Reference: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol I, p. 150)


• Regarding forcible registration with the state of blacks: “One can understand the necessity for registration of Kaffirs who will not work.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, p. 105)
• “Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension…the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, pp. 244-245)
• His description of black inmates: “Only a degree removed from the animal.” Also, “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” - Mar. 7, 1908 (Reference: CWMG, Vol VIII, pp. 135-136)
The Durban Post Office
One of Gandhi’s major “achievements” in South Africa was to promote racial segregation by refusing to share a post office door with the black natives.

GANDHI WAS IMPORTED TO THE SUBCONTINENT BY THE BRITISH:The British Empire included many countries in Africa and Asia. In the Subcontinent it included more than 500 states. At the end of the 2nd Tribal War in Europe (WW2), the pillars of the once mighty British Empire were collapsing. In the Subcontinent the War of Independence of 1857 (also known as “Indian Mutiny“) had failed.Gandhi’s arrival in India was a carefully planned and crafted scheme to get rid of the Muslim leadership in the Indian National Congress. Some of the biggest millionaires in India devised a marketing plan to construct a leader for a superstitious, illiterate and colonized people. Gandhi was the perfect candidate.

He was imported from South Africa. Special trains were constructed to transport Gandhi in “3rd class” bogeys. “the brilliance of his image: the huge ears, toothless smile, round glasses, the loincloth, the staff. I remember a factoid from somewhere that the most recognized characters on earth were Gandhiji and, no offence, Mickey Mouse. And no, it wasn’t the big ears. It was the deliberate cultivation of an iconic figure with his sartorial abnegation, something that would appeal instantly and instinctively to his target audience, the average Indian. Something that would resonate strongly with the ascetic tradition of the land; the intentional invocation of the poorest of the poor, the salt of the earth…..As Sarojini Naidu is said to have complained, it cost India millions to keep Gandhiji in poverty. But the packaging and positioning” The Man who knew marketing byRajeev Srinivasan The man who knew marketing

The Salt March and his fast in Calcutta were managed events for publicity and fund raising. Huge crowds were attracted to this circus. Funds were generated to support the Indian National Congress and other organizations which unleashed a campaign of terror against the Muslims of Bengal and Kashmir. Initially the INC was not a communal organization but it used the RSS and the Jan Sangh to do its dirty work. The machinery worked overtime to put the Subcontinent on the track of Ram Rajhya.

Gandhi first introduced Hindu religious symbols to Motilal Nehru’s Secular Indian National Congress and then tried to make all of India succumb to a racist Hindu Ram Rajha rule.



G D Birla’s personal memoirs “‘In the Shadow of the Mahatma: A Personal Memoir’” reveal that he undertook many visits to England on his own and utilised the opportunity of to sell Gandhi. He acted as the appointed agent of Gandhi to meet Winston Churchill, Lord Halifax, Sir Samuel Hoare, Lord Lothian, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay McDonald and several other great English statesmen were G D Birla’s close friends. G D Birla’s was in close touch Lala Lajpath Rai, Pundit Madanmohan Malaviya, Pundit Motilal Nehru, Srinivasa Sastri, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Rajaji and several others. The racists bigots like Patel, Rai and others were the ones who were advising Birla on how to sell Ram Rajha to the British under the guise of Non-violence, Sunil Khilnani has says that Gandhi’s vision was essentially religious His solution was to forge an Indian identity out of the shared knowledge of ancient scriptures. “He turned to the legends and stories from the India’s popular religious traditions, preferring their lessons to the supposed ones of the history“.Today’s India tells us that it didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now. In today’s India, Hindu nationalism is rampant in the form of the Bhartiya Janta Party. During the recent elections, Gandhi and his ideas have scarcely been mentioned. India has had wars with all her neighbors, Nepal, Burma, Bangaldesh, Sikkim, Bhutan, Sril Lanka and of course Pakistan.The British brought Gandhi back to India from South Africa to sabotage Indian national movement against British rule. The Congress Party at the time was a secular party. At the expense of other important people Nehru-Gandhi were imposed on the party which had been set up under the patronage of the British authorities.

“One of his reason for launching the Civil Disobedient Movement is to contain the violence of revolutionaries.” Gandhi’s letter to the Viceroy in1930

The 2nd World War broke out in 1939 after Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Initially, Mr. Gandhi favored offering “non-violent moral support” to the British effort, but other Congress leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of the people of the Subcontinent into the war, without the consultation of the people’s representatives (INC,ML, AD, RSS, Jan Sangh etc.).

MR GANDHI INTRODUCED RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM INTO THE SUBCONTINENTAL POLITICS: THIS LED TO THE ALIENATION OF MUSLIMS ETC.

Mr. Gandhi introduced religious symbols into politics which led to the Indian National attracting the communalists like Patel. As a result of the Ashrams and the satyargarhs and the Banda Mahtaram INC became a Hindu Party with the Muslims in the Muslim League and the Sikhs in the Akali Dal. Unable to agree on the Cabinet Mission Plan all agreed to gain independence in a different manner from the British. Gandhi’s religious symbols eventually led to the BJP ruling India, Ayodhia and the massacres in Gujrat. Secularism in India means “Hinduism Light”. Dynastic “Democracy” in India was imposed to wrest the control of India from Muslim lands. Land reforms were forced on a vulnerable Muslim population and their lands were confiscated.

SCHEME TO DETHRONE THE MUSLIMS FROM THE CORRIDORS OF POWER: A scheme was created to disable the Muslim infrastructure of India and get rid of the rulers who had ruled India for more than a thousand years. A word that had not been in vogue was issued into the lexicon of the English language. This word “Democracy” did not appear in the American Constitution and Socrates, Jeffersen, Hamilton and others had written much against it. However the word galvanized the people of Britain and America to fight Fascism. It worked to draw in the Americans to the war. The British used this word to seduce the Hindus of the Subcontinent to lure them into supporting them so that after they left, they would rule the Subcontinent–something they had not dreamed about in more than a thousand years.

The politics of sex locked the British Empire into irrational decision making. There is an overwhelming body of evidence to show that Lord Mountbatten was gay. Lord Mountbatten was seduced by Mr. Nehru whose homosexual tendencies have been mentioned by Stanley Wolpert and others. Lord Mountbatten’s wife Edwina’s affair with Mr. Nehru is well known also.

GANDHI WAS A FAILURE IN THE SUBCONTINENT:Gandhi had pledged to keep a several fasts to death to prevent. Invariably he got sick enough and stopped.

“The anti-Muslim thrust of some of Gandhi’s Hindu opponents combined with Muslim separatism to produce Pakistan.” Gandhi’s grandson

The Gandhi opponents in India were unhappy with him for “allowing Pakistan”. They also think that the “protest fast unto death and the non-violent arm of Gandhism was a fraud. Both Mahatma Gandhi and British Empire knew this. This was a friendly fight as Congress, its allies and left fronts are doing. After all they are true loyalist of Nehru Gandhi dynasty. “

THE NON-VIOLENCE SLOGAN WAS FOR THE SAKE OF THE BRITISH RULERS

The “Non Violence” theme in the Subcontinent was a great marketing ploy of Mr. Nehru and Mr. Gandhi. Gandhis sole contribution to history was to make 150 million Muslims of India subservient to the Hindus. Attempts to make another 300 million subservient continue.Other than lip service he was unable to eliminate the caste system in India. Sati and “White Widows” remain instilled in the fabric of India.

Source: Mohandas by Gandhi’s grandson, In Search of Truth by Mohandas Gandhi, Freedom at Midnight by Le Pierre (screen play for the movie Gandhi).

Mohandas– a true story of a man, his people and an empire, on Mahatma Gandhi” by former Parliamentarian and writer Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi

Sources: Time Magazine Being Mohandas - TIME

APPENDIX

Gandhi’s girls - sex scandal

Washington Monthly, July-August, 1987 by Art Levine

Gandhi’s Girls

India, 1942: In the end, the political demise of Mohandas Gandhi came with stunning speed. Until last week, he was the reversed Mahatma–the Great Soul– leader of 400 million Indians in the drive for independence from British colonial rule. With the election of the Labour Government in Britain increasingly likely, chances never seemed brighter for the free India that Gandhi had sought for so long.

But by week’s end, in the wake of newspaper accounts of Gandhi’s sexual peccadilloes, bizarre personal habits and mind-bending cult practices, his career–and perhaps Indian nationalism –lay in ruins. Those closest to Gandhi likened it to a Greek tragedy, a giant cut down by his own hands. “Gandhi’s personal life was a political time bomb waiting to explode,’ said one distraught associate. “Now it’s finally blown up in our faces.’

Ironically, Gandhi set the stage for his demise through his own pronouncements on sex. His obsession began in 1885 when he learned of his father’s death while in bed with his wife. By 1906, he had taken a much celebrated vow of celibacy. An extraordinary commitment, but even then Gandhi was angling for moral loopholes. “If for want of physical enjoyment,’ he wrote, “the mind wallows in thoughts of enjoyment, then it is legitimate to satisfy the hungers of the body.’ For years, supporters now admit, Gandhi had pushed the outer limits of propriety. “The man in the loin cloth, it seems, has thought a good deal about loins,’ said one observer.

After years of such rumors, it was the specific nature of the latest charges, followed by other damaging revelations, that undermined his political base. The shock waves were felt throughout the British empire–and new questions were raised about how relevant a politician’s character was to his work, and whether in the case of Gandhi, the Fourth Estate went too far.

A Spiritual Experience? The trouble began a week ago when the New Delhi Herald published a front page story reporting that Gandhi had spent the weekend with five attractive young women–aides in his nonviolent campaign–at his ashram in Sevegram. Meanwhile, his wife Kasturbai was 2,000 miles away at their mountain retreat in Kashmir recuperating from an illness.

Escorting them was Gandhi’s aide, the movie star-handsome Jawaharlal Nehru. With his urbane charm and stylish taste in jackets, Nehru never had any pretense to celibacy. (His intimacies with Lady Mountbatten are infamous.) Campaign insiders said that they had long been alarmed by Gandhi’s ties to Nehru, and several suggested their time together be cut back. “We told him to dump Nehru,’ said one aide. “But the old man would just sit there and smile. He didn’t see the storm coming.’

It was advice Gandhi must now wish he had heeded. New Delhi Herald reporters and photographers were hiding in nearby bushes, guarding both the front and rear entrances. Except for a breath of fresh air at 3 A.M., the women had spent the entire night with the erstwhile spiritual leader. If the chronology was indicting, the photographs were positively damning. Wielding telephoto lenses, the Herald photographers snapped shots that seem sure to snuff out a political career. The scene: Gandhi and his cabal sprawled on his rope bed– naked.

Late Sunday morning, a weary Gandhi finally spotted the Herald reporters and confronted them. The women were only there as an experiment in self-restraint, he insisted, and nothing sexual transpired between them. “True brachmacharya (celibacy) is this: one who, by constant-attendance upon God, has become capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited. I have done nothing wrong,’ Gandhi insisted.

The Indian public wasn’t buying it. His explanations had become the issue of the campaign, according to a poll taken two days after the Herald story broke. Only 34 percent of those questioned believed Gandhi’s claim that he hadn’t had sexual relations with the women–and a scant 16 percent believed he hadn’t been sexually excited. A mere 26 percent claimed to be disturbed by the incident itself; what bothered them, said 75 percent of India’s citizens, was the appearance of hypocrisy.

But the questions kept coming. Every stop on his campaign swing turned into a media circus. A protest march in Dandi was cut short by a throng of reporters, barraging Gandhi with questions about his sexual self-control. A new low in political discourse may have been reached when a reporter for the Bombay Post asked during a sit-in, “Did you get an erection last weekend?’ Although Gandhi was well within his rights when he responded, “I don’t have to answer that,‘ some observers felt that the appearance of evasiveness further eroded his credibility.

Matters were only made worse when the Herald was widely rumored to be on the verge of publishing more damaging photos–of nothing less than unmistakable signs of Gandhi’s physical excitement. When a pack of enterprising reporters caught up with her at her sickbed, Mrs. Gandhi stuck by her man. She told them: “Honestly, if Mahatma told me that nothing happened, then nothing happened.’

More Revelations: Still, by week’s end, the prospects for Gandhi’s political recovery looked grim, despite his denials and counter-attacks. In the next few days, there were other newspaper accounts of Gandhi’s celibacy experiments. The Bombay Post ran an insiders’ account of life in Gandhi’s ashram. Contrary to the image he had cultivated of a gentle, loving soul, the two-part series, “The Dark Side of Gandhi,’ detailed the brutal regimen imposed on his followers. His 100-plus disciples, forced to live in primitive mud and bamboo huts, were awakened daily at a A.M. to eat nothing but a few crumbs of unseasoned vegetarian gruel and dry wheat. Weakened, they were subjected to long harangues on arcane religious topics. Eyewitness accounts were gruesome. “We had to spend hours on our knees chanting prayers and spinning cotton,’ said one American follower who defected. “We were like zombies.’ Cult experts say Gandhi had dozens of ingenious schemes to weaken his followers’ ties to their families and strengthen his control over them. Their secret name for their leader: “Bapu,’ or father.

The Post story was the final straw. In his political death throes, Gandhi made a dramatic appearance before his supporters–and stopped just short of abandoning his campaign for a free India. “I intended, in all honesty, to come to you this sunrise and tell you that I was leaving the cause. But, then, after tossing and turning all night, as I have through this ordeal, I woke up and said, “Heck, my goodness, no.”

Instead, Gandhi with his back against the proverbial wall reached deep into his bag of tricks and, like a cat with nine lives, pulled yet another rabbit from his hat: a hunger strike. Over the course of a fifty-year career, Gandhi had turned this familiar strategy into a crowd pleaser that could move the masses or pummel an Empire. “Under certain circumstances, fasting is the one weapon God has given us for use in times of utter helplessness,’ said Gandhi defiantly.

No one doubts that Gandhi can go weeks on end without even a drop of chutney. But political analysts are doubtful that the man, once dubbed “Mr. Hunger Strike,’ could make this latest gambit work. “Gandhi represents the politics of the past,’ said Patreek Chardeli. “A new generation of Indians wants vital, robust leadership. I don’t think a starving old man is well positioned to do it.’ More ominously, other pundits said the political damage was too much to contain– even with a high-profile play for sympathy. Davidahr Garthati, the media consultant credited with Gandhi’s decision to abandon the suit and tie of his early barrister days and “go native’ instead, was equally pessimistic. Garthati noted, “His celibacy shtick was crucial to the saint image he’d cultivated for all these years. The non-violence thing, the spinning wheels, the fasting–that was brilliant. But his celibacy really set him apart, made him genuinely holy. Without it, he’s just another pacifist do-gooder.’

Political opponents moved quickly to capitalize on the gaffe. Columnist Robert Novakilli, a longtime Gandhi critic, lambasted Gandhi’s hijinks from his nationally broadcast McRajan Group. “The real perversion is Gandhi’s political agenda. For years, he and his pacifist pals have had two things in mind: tinkering with the salt tax and cozying up to Stalin.’ And his most formidable rival, Moslem leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah, sought to subtly position himself to pick up Gandhi’s fleeing supporters. “Family life has always been sacred to me,’ he told reporters, standing outside his family’s mosque with his wife and daughter. “I don’t think it’s my place to comment on the controversy surrounding some of those in the public eye. It’s up to the Indian people to judge for themselves.’

And their judgment seemed harsh. Within a matter of days, the squalid controversy over Gandhi’s private parts turned him from a national hero into a laughingstock. On his nightly radio program, comedian Charu Carson quipped, “Well, at least we know the Mahatma is big enough for the job of running India.’ He added, to more laughter, “I guess he was really meditating his brains out this weekend.’ Editorial cartoonists had a field day, as a bulging loin cloth quickly became the Mahatma’s new trademark.

In the next few days more revelations came trickling out about other celibacy “experiments’ he had been conducting since his forties, including one report of a pleasure trip down the Ganges with Nehru and two female assistants on the awkwardly named Holy Cow. The Post also revealed that at the end of each day, he had one of his attractive, young female disciples administer an enema, which he insisted was for “health’ and “cleansing’ purposes. “Gandhi gives as much as he takes– even to total strangers,’ said one Gandhi aide.

New Ground rules: Gandhi’s sudden demise triggered an orgy of self-examination in the media. Did the press go too far? “At first, I agonized over whether we should risk tarnishing a great man’s reputation with close-up photos of naked women and speculation about his sex life,’ said Ved

Fiedleraba, who led the Herald stakeout. “But then I realized that the public had a right to know.’ Fiedleraba reasoned that if there was the slightest possibility that Gandhi was lying about his celibacy, then that raised serious questions about his candor and his ability to negotiate with foreign leaders were India ever to become independent. “So, naturally, it was my moral obligation to set up camp outside his bedroom.’

Clearly, the ground rules have changed. Historically, the press has had a gentlemen’s agreement with India’s rulers. When Viceroy Lord Lillybottom himself brought a bevy of beauties to the Taj Mahal, the muckrakers of Madras looked the other way. But with the rise of Indian Nationalism and the decline of British sea power, the mores of Indian society have been loosened–and so have those of the press. Today, nothing is off limits, even enemas. Many wondered what’s next: asking Jinnah whether he had violated the Koran’s strictures against amorous relations with pigs or other unholy animals? But for now it was Gandhi who was caught in this whirlwind. This smiling man, from a more polite age, seemed oblivious to the new rules of his beloved India.

Whatever the press’s ultimate responsibility, the longstanding doubts over Gandhi’s character left India’s nationalist movement in disarray. Behind the scenes, some Congress party operatives were privately relieved. “We feel betrayed,’ said one. “Gandhi promised he would remain celibate, at least until India achieved independence. Now that he’s gone, at least we can move on.’

Ultimately, Gandhi’s fate hinged on those questions of character, rather than any moral revulsion. In her essay “Gandhi’s Women Problem, Women’s Gandhi Problem,’ Sukai Lessardai voiced the concerns of many women wary of Gandhi’s apparent philandering. “Whether or not he was celibate, his need to prove his spiritual manhood by lying with five naked women is an affront to the dignity and equality of women everywhere.’ And as Willmed Schneidermanai of the Indian Enterprise Institute points out, “It’s not so much the fact that he slept with these women or regularly indulged in enemas; it’s that he showed such bad judgment in doing so. I think this raises serious questions about Gandhi’s self-discipline and insensitivity to the appearances of impropriety –and finally about Gandhi’s ability to lead a successful non-violent movement.’

Now the question is: Whither India? In his stead, there are other leaders who could possibly win independence for India–the Moslem Jinnah, or even Vallabhaai Patel–but neither has the stature and name recognition of a Gandhi. Non-violent disobedience seems a memory now. And nationalism itself is on the backburner. As the likely next Viceroy of the Raj, Lord Louis Mountbatten, points out, “If an entire nation could be led down the primrose path by this charlatan and hypocrite, the Indian people are not yet ready for independence.’ Wise heads in India and Britain agreed, and with Gandhi’s political demise, a tumultuous chapter in India’s history closes, and calmer times lie ahead.

Photo: More than disciples?: Gandhi and two “aides’

Photo: Character flaw?: Gandhi stalked by questions about his judgment– and candor

COPYRIGHT 1987 Washington Monthly Company , COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Gandhi's girls - sex scandal - page 4 | Washington Monthly

WAS GANDHI A TANTRIC?

By Nicholas Gier, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Idaho (ngier@uidaho.edu)

For a complete version, which will appear in Gandhi Marg (2007) click here.

For a 900-word version click here.

My meaning of brahmacharya is this: “One who never has any lustful intention, who . . . has become capable of lying naked with naked women . . . without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited.”

–M. K. Gandhi

The greater the temptation, the greater the renunciation.

–M. K. Gandhi

I threw you in the sacrificial fire and you emerged safe and sound.

–Gandhi to his grandniece Manu Gandhi

I can hurt colleagues and the entire world for the sake of truth.

–M. K. Gandhi (letter to Sushila Nayar)

[Gandhi] can think only in extremes-either extreme eroticism or asceticism.

–Jawaharlal Nehru

The professional Don Juan destroys his spirit as fatally as does the professional ascetic, whose [mirror] image he is.

–Aldous Huxley, Do What You Will

Some scholars believe that it is unseemly to write about the sex lives of great thinkers. William Bartley, for example, has been criticized for documenting, quite successfully in my opinion, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s homosexual encounters, information that helps us better understand his life and work. If we use this information in an ad hominem attack against these thinkers’ worldviews, then we have indeed erred and done them an injustice.

Full and accurate biographies, however, are essential for those of us who wish to capture the full measure of a person’s life and character. It is therefore unfortunate that D. K. Bose, Gandhi’s faithful secretary and interpreter in Bengal, was forced to self publish his book My Days with Gandhi. He only thought that he was being truthful, but many considered him an apostate, and Sushila Nayar, one of Gandhi’s female intimates, thought he had “a dirty mind.”

Most people would rather not hear about Martin Luther King’s extramarital liaisons, but they remain embarrassing facts, along with the plagiarized passages in his doctoral dissertation, that must be integrated into our understanding of this great saint of nonviolence. King confessed that what he did was wrong and he sought forgiveness from his wife and sought repentance. Sadly, I do not think that we can say that same thing about Gandhi’s response to those who criticized his intimate relations with young women. Furthermore, King did not defend his actions by saying that they were part of his spiritual development, something that Gandhi of course did.

It is now widely known that Gandhi shared his bed with young women as part of his experiments in brahmacharya, a Sanskrit word usually translated as “celibacy,” but generally understood as the ultimate state of yogic self-control. Gandhi believed that Indian ascetics who sought refuge in forests and mountains were cowards, and he was convinced that the only way to conquer desire was to face the temptation head-on with a naked female in his bed.

I take Gandhi at his word that he did not have carnal relations with these women-his sleeping quarters were open to all to observe-so he was not among the left-handed Tantrics who engaged in ritual sex with their yoginis. At the same time, Gandhi’s Tantricism cannot be right-handed kind because this school proscribes intimate contact with women.

As would be expected, we will find that Gandhi was a very distinctive Tantric. Perhaps it can be said that Gandhi was somehow simultaneously a left-handed and right-handed Tantric. Raihana Tyabji, a close associate with a Tantric past, thought that Gandhi’s position straddling right-handed and left-hand Tantra was untenable, and that the only way to free himself and his women from sexual desire was “to give free rein to it-to indulge it and satiate it. But he wouldn’t listen.”

It is not widely known that Gandhi subscribed to Shakta theology, one that puts skakti, the power of the Hindu Goddess, at the center of existence. Shakta theology is the foundation of Hindu Tantricism. Scholars have warned us that not all Shaktas are Tantrics, but Gandhi’s sexual experiments with young women definitely suggest some association with Tantra. It is also possible that that Gandhi’s sexual experiments may have been an abuse of personal power rather than a practice of Hindu spirituality.

One defense that could be made for Gandhi’s actions is that he experienced intimate relations with men as well. Hermann Kallenbach, a South Africa associate, was very close to the Mahatma. Kallenbach promised that he would travel to the “ends of the earth in search of [Gandhian] Truth,” and he also promised Gandhi that he would never marry. Gandhi reciprocated by declaring unconditional love and a declaration that they would always be “one soul in two bodies.”

Gandhi was also very close to Pyarelal Nayar, Sushila Nayar’s brother, and boasted that Pyarelal slept closer to him than his sister did. For Gandhi, however, sleeping with men was different from sharing a bed with women. Abha Gandhi’s husband Kanu once objected to his wife sleeping with the Mahatma and offered himself as a “bed warmer.” Gandhi rejected his proposal by making it clear that brahmacharya tests required young women as bedmates. Finally, if someone makes an appeal to the Indian custom and necessity of intimate Indian family sleeping arrangements, Girja Kumar is not convinced: “Not even in India do grown-up daughters sleep with their fathers.”

I

In his book My Days with Gandhi Bose does mention in passing that Gandhi’s techniques are “reminiscent of the Tantras,” and Gandhi himself said that he read the books on Tantra written by Sir John Woodroofe, but, as far as I know, only Gopi Krishna has argued at any length about Gandhi’s Tantricism.

In his on-line essay “Mahatma Gandhi and the Kundalini Process,” Krishna argues that the only way that we can explain Gandhi’s actions with these young women is to assume he was a kundalini yogi. Krishna speculates that “upward flow of reproductive energy [shakti]” started as soon as he committed himself to brahmacharya in 1906. Gandhi was 37, “the usual time,” from Krishna’s own experience, “for the spontaneous arousal of the Serpent Power.”

As evidence that Gandhi had perfected this state, Krishna cites this passage from Gandhi’s Key to Health: “[the brahmachari's] sexual organs will begin to look different. . . . He does not become impotent for lack of the necessary secretions of sexual glands. But these secretions in his case are sublimated into a vital force pervading his whole being.” Krishna claims that this passage makes it “patently clear” that Gandhi had attained the state of brahmacharya, but it is not clear that Gandhi is writing about himself, and that, except during the crisis with Manu, he rarely ever claimed spiritual perfection.

As the kundalini yogi matures, Krishna states that he “needs constant stimulation to increase the supply of reproductive juices. . . . The Tantras and other works on kundalini clearly acknowledge the need of an attractive female partner in the practices undertaken to awaken shakti.” Gandhi does in fact say that “my brahmacharya . . . irresistibly drew me to woman as the mother of man. She became too sacred for sexual love.”

Krishna admits that Gandhi himself most likely “had no inkling of the transformative process at work in him,” even though he claims that Gandhi noticed that his male organ had shrunk. Krishna brushes aside criticism of Gandhi’s actions and also concern for the young women’s mental health, because “nature accomplishes her great tasks in her own way and leaves short-sighted mortals wondering how it could happen.” Apart from the speculative nature of Krishna’s theory, we should be most concerned about his disregard for the women’s well being, as well has the implication that Gandhi was driven by forces over which he had no control.

II

For Gandhi the virtues of patience, self-control, and courage were absolutely essential to defeat the temptation to retaliate and respond with violence. Gandhi made it clear that each of these virtues were found most often in women. Gandhi once said that he wanted to convert the woman=s capacity for “self-sacrifice and suffering into shakti-power.” Gandhi describes womankind as follows: “Has she not great intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage?” He also claimed that nonviolence is embodied in the woman: she is “weak in striking. . . strong in suffering.”

The women around Gandhi were amazed how comfortable they felt in his presence and how much of a woman he had become to them. Millie Polak observed that “most women love men for [masculine] attributes. Yet, Mohandas Gandhi has been given the love of many women for his womanliness.” His orphaned grandniece Manu considered Gandhi as her new mother, and she simply could not understand all the controversy surrounding their sleeping together.

The fact that women felt no unease in his presence was proof to Gandhi that he was approaching perfection as a brahmachari. Indeed, Bose contends that Gandhi attempted to “conquer sex” was “by becoming a woman.” Gandhi told Pyarelal Nayar that he once tore the burning sari off a woman in his ashram, but “she felt no embarrassment, because she knew I was a brahmachariand so almost like a sister to her.” Alternatively, Gandhi says that his goal was the state of “complete sexlessness” recommended by Jesus and that this condition could be achieved by becoming a eunuch by prayer not by an operation.

Gandhi is no doubt referring to shaktiwhen he states that “all power comes from the preservation and sublimation of the vitality that is responsible for the creation of life.” Gandhi may very well be indicating a Tantric process of empowerment that involves the preservation and sublimation of a male vitality that has its source in shakti. When Gandhi did his first radio broadcast on November 12, 1947, he declared that the phenomenon of broadcasting demonstrated “shakti, the miraculous power of God.”

When Gandhi once described himself as “half a woman,” an alternative view of masculine and feminine power suggests itself. The Chinese/Jungian view of complementary yin (anima) and yang (animus) energies is found in this passage: “A man should remain man and yet should learn to become woman; similarly, a woman should remain woman and yet learn to become man.” Hsi Lai uses the yin/yang model to explain Gandhi’s sexual experiments: “He didn’t do this for the purpose of actual sexual contact, but as an ancient practice of rejuvenating his male energy. . . . Taoists called this method ‘using the yin to replenish the yang.”

The source of Gandhi’s dipolar views of male and female may have been Christian rather than Asian. While a young man in England, Gandhi came into contact with the Esoteric Christian Union, whose interpretation of the image of God meant that the individual “must comprise within himself the qualities Bmasculine and feminineB of existence and be spiritually both man and woman.” When he confessed to Kedar Nathji and Swami Anand that his sexual experiments were “unorthodox,” Gandhi says that his views on this subject had been influenced by “Western writers on this subject.”

III

It is the male who is active in Tantric rites. Only males undergo initiation, and the only instruction females receive, if they get any, is that they “should not even mentally touch another male.” Gandhi’s Tantricism definitely follows this androcentric approach. Gandhi also takes the defiant stance of the Tantric who says that he cares nothing for what others thinks of his practice: “The whole world may forsake me but I dare not leave what I hold is the truth for me.” Gandhi once admonished a critic that he would sleep with a thousand women if that is what it took to reach spiritual purity. Gandhi’s experiments in truth took on the value free aspects of the scientific method, and left-handed Tantrics believe that their actions are above conventional law and morality.

Normally Tantric practices are tightly structured, highly ritualized, and the initiation procedures, guided by a guru, are esoteric. The only bona fide guru in Gandhi’s spiritual development was Raichandcharya, a Jain saint, not a Tantric, with whom Gandhi corresponded during his formative South Africa period. Gandhi officiated at daily worship and hymn singing, encouraged the chanting of the Ramanama (the god Rama’s name), and followed an unconventional diet, but these practices are not Tantric in any way. The chanting of the Ramanama is said to have magical properties, but its use is so widespread in India it may not indicate any special Tantric associations. Nevertheless, Gandhi does connect the chanting of Rama’s name with “an alchemy [that] can transform the body” that leads to “the conservation of vital energy.”

Gandhi’s experiments with truth were highly personalized but not spiritually esoteric as are Tantric practices. Only after the sexual experiments came under public scrutiny did Gandhi started telling his female associates to keep their activities secret. Not until his last days, when his sleeping with Manu became public, did Gandhi confess that this secrecy was actually a sign of untruthfulness. Gandhi’s secrecy was simply expedient and not spiritually required.

IV

Before Gandhi started his brahmacharyaexperiments in 1938, he had a string of intimate relationships with European and Indian women. While he was in South Africa, Gandhi fell in love with Millie Polak, the wife of Henry Polak, both of whom lived with Gandhi at Phoenix Farm. Kumar describes their first contact as follows: “Gandhiji and Millie started conversing through their eyes. They made a pact between them immediately. Poor Henry was left stranded.” As with all of his female friends, Gandhi insisted that he and Millie be sisters or alternatively that he be her father, but after they were together in London in 1909 without Henry, Gandhi dared to suggest that he was a substitute husband.

Even though Millie was smitten by him, she stood up to Gandi’s controlling nature and argued against his absurd dietary ideas and his goal to force chastity on all his coworkers. This independent spirit that defines most of his female intimates of this early period stands in instructive contrast to the passive participants in the later brahmacharyaexperiments. For example, Kumar describes Manu as a devotee who “was prepared to sacrifice her life at the altar of her personal God.” Gandhi controlled every aspect of Manu’s life, and when she once forgot his favorite soap at their last stay, he made her walk back through a dark jungle to retrieve it.

When Millie finally broke off their 3-year affair, Gandhi’s attentions turned to Maud Polak, Henry’s sister. Maud worked with Gandhi at Phoenix Farm as his personal secretary until 1913. In a letter to Henry, Gandhi described Maud seeing him off at a railway station: “She cannot tear herself from me. . . . She would not shake hands with me. She wanted a kiss. [This incident] has transformed her and with her me.”

Esther Faering, a young Danish missionary, was the next major love in Gandhi’s life. From her very first visit at the Satyagraha Ashram in 1917, Kumar describes Faering as “completely hooked on” Gandhi, and as with Millie Polak, “an instant chemistry developed” between them. Gandhi “experienced an intensely personal passion for Esther,” and she praised him as the “Incarnation of God in man.”

The other ashramites were alarmed at Gandhi’s obsession with Faering, and Kasturba Gandhi was particularly cool to her husband’s new love interest. Gandhi made matters worse by siding with Faering against his wife. While he was away from the ashram, he wrote daily letters to Faering, which Kumar describes as having the passionate intensity of the poets of Hinduism and Sufi Islam. He hazards a guess that “Esther must have stirred,” as young beautiful women are supposed to do in the Tantric yogi, “the serpent resting uncoiled in [Gandhi's] kundalini.“

One would expect Gandhi to have at least been serially monogamous in his relationships, but that was not the case. While Faering was struggling against Kasturba and other ashramites, and receiving Gandhi’s constant support from afar, he was conducting what Kumar calls a “whirlwind romance” with Saraladevi Chowdharani, a Bengali revolutionary married to a Punjabi musician. Her father was a secretary of Indian National Congress in Calcutta, and by virtue of her singing and activism, Saraladevi was celebrated as Bengal’s Joan of Arc and as an incarnation of the Goddess Durga. She rose to the challenge and wrote that “my pen reverberated with the power of Shiva’s trumpet and invited Bengalis to cultivate death.”

After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, Gandhi stayed at Saraladevi’s home in Lahore and then toured India together during 1920. Her husband, R. D. Chowdhary, was in jail for the first eight months this period, but he was content, as was Henry Polak, to share his wife with the Mahatma. Gandhi agreed with Chowdhary that Saraladevi was the “greatest shakti of India.”

Gandhi called Saraladevi his “spiritual wife” after “an intellectual wedding,” and he reported that he bathed “in her deep affection” as she showered “her love on [him] in every possible way.” Kasturba Gandhi had refused to wear khadi-the homespun and hand woven garments that Gandhi made famous-but Saraladevi became the Mahatma’s most elegant khadimodel. Kumar describes them as “lovelorn teenagers with stars in their eyes,” and depicts Saraladevi as “aristocratic, gorgeously dressed, sensuously beautiful, and imperious. In short, she had everything that [Kasturba] lacked.”

In contrast to his later brahmacharyamistresses, Saraladevi, just as Millie Polak before her, did not bow to Gandhi’s authority in any way. For example, as the quotation above implies, she agreed with fellow Bengalis, such as the young Aurobindo, that independence required violent revolution. Following her Goddess, Durga’s shaktiwas always accompanied by violence, and Saraladevi eventually broke with Gandhi over this very issue.

Kumar concludes that just as his relation to Faering, while “full of sensuality,” was asexual, Gandhi’s romance with Saraladevi was “probably . . . entirely platonic.” There was, however, a “large component of eroticism” and the “line of demarcation between sexual, sensuous, erotic and platonic was only of degree and not of kind.”

Kumar’s phrasing is unfortunate and logically incoherent, because “degree” means a slippery slope and not a strict line between the intellectual/spiritual and the physical. In letters to Saraladevi in July, 1920, Gandhi insists that being “spiritually” married means that the “physical must be wholly absent,” but he then admits that he is “too physically attached to” her for there to be a true “sacred association.”

In his conversations with Margaret Sanger, Gandhi refers to a “woman with whom I almost fell,” and “the thought of my wife kept me from going to perdition.” Writing to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, a later bedmate, he admitted the he, “with one solitary exception,” had never “looked upon a woman with lustful eyes.” These two references must have been to Saraladevi Chowdharani.

Madeleine Slade, who became Gandhi’s beloved Mirabehn, was the daughter of a British naval officer who was once stationed in Bombay. Mirabehn first learned of Gandhi through Romain Rolland, who was then writing a Gandhi biography. She wrote to Gandhi requesting that she become a member of the Sabarmati Ashram, but he required that she live as an ascetic for one year before coming to India. More than any of his disciples, Mirabehn eagerly took to the austerities that Gandhi demanded. As opposed to Kasturba, who disliked latrine duties, Mirabehn eagerly took charge of the toilets, even those for all the delegates to a meeting of the Indian National Congress.

At their first meeting in November, 1925, Mirabehn found Gandhi “divine,” and she was able to confirm Rolland’s claim that he was indeed the second Christ. They fell in love with one another and Kumar says that “Mira was Saraladevi . . . all over again.” Once again, because of Gandhi’s fascination for her, Mirabehn was shunned by the ashramites. Gandhi soon discovered that Mirabehn’s emotional instability caused his blood pressure to rise, so he frequently sent her away on other tasks. They did, however, keep in contact with weekly self-described “love letters,” and Gandhi wrote that she haunted his dreams.

Mirabehn agreed with Gandhi’s depiction that their passion was like a “bed of hot ashes,” a veritable ascetic-erotic rhapsody of yogic tapas.Gandhi also shared with Mirabehn agonies about his spontaneous erections, daytime ejaculations, and wet dreams, for which he castigated himself unmercifully, and they even discussed the causes and cures of constipation.

V

Of the women closely associated with Gandhi, at least ten were said to have slept in his bed. They can be identified as follows:

Sushila Nayar was only 15 when she came to the Sabarmati Ashram and then became Gandhi’s intimate companion, with some periods of alienation and remove, for the rest of his life. Gandhi claimed that Nayar was a natural brahmachari, having observed it from childhood. They bathed together and even used the same bath water, but Gandhi assured everyone that he kept his “eyes tightly shut.”
Lilavati Asar, associated with Gandhi from 1926-1948, slept in his bed and gave him “service,” which meant bathing and massaging.
Sharada Parnerkar slept “close” to Gandhi and rendered “service.” She was very ill in October, 1940, and Gandhi gave her regular enemas.
Amtul Salaam, whom Gandhi called his “crazy daughter,” was a Punjabi from Patiala. She was also a bedmate and masseuse. Gandhi once wrote about the joy he gave Salaam when she received a massage from him.
Prabhavati Narayan, a Kashmiri, lived in an unconsummated marriage with Jayaprakash Narayan, Indira Gandhi’s most famous political foe. Because of her lack of sexual interest or desire, Gandhi thought that Prabhavati would be a perfect married brahmachari. In addition to sleeping with Gandhi, she also gave him “service.”
Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, married to a Rajasthani prince, was India’s first health minister and was a Gandhi associate for 30 years. Although older, she slept right along with the younger women in Gandhi’s quarters. She also helped with baths and massages.
Sucheta Kriplani, a member of Parliament and professor at Benares Hindu University, was a member of Gandhi’s Peace Brigade in East Bengal in 1947. She maintained a brahmacharimarriage with J. B. Kriplani, a famous socialist and saint. Gandhi fought their union tooth and nail. Although Gandhi invited Mrs. Kriplani to his bed on a regular basis, he insisted that married couples in his ashrams always sleep in different quarters.
Abha Gandhi was a Bengali who accompanied the Mahatma in East Bengal. She started sleeping with Gandhi when she was 16; she also bathed him and washed his clothes.
Kanchan Shah, also a married woman, had a “one night stand” with Gandhi and was banned from brahmacharya experiments because she reputedly wanted to have sex with him. Gandhi gave the following instructions on brahmacharimarriage to Shah and her husband: “You should not touch each other. You shall not talk to each other. You shall not work together. You should not take service from each other.” But Gandhi of course received “service” from his women on a daily basis. On the hypocrisy of taking what he denied to others, Kumar has this to say: “The vow of brahmacharya was a revenge he took upon everyone else.”
Manu Gandhi was his brother’s granddaughter and she was his constant companion for the last eight years of his life. Interestingly enough, there is a temple to Manu, a powerful rain goddess, in Gandhi’s home city of Porbandar.
Most accounts of Gandhi’s spiritual experiments focus on those with Manu in 1946-47 in East Bengal. Although he conceded at the time that it “may be a delusion and a snare,” and although he seemed to be recalling his earlier experiments at Sevagram-”I have risked perdition before now”-he was still confident that he had “launched on a sacrifice [that] consists of the full practice of truth” and the development of a “non-violence of the brave.” He said that these tests were no longer an experiment, which could be seen as optional, but a compulsory sacred duty (yajna). His hut where he slept with Manu was called “holy ground,” and Manu’s father had to sleep elsewhere when he visited.

There is some confusion about whether the women simply slept next to him or shared the same cover, or whether they slept clothed or unclothed. The scenario appeared to be that they first slept next to him, then slept under the same cover without clothes. Significantly, Gandhi admitted that “all of them would strip reluctantly. . . and they did so at my prompting.” As to the reason for complete nakeness, Sushila Nayar recalls Gandhi’s explanation to Manu: “We both may be killed by the Muslims at any time. We must both put our purity to the ultimate test. . . and we should now both start sleeping naked.”

Gandhi described his sleeping with Manu as a “bold and original experiment,” one that required a “practiced brahmachari” such as he was, and a woman such as Manu who was free from passion. Confessing as she even might have done with her own mother, Manu told Gandhi that she had not ever experienced sexual desire. Presumably because of these ideal conditions, Gandhi predicted that the “heat would be great.” It is not clear whether Gandhi was speaking of the yogi heat of tapas, or the heat of the negative reactions that he anticipated.

One has to admire Manu because it was she, not Gandhi, who suggested that they not sleep together any longer. It is harder to credit Gandhi, particularly when he said that the experiments ceased because of Manu’s “inexperience,” not because of any failing on his part. As Kumar states: “Just five days before Gandhiji was assassinated, he charged her with failing to realize the potential of mahayajna.” So it was Manu’s fault, not his.

Controversy about the practice continued during the summer of 1947, but Gandhi was pleased when two editors of his journal Harijan, who had resigned in protest about the experiments, confessed that they had misjudged Gandhi. It is not clear that the experiments stopped because Pyarelal notes that “the practice was for the time being discontinued”; indeed, after returning to Delhi, Manu and Gandhi resumed sleeping together and “continued right till the end.”

Gandhi’s “sacred associations” actually began at his Sevagram ashram as early as 1938, when his wife Kasturba was still alive. Sushila Nayar not only slept with him there, but also gave him regular massages, sometimes in front of visitors, and they, as I have noted, bathed together. About his relations to Nayar, Gandhi states: “She has experienced everything I have in me. . . . She is more absorbed in me. Hence I would even make her sleep by my side without fear.” Nayar told Ved Mehta that “long before Manu came into the picture, I used to sleep with him just as I would with my mother. . . . In the early days there was no question of calling this a brahmacharya experiment. It was just part of a nature cure. Later on, when people started asking questions about his physical contact with women, the idea of brahmacharya experiments was developed.” The fact that Gandhi changed the justification for these experiments after closer public scrutiny suggests that his motivation for these actions may not have been as pure as he wanted people to assume.

In an extremely candid confession, Gandhi admits that at Sevagram he had made a grave mistake:

I feel my action was impelled by vanity and jealousy. If my experiment was dangerous, I should not have undertaken it. And if it was worth trying, I should have encouraged my co-workers to undertake it on my conditions. My experiment was a violation of the establishment norms of brahmacharya.Such a right can be enjoyed only by a saint like Shukadevji who can remain pure in thought, word and deed at all times of day.

Gandhi, however, could not maintain his resolve, because shortly thereafter (as soon as 12 hours!) intimate contact with women of the ashram resumed. According to Mark Thomson, “Gandhi explained that he could not bear the pain and anguish suffered by women devotees denied the opportunity to serve him in this fashion.” Gandhi confessed that he “could not bear the tears of Sushila and fainting away of Prabhavati.” In February, 1939, there was another crisis. Gandhi admitted that four women at Sevagram did not like “giving service” and they were ordered to sleep “out of reach” of his arms.

When Gandhi spoke of the dangers of his sexual experiments in 1938, he must have realized that he was not ready for the test. While he did claim that he “can keep [sexual desire] under control,” he admitted he had not “completely eradicated the sex feeling,” a criterion that he had honored from the traditional rules of brahmacharya. Gandhi openly admitted that there were some “black nights,” presumably sleeping with his women, in which God “saved me in spite of myself.”

One of these dark nights must have been May 9, 1938. In a letter to Nayar’s brother, Gandhi admitted that he may have had “a dirty mind” and may have played “the role of Satan.” His “diseased mind” might have “aroused him” and thereby compromised Nayar, causing her “untold misery.” Gandhi was obviously wrong when he claimed previously that Nayar’s natural purity could “forestall any mistake I may make,” and that “contact with her has brought greater purity to me.” Although he took all the blame upon himself, Gandhi appears incredibly obtuse in assuming that Nayar had no reason to feel disturbed or unhappy about the psychological effects of her intimate relations with him.

Sushila Nayar was away from the ashram for long periods for her medical education. When she finished, Gandhi begged her to return as the ashram’s doctor. He was upset that she now refused to be called his daughter, and he urged her, without her preconditions, to “rush to me and become one with me.” Reading the dozens of letters exchanged during this time, it is clear that Nayar was still very troubled about what happened at Sevagram. She wrote that she would return only on “conditions,” which were that she would not have to give Gandhi “service.” Nayar reluctantly submitted to Gandhi’s indomitable will in September, 1940. While he was in Delhi, she did give him a massage, but she came to him “with great difficulty.” She also sent him a letter beforehand, which he described as “hurtful.” While describing himself as unhappy, he acknowledged that Nayar was suffering “deep misery.”It looked as if Nayar could have succeeded in tearing herself away from Gandhi’s possessive domination, just as his earlier intimates had, but she did eventually return to him and was with him and Manu in East Bengal.

Although Gandhi declared that he, compared to other men, could take greater liberty” with women, and that no woman “has been harmed by contact with me or been prey to lustful thoughts,” there is sufficient evidence to prove that Gandhi’s experiments had a deleterious effect on his female intimates’ mental health. There was intense competition among the women for Gandhi’s attention. For example, Lilavati Asar and Amtul Salaam were very jealous of Sushila Nayar, and Gandhi promised Asar that he would stop sleeping with Nayar because of her anger.

Gandhi was always inclined to blame others for not understanding the unique nature of his experiments. In 1940 Gandhi admitted that the “atmosphere here [Sevagram] cannot be said to be natural for anyone,” but nevertheless the conflict was caused by those who were not properly “absorbed” in it. Those who had learned “master the atmosphere” could live at Sevagram “comfortably and grow.” Several visitors attested to definite signs of psychological turmoil among Gandhi’s women companions. In 1947 Swami Ananda and Kedar Nath, two visitors with substantial spiritual credentials, queried Gandhi as follows: “Why do we find so much disquiet and unhappiness around you. Why are your companions emotionally unhinged?” The former Tantric Raihana Tyabji observed that the more Gandhi’s young women “tried to restrain themselves and repress their sexual impulses . . . the more oversexed and sex-conscious they became.”

After learning of the experiments, Bose wrote that he would “never tempt [himself] like that; nor would my respect for a woman’s personality permit me to treat her as an instrument of an experiment undertaken only for my own sake.” He was also concerned about the women’s emotional health: “Whatever may be the value of the [experiment] on Gandhiji’s own case, it does leave mark of injury on the personality of others who are not of the same moral stature as he himself is, and for whom sharing in Gandhiji’s experiment is no spiritual necessity.”

Bose was also concerned about Gandhi’s own emotional state, observing that Sushila Nayar’s presence brought him out of his normal “unruffled” composure. On December 17, 1946 at 3:20 AM, Bose heard two loud slaps and “deeply anguished cry” from Gandhi’s sleeping quarters. He went in to find both Nayar and Gandhi in tears. Bose had assumed that Gandhi had slapped Nayar, but she insisted that Gandhi had hit himself on the forehead twice, a physical form of Gandhi’s “self-suffering” that Manu had witnessed as well. Bose also mentions an unnamed woman “Z,” who “was not always disinterested in her relations with” with Gandhi, and who also upset him and distracted him from his political work.

VI

In conclusion, if we can call Gandhi a Tantric, then it is a very unique nonritualistic, nonesoteric practice combining aspects of both left- and right-handed Tantric schools. It also must be said, no matter how much we want to hold Gandhi in the highest esteem, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Gandhi was inconsistent in his justifications for his sexual experiments and not completely sincere in carrying them out. This would then lead one to question whether these experiments were a spiritual necessity or simply a personal indulgence and abuse of power.

If the goal of the true Tantric is to transform desire into something sacred, then personally I am less and less certain that Gandhi achieved this goal. As Aldous Huxley once said: “The professional Don Juan destroys his spirit as fatally as does the professional ascetic, whose [mirror] image he is.”

ENDNOTES

[1]Letter to R. A. Kaur, March 18, 1947.

[2]Quoted in Ved Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penquin Books, 1976), p. 213. I rely heavily on Mehta for two reasons: (1) his book was well received and republished by Yale University Press; and (2) he sought out all the living Gandhian associates and interviewed them extensively.

[3]Quoted in Girja Kumar, Brahmacharya: Gandhi and His Women Associates(New Delhi: Vitasta Publishing, 2006), p. 90.

[4]The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Govern*ment of India Publications, 1958), vol. 93, p. 340.

[5]Jawaharlal Nehru, Selected Works (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1974), p. 349.

[6]Aldous Huxley, Do What You Will (New York: Doubleday, 1928), p. 45.

[7]William Bartley, Wittgenstein (Chicago: Open Court, 2nd ed., 1985).

[8]Quoted in Mehta, p. 203.

[9]Jeffrey Kripal, Kali’s Child (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

[10]Gandhi, Young India 8 (January 21, 1926), p. 30.

[11]Quoted in Mehta, p. 211.

[12]Collected Works, vol. 79, p. 301.

[13]Ibid., vol. 96, p. 183.

[14]See Mehta, p. 201.

[15]Kumar, p. 294.

[16]Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi(New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1974), p. 2.

[17]Pyarelal Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase(Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 2nd ed., 1966), vol. 1, bk. 2, p. 229.

[18]Gopi Krishna, “Mahatama Gandhi and the Kundalini Proces” (Institute of Consciousness Research, 1995) at http://www.icrcanada.org/gandhi.html (accessed on June 11, 2006). All the citations are from the second section of the essay.

[19]Gandhi, Key to Health, trans. Sushila Nayar (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Trust, 1948), p. 24. Krishna’s English translation differs significantly from this one, so I wonder if he is citing the same text. He himself gives no reference.

[20]Cited in Bose, p. 171.

[21]Pyarelal, p. 214.

[22]Gandhi, Womans’s Role in Society(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing, 1959), p. 8.

[23]Gandhi, Harijan (November 14, 1936), p. 316). “Woman is the incarnation of ahimsa. Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering” (Harijan [February 24, 1940], p. 13.

[24]Cited in Martin Green, Gandhi: Voice of a New Revolution (New York: Continuum, 1993), p. 261.

[25]Quoted in Mehta, p. 213.

[26]Bose, p. 177. Mrs. Polak noted a Atrait of sexlessness@ even in his South Africa days (Gandhiji as We Know Him, ed. Ch. Shukla [Bombay, 1945], p. 47). A Mrs. Shukla said that Athere are some things relating to our lives that we women can speak of . . . with no man . . . . But while speaking to Gandhiji we somehow forgot the fact that he was a man@ (C. Shukla, Gandhiji=s View of Life [Bombay, 1951], p. 199). See also The Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 595; 2nd ed., vol. 1, bk. 2, p. 234.

[27]Cited in Metha, p. 44.

[28]Pyarelal, p. 585. This story may have variations, but the one that I read clearly indicated that the Gopis were embarrassed to come out of the Yamuna River and redeem their saris for a kiss from Krishna. Radha of course was the single exception.

[29]Ibid., pp. 219, 220.

[30]Brian K. Smith, “Eaters, Food, and Social Hierarchy in Ancient India,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58:2 (Summer, 1990), pp. 177, 178.

[31]Gandhi, Harijan (July 23, 1938), p. 192.

[32]V. S. Gupta, “Gandhi and the Mass Media” at Mahatma Gandhi And Mass Media, visited on May 30, 2006.

[33]Quoted in Pyarelal, p. 217.

[34]Gandhi’s Letters to Ashram Sisters, ed. K. Kalelkar and trans. A. L. Mazmudar (Ahmedadbad: Navajivan, 2nd rev. ed., 1960), p. 94.

[35]Hsi Lai, The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress: Secrets of Female Taoist Masters(Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 200), p. 16. Lai states that he became interested in “the matter of transformational sex” by reading about Gandhi’s experiments.

[36]Pyarelal, p. 223.

[37]As told to Bose, pp. 149-50.

[38]Devi-Mahatyma, 1.59 (Coburn translation).

[39]Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1965), p. 202.

[40]Brahmavaivarta Purana, Rakriti-Khanda55.87, trans. Tracy Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994), p. 164.

[41]Bharati, p. 236.

[42]Collected Works, vol. 87, p. 13. Compare this with the Tantric yogi who said “Let my kinsmen revile me. . . let people ridicule me on sight . . . .” (cited in Bharati, p. 238).

[43]“Thousands of Hindu and Moslem women come to me. They are to me like my own mother, sisters, and daughters. But if an occasion should arise requiring me to share the bed with any of them I must not hesitate, if I am the bramacharya that I claim to be. If I shrink from the test, I write myself down as a coward and a fraud” (Collected Works, vol. 87, p. 15).

[44]See Bharati, pp. 200, 202, 203. Other exceptions were an active Shiva in Tamil Shaivism and a static female in the Markandeya Purana (p. 213).

[45]Hevajra Tantra, trans. D. L. Snellgrove, excerpted in The World of the Buddha, ed. Lucian Stryk (New York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 311.

[46]See Buddha’s Lions: The Lives of the Eighty-Four Siddhas, trans. and ed. James B. Robinson (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing Co., 1979).

[47]Bharati, p. 21.

[48]See N. F. Gier and Paul K. Kjellberg, “Buddhism and the Freedom of the Will” in Freedom and Determinism: Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, eds., J. K. Campbell, D. Shier, M. O’Rourke (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 277-304. See sections on Nagarjuna.

[49]Bharati, pp. 19, 200.

[50]Ibid., p. 20.

[51]Cited in Bose, p. 172.

[52]Collected Works, vol. 87, p. 14.

[53]Cited in Bose, p. 153.

[54]Gandhi,Harijan (June 29, 1947), p. 212.

[55]Quoted in Metha, p. 48.

[56]Douglas R. Brooks, The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu Shakta Tantrism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 58.

[57]Ibid., p. 69.

[58]Kumar, p. 90.

[59]See ibid., p. 97.

[60]Ibid., p. 317.

[61]Collected Works, vol. 96, p. 34.

[62]Kumar, pp. 145-46.

[63]Ibid., p. 152.

[64]Cited in ibid., p. 216.

[65]Collected Works, vol. 17, p. 375; vol. 16, p. 516.

[66]Ibid., vol. 16, p. 316. “Spiritual wife” found in ibid., vol. 18, p. 130.

[67]Kumar, pp. 223, 218.

[68]Ibid., p. 225.

[69]Collected Works, vol. 18, pp. 20, 71.

[70]Ibid., vol. 35, p. 70.

[71]Ibid., vol. 47, p. 49.

[72]Ibid., vol. 67, p. 117.

[73]Ibid., vol. 93, p. 204.

[74]Ibid., pp. 335-36.

[75]See Kumar, p. 7.

[76]Collected Works, vol. 70, p. 220.

[77]Kumar, p. 288.

[78]Collected Works, vol. 87, pp. 13-14, 15. “Non-violence of the brave” cited in Bose, p. 159.

[79]Quoted in Kumar, p. 321.

[80]Ibid., vol. 79, p. 238.

[81]Quoted in Metha, p. 203.

[82]Cited in Bose, p. 103.

[83]Cited in ibid., p. 134.

[84]Kumar, p. 331.

[85]Pyarelal, pp. 226, 238. In letters to Mannalal G. Shah on March 6 and 7, 1945, Gandhi wrote equivocally: “As far as possible I have postponed the practice of sleeping together. But it cannot be given up altogether” (cited in Kumar, p. 8).

[86]Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 333.

[87]Quoted in Mehta, p. 203. The question of whether Gandhi’s touching of women was appropriate had been raised as early as 1935. His response entitled “A Renunciation” can be read in Harijan, September 21, 1935.

[88]Collected Works, vol. 67, pp. 104-5.

[89]Mark Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashrams (Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1993), p. 202.

[90]Collected Works, vol. 67, p. 117.

[91]Ibid., vol. 93, pp. 237-38.

[92]Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing, 1st ed., 1958), vol. 1, p. 588. “Now mere abstention from sexual intercourse cannot be termed brahmacharya. So long as the desire for intercourse is there, one cannot be said to have attained brahmacharya” (Key to Health, p. 23).

[93]Cited in Bose, p. 171.

[94]Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 161.

[95]Ibid., p. 33.

[96]Ibid., p. 349. In a letter to Sushila Nayar on August 5, 1940, Gandhi states that one condition of her return was “taking care of [his] body,” and he acknowledged that this was not acceptable to her (Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 343).

[97]Ibid., pp. 364-66.

[98]Ibid., p. 333.

[99]Ibid., p. 338.

[100]Pyarelal, 2nd ed., vol. 1, bk. 2, p. 228.

[101]Quoted in Mehta, p. 211.

[102]Bose, p. 150.

[103]Ibid., p. 151.

[104]Ibid., p. 95.

[105]Ibid., p. 159.

[106]See Hugh Urban, Tantra: Sex. Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003), p. 67.

[107]Mahanirvana Tantra 7.13, 22, cited in Urban, p. 65.

[108]Wendy Doniger, Foreward in Edward C. Dimock, Jr., The Place of the Hidden Moon(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. xiii; cited in Kripal, p. 117.

[109]Kripal, p. 118.

[110]Kathamrita2.62; 5.140-41 (trans., Kripal); see The Gospel of Ramakrishna, p. 701.

[111]From the Ramakrishna Mission website at http://www.sriramakrishna.org/sdlife.htm, accessed on June 9, 2006.

[112]Cited in Urban, p. 93.

[113]P. B. Saint-Hilaire, The Future Evolution of Man(Pondicherry: All India Press, 1963), p. 148.

[114]P. Nallaswami,Shivajñana Siddiyar3.2.77; cited in R. C. Zaehner, Evolution in Religion: A Study in Sri Aurobindo and Pierre Teihard de Chardin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 104.

[115]Cited in Urban, p. 101. It seems that Aurobindo has not left Tantra behind, as Urban claims, but has simply embraced a right-handed form of it.

[116]Huxley, p. 45.

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For his services in helping the British raise an army, he was awarded titles.Meanwhile India was still suffering under British colonial rule. Gandhi arrived in England during the first week of the World War, and again he supported the British by raising and leading an ambulance corps; but he became ill and returned to India in January 1915….In the spring of 1918 Gandhi was persuaded by the British to help raise soldiers for a final victory effort in the war. Charlie Andrews criticized Gandhi for recruiting Indians to fight for the British. Gandhi spoke to large audiences……
Asia & Pacific Defence Forum: Sex Antics of Mohandas Gandhi: His Failures, Pedophilia, Adultery, Incest, Sexual Perversi
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The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Plato
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Old Tuesday, December 15th, 2009, 17:12
CristianoViejo CristianoViejo está offline
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"Gandhi used to beat his wife up routinely."

This was no secret.

A "man" that does not uses strength against the english, who deserved that, and although he uses it to his weak and innocent woman.
Dishonor.
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Old Wednesday, December 16th, 2009, 09:56
Brigadoon Brigadoon está offline
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This text is shameful (if we talk about Mahatma, some other name is in used), who can prove this is a true or just another humiliation

Living From The Heart - Sufi Poetry

Strive to discover the mystery before life is taken from you.
If while living you fail to find yourself, to know yourself,
how will you be able to understand
the secret of your existence when you die?

Farid ud Din Attar

~~

Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer 'thou' and 'I' exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul,
Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.


Farid ud Din Attar - translation Margaret Smith -The Jawhar Al-Dhat

~~

In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers."

Farid ud Din Attar, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

The whole world is a marketplace for Love,
For naught that is, from Love remains remote.
The Eternal Wisdom made all things in Love.
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
The earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars
The center of their orbit find in Love.
By Love are all bewildered, stupefied,
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.

From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? "Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer "Thou" and "I" exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love.

Farid ud Din Attar, in Essential Sufism, James Fadiman and Robert Frager

~~

Four Things to Know

Hatim al-Asamm said, "I have chosen four things to know
and discarded all other things of knowledge.
"The first is this: I know that my daily bread is apportioned
to me and will neither be increased or decreased, so I have stopped
trying to add to it.
"Secondly, I know I owe to God a debt which no one else can
pay for me, so I am busy about paying it.
"Thirdly, I know that there is someone pursuing me ---
Death --- whom I cannot escape from, so I have prepared myself
to meet him.
"Fourth, I know that God is observing me, so I am ashamed
to do what I should not."


Farid ud Din Attar, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers."

Farid ud Din Attar, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'





Hafiz of Shiraz (1230-91 ce) the greatest lyric poet of Persia, who took the poetic form of the ghazal to unparalleled heights of subtlety and beauty.


I speak frankly and that makes me happy:
I am the slave of love, I am free of both worlds.

I am a bird from heaven's garden. How do I describe that separation,
my fall into this snare of accidents?

I was an angel and highest paradise was my place.
Adam brought me to this monastery in the city of ruin.

The hours' caress, the pool and shade trees of paradise
were forgotten in the breeze from your alleyway.

There is nothing on the tablet of my heart but my love's tall alif.
What can I do? My master taught me no other letter.

No astrologer knew the constellations of my fate.
O lord, when I was born of mother earth which stars were rising?

Ever since I became a slave at the door of love's tavern
sorrows come to me each moment with congratulations.

The pupil of my eye drains the blood from my heart.
I deserve it. Why did I give my heart to the darling of others?

Wipe the tears from Hafiz's face with soft curls
or else this endless torrent will uproot me.


Hafiz - Ghazal 44 - "The Green Sea of Heaven" - Elizabeth T. Gray Jr

~~

The sun
Won a beauty contest and became a jewel
Set upon God’s right hand.

The earth agreed to be a toe ring on the
Beloved’s foot
And has never regretted its decision.

The mountains got tired
Of sitting amongst a sleeping audience

And are now stretching their arms
Toward the Roof.

The clouds gave my soul an idea
So I pawned my gills
And rose like a winged diamond

Ever trying to be near
More love, more love
Like you.

The Mountain got tired of sitting
Amongst a snoring crowd inside of me
And rose like a rip sun
Into my eye.

My soul gave my heart a brilliant idea
So Hafiz is rising like a
Winged diamond.


Hafiz - “The Gift” – translation by Daniel Ladinsky

~~

We are the guardians of His Beauty

We are the protectors
Of the Sun.

There is only one reason
We have followed God into this world:

To encourage laughter, freedom, dance
And love.

Let a noble cry inside of you speak to me
Saying,

"Hafiz,
Don't just sit there on the moon tonight
Doing nothing -

Help unfurl my heart into the Friend's Mind,
Help, Old Man, to heal my wounded wings!"

We are the companions of His Beauty
We are the guardians
Of Truth.

Every man, plant and creature in Existence,
Every woman, child, vein and note
Is a servant of our Beloved -

A harbinger of joy,
The harbinger of
Light.


Hafiz - "The Subject Tonight is Love" - Daniel Ladinsky

~~

Mortal never won to view thee,
Yet a thousand lovers woo thee;
Not a nightingale but knows
In the rose-bud sleeps the rose.

Love is where the glory falls
Of thy face: on convent walls
Or on tavern floors the same
Unextinguishable flame.

Where the turban'd anchorite
Chanteth Allah day and night,
Church-bells ring the call to prayer,
And the Cross of Christ is there.


Hafiz - "Persian Poems" - R.A. Nicholson

~~

Come,
let's scatter roses and pour wine in the glass;
we'll shatter heaven's roof and lay a new foundation.
If sorrow raises armies to shed the blood of lovers,
I'll join with the wine bearer so we can overthrow them.
With a sweet string at hand, play a sweet song, my friend,
so we can clap and sing a song and lose our heads in dancing.

Hafiz (Ghani-Qazvini, no 374) ' the Shambhala Guide to Sufism' Carl.W Ernst, Ph.D.





Jami (1414 - 1492 ce) (Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad al-Jami) commonly called the last great classical poet of Persia, saint and mystic, composed numerous lyrics and idylls, as well as many works in prose. His Salaman and Absal is an allegory of profane and sacred love. Some of his other works include Haft Awrang, Tuhfat al-Ahrar, Layla wa -Majnun, Fatihat al-Shabab, Lawa'ih, al-Durrah al-Fakhirah.

~~

Who is man?
The reflection of the Eternal Light.

What is the world?
A wave on the Everlasting Sea.

How could the reflection be cut off from the Light?

How could the wave be separate from the Sea?

Know that this reflection and this wave are that very Light and Sea.

Jami, Diwan, tr by W.C. Chittick

~~

Hidden behind the veil of mystery, Beauty is eternally free from the slightest stain of imperfection. From the atoms of the world, He created a multitude of mirrors; into each one of them He cast the image of His Face; to the awakened eye, anything that appears beautiful is only a reflection of that Face.

Now that you have seen the reflection, hurry to its Source; in that primordial Light the reflection vanishes completely. Do not linger far from that primal Source; when the reflection fades, you will be lost in darkness. The reflection is as transient as the smile of a rose; if you want permanence, turn towards the Source; if you want fidelity, look to the Mine of faithfulness. Why tear your soul apart over something here one moment and gone the next?

Jami, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

Whether your destiny is glory or disgrace,
Purify yourself of hatred and love of self.
Polish your mirror; and that sublime Beauty
From the regions of mystery
Will flame out in your heart
As it did for the saints and prophets.
Then, with your heart on fire with that Splendor,
The secret of the Beloved will no longer be hidden.

Jami, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'



Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273 ce) saint and mystic, inspiration for the Mevlevi Order of the whirling dervishes, highly revered for the great Mathnawi which is a grand tribute to the depth of spiritual life.


The Jesus of your spirit is inside you now.
Ask that one for help, but don't ask for body-things...

Don't ask Moses for provisions
that you can get from Pharaoh.

Don't worry so much about livelihood.
Your livelihood will turn out as it should.
Be constantly occupied instead
with listening to God.

Rumi, Mathnawi II:450-454

~~

Listen for the stream
that tells you one thing.

Die on this bank.
Begin in me
the way of rivers with the sea.

Rumi - Coleman Barks - from "Say I Am You"

~~
You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.

What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.
Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient.

It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.

So- I've brought you a mirror.

Look at yourself and remember me.

- Jalaluddin Rumi, Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks, pg141

~~

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, Suffer the pain.

Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.

Rumi - The Essential Rumi - Coleman Barks

~~

Oh! Supreme Lover!
Let me leave aside my worries.
The flowers are blooming
with the exultation of your Spirit.

By Allah!
I long to escape the prison of my ego
and lose myself
in the mountains and the desert.

These sad and lonely people tire me.
I long to revel in the drunken frenzy of your love
and feel the strength of Rustam in my hands.

I'm sick of mortal kings.
I long to see your light.
With lamps in hand
the sheikhs and mullahs roam
the dark alleys of these towns
not finding what they seek.

You are the Essence of the Essence,
The intoxication of Love.
I long to sing your praises
but stand mute
with the agony of wishing in my heart.


Rumi - 'The Love Poems of Rumi' - Deepak Chopra & Fereydoun Kia

~~

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quiteness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

Rumi - The Essential Rumi - Coleman Barks

~~

The Morning Wind Spreads
The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
We must get up and take that in,
that wind that lets us live.
Breathe before it's gone.

Rumi - 'The Essential Rumi' - Coleman Barks

~~

Everyone is overridden by thoughts;
that's why they have so much heartache and sorrow.
At times I give myself up to thought purposefully;
but when I choose,
I spring up from those under its sway.
I am like a high-flying bird,
and thought is a gnat:
how should a gnat overpower me?


Rumi - Mathnawi II, 3559-3561 - 'Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance' - Camille and Kabir Helminski

~~

I wonder
from these thousand of "me's",
which one am I?
Listen to my cry, do not drown my voice
I am completely filled with the thought of you.
Don't lay broken glass on my path
I will crush it into dust.
I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of your hand,
reflecting your kindness, your sadness, your anger.
If you were a blade of grass or a tiny flower
I will pitch my tent in your shadow.
Only your presence revives my withered heart.
You are the candle that lights the whole world
and I am an empty vessel for your light.


Rumi - "Hidden Music" - Maryam Mafi & Azima Melita Kolin

~~

Happy the moment when we are seated in the Palace, thou and I,
With two forms and with two figures but with one soul, thou and I.
The colours of the grove and the voice of the birds will bestow immortality
At the time when we come into the garden, thou and I.
The stars of heaven will come to gaze upon us;
We shall show them the Moon itself, thou and I.
Thou and I, individuals no more, shall be mingled in ecstasy,
Joyful and secure from foolish babble, thou and I.
All the bright-plumed birds of heaven will devour their hearts with envy
In the place where we shall laugh in such a fashion, thou and I.
This is the greatest wonder, that thou and I, sitting here in the same nook,
Are at this moment both in ‘Iraq and Khorasan, thou and I.

Jelaluddin Rumi, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson

~~

Awakened by your love,
I flicker like a candle's light
tryin to hold on in the dark.
Yet, you spare me no blows
and keep asking,
"Why do you complain?"


Rumi - "Whispers of the Beloved" - Maryam Mafi & Azima Melita Kolin

~~

My heart tells me it is distressed with Him,
but I can only laugh at such pretended injuries.

Be fair, You who are the Glory of the just.
You, Soul, free of "we" and "I,"
subtle spirit within each man and woman.

When a man and a woman become one,
that "one" is You.
And when that one is obliterated, there You are.

Where is this "we" and this "I"?
By the side of the Beloved.
You made this "we" and this "I"
in order that you might play
this game of courtship with Yourself,
that all "you's" and "I's" might become one soul
and finally drown in the Beloved.

All this is true. Come!
You who are the Creative Word: Be
You, so far beyond description.

Is it possible for the bodily eyes to see You?
Can thought comprehend Your laughter or grief?
Tell me now, can it possibly see You at all?
Such a heart has only borrowed things to live with.

The garden of love is green without limit
and yields many fruits other than sorrow or joy.
Love is beyond either condition:
without spring, without autumn, it is always fresh.

Rumi - Mathnawi I, 1779-1794 - The Rumi Collection - Kabir Helminski



Saadi of Shiraz (1215 -1292 ce), a great poet of Persia, author of the Gulistan (Rose-Garden) and the Bostan (Orchard), who also wrote many odes and lyrics.


O bird of the morning, learn love from the moth
Because it burnt, lost its life, and found no voice.
These pretenders are ignorantly in search of Him,
Because he who obtained knowledge has not returned.

Sheikh Muslih-uddin Sa'di Shirazi - The Gulistan of Sa'di

~~

How could I ever thank my Friend?
No thanks could ever begin to be worthy.
Every hair of my body is a gift from Him;
How could I thank Him for each hair?
Praise that lavish Lord forever
Who from nothing conjures all living beings!
Who could ever describe His goodness?
His infinite glory lays all praise waste.
Look, He has graced you a robe of splendor
>From childhood's first cries to old age!
He made you pure in His own image; stay pure.
It is horrible to die blackened by sin.
Never let dust settle on your mirror's shining;
Let it once grow dull and it will never polish.
When you work in the world to earn your living
Do not, for one moment, rely on your own strength.
Self-worshiper, don't you understand anything yet?
It is God alone that gives your arms their power.
If, by your striving, you achieve something good,
Don't claim the credit all for yourself;
It is fate that decides who wins and who loses
And all success streams only from the grace of God.
In this world you never stand by your own strength;
It is the Invisible that sustains you every moment.


Saadi, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'





Sanai (1118 -1152 ce) (Abû'l-Majd Majdûd b. Adam Sanâ'î) is revered as one of the first great mystical poets of Persia. He produced many lyrical poems and a religious epic, The Walled Garden of Truth.

Don't speak of your suffering -- He is speaking.
Don't look for Him everywhere -- He's looking for you.

An ant's foot touches a leaf, He senses it;
A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.

If there's a worm hidden deep in a rock,
He'll know its body, tinier than an atom,

The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy --
All this He knows by divine knowing.

He has given the tiniest worm its food;
He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.

Sanai



~~

'The Puzzle'

Someone who keeps aloof from suffering
is not a lover. I choose your love
above all else. As for wealth
if that comes, or goes, so be it.
Wealth and love inhabit separate worlds.

But as long as you live here inside me,
I cannot say that I am suffering.

Sanai, translation by Coleman Barks - 'Persian Poems'

~~

'The Way of the Holy Ones'

Don't speak of your suffering -- He is speaking.
Don't look for Him everywhere -- He's looking for you.

An ant's foot touches a leaf, He senses it;
A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.

If there's a worm hidden deep in a rock,
He'll know its body, tinier than an atom,

The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy --
All this He knows by divine knowing.

He has given the tiniest worm its food;
He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.

Sanai, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

Those unable to grieve,
or to speak of their love,
or to be grateful, those
who can't remember God
as the source of everything,

might be described as a vacant wind,
or a cold anvil, or a group
of frightened old people.

Say the Name. Moisten your tongue
with praise, and be the spring ground,
waking. Let your mouth be given
its gold-yellow stamen like the wild rose's.

As you fill with wisdom,
and your heart with love,
there's no more thirst.

There's only unselfed patience
waiting on the doorsill, a silence
which doesn't listen to advice
from people passing in the street.


Sanai - "Persian Poems" - Coleman Barks




Yunus Emre - (1241 - 1321 ce). Yunus' poetry made a great impact on Turkish culture.



The drink sent down from Truth,
we drank it, glory be to God.
And we sailed over the Ocean of Power,
glory be to God.

Beyond those hills and oak woods,
beyond those vineyards and gardens,
we passed in health and joy, glory be to God.

We were dry, but we moistened.
We grew wings and became birds,
we married one another and flew,
glory be to God.

To whatever lands we came,
in whatever hearts, in all humanity,
we planted the meanings Taptuk taught us,
glory be to God.

Come here, let's make peace,
let's not be strangers to one another.
We have saddled the horse
and trained it, glory be to God.

We became a trickle that grew into a river.
We took flight and drove into the sea,
and then we overflowed, glory be to God.

We became servants at Taptuk's door.
Poor Yunus, raw and tasteless,
finally got cooked, glory be to God.

Yunus Emre, translated by Kabir Helminski and Refik Algan - 'The Drop That Became Sea'

~~

Ask those who know,
what's this soul within the flesh?
Reality's own power.
What blood fills these veins?

Thought is an errand boy,
fear a mine of worries.
These sighs are love's clothing.
Who is the Khan on the throne?

Give thanks for His unity.
He created when nothing existed.
And since we are actually nothing,
what are all of Solomon's riches?

Ask Yunus and Taptuk
what the world means to them..
The world won't last.
What are You? What am I?

Yunus Emre, translated by Kabir Helminski and Refik Algan - 'The Drop That Became Sea'

~~

We entered the house of realization,
we witnessed the body.

The whirling skies, the many-layered earth,
the seventy-thousand veils,
we found in the body.

The night and the day, the planets,
the words inscribed on the Holy Tablets,
the hill that Moses climbed, the Temple,
and Israfil's trumpet, we observed in the body.
Torah, Psalms, Gospel, Quran-
what these books have to say,
we found in the body.

Everybody says these words of Yunus
are true. Truth is wherever you want it.
We found it all within the body.

Yunus Emre, yranslated by Kabir Helminski and Refik Algan - 'The Drop That Became Sea'

~~

I am before, I am after
The soul for all souls all the way.
I'm the one with a helping hand
Ready for those gone wild, astray.

I made the ground flat where it lies,
On it I had those mountains rise,
I designed the vault of the shies,
For I hold all things in my sway.

To countless lovers I have been
A guide for faith and religion.
I am sacrilege in men's hearts
Also the true faith and Islam's way.

I make men love peace and unite;
Putting down the black words on white,
I wrote the four holy books right
I'm the Koran for those who pray.

It's not Yunus who says all this:
It speaks its own realities:
To doubt this would be blasphemous:
"I'm before-I'm after," I say

Yunus Emre

~~

Your love has wrested me away from me,
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.
Day and night I burn, gripped by agony,
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.

I find no great joy in being alive,
If I cease to exist, I would not grieve,
The only solace I have is your love,
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.

Lovers yearn for you, but your love slays them,
At the bottom of the sea it lays them,
It has God's images-it displays them;
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.

Let me drink the wine of love sip by sip,
Like Mecnun, live in the hills in hardship,
Day and night, care for you holds me in its grip,
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.

Even if, at the end, they make me die
And scatter my ashes up to the shy,
My pit would break into this outcry:
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.

"Yunus Emre the mystic" is my name,
Each passing day fans and rouses my flame,
What I desire in both worlds in the same:
You're the one I need, you're the one I crave.

Yunus Emre


Sa'd al-din Mahmud Shabistari(1288 - 1340 ce) is one of the most celebrated authors of Persian Sufism. Because of his gift for expressing the Sufi mystical vision with extraordinary clarity, his Gulshan-i raz or Secret Rose Garden rapidly became one of the most popular works of Persian Sufi poetry.



Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out, He will enter it.
In you, void of yourself, will He display His beauties.


Mahmud Shabistari - 'Rose Garden of Mystery'

~~

'One Light'

What are "I" and "You"?
Just lattices
In the niches of a lamp
Through which the One Light radiates.

"I" and "You" are the veil
Between heaven and earth;
Lift this veil and you will see
How all sects and religions are one.

Lift this veil and you will ask---
When "I" and "You" do not exist
What is mosque?
What is synagogue?
What is fire temple?

Mahmud Shabistari, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'



Sheikh Ansari Jabir ibn 'Abdullah al-Ansari (1006-1088 ce) He was called Sheikh al-Islam and he was also given the title Zayn al- 'Ulama (Ornament of the Scholars) and Nasir al-Sunnah (Supporter of the Prophetic Tradition). Later on in Persian texts he was called Pir-e Herat (the Sheikh of Herat).

Some of Ansari works include Kashf al-Asrar "Unveiling of the Secrets" (Commentary of the Qur'an), Tabaquat al-Sufiyya (The Generations of the Sufis), "Munajat" (Intimate Invocations) which is incorporated into the Kashf al-Asrar and in the Tabaqat.



'The Friend Beside Me'

O God
You know why I am happy:
It is because I seek Your company,
not through my own (efforts).

O God,
You decided and I did not.
I found the Friend beside me
when I woke up!

Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 407 - 'Munajat - The Intimate Invocations' - A.G. Farhadi

~~

'Where Are You?'

O God,
You are the aim of the call of the sincere,
You enlighten the souls of the friends, (and)
You are the comfort of the hearts of the travellers---
because You are present in the very soul.

I call out, from emotion:
"Where are you?"

You are the life of the soul,
You are the rule (ayin) of speech, (and)
You are Your own interpreter (tarjaman).

For the sake of Your obligation to Yourself,
do not enter us into the shade of deception, (but)
make us reach union (wisal) with You.

Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 598 - 'Munajat - The Intimate Invocations' - A.G. Farhadi

~~

'Pursuit of the Friend'

The heart left,
and the Friend is (also) gone.
I don't know whether I should go after the Friend
or after the heart!
A voice spoke to me:
"Go in pursuit of the Friend,
because the lover needs a heart
in order to find union with the Friend.
If there was no Friend,
what would (the lover) do with (his) heart?"

Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 1, p. 628 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi

~~

'The Beauty of Oneness'

Any eye filled with the vision of this world
cannot see the attributes of the Hereafter,
Any eye filled with the attributes of the Hereafter
would be deprived of the Beauty (Jamal) of (Divine) Oneness.

Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 511 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi

~~

'In Each Breath'

O you who have departed from your own self,
and who have not yet reached the Friend:
do not be sad, (for)
He is accompanying you in each of (your) breaths.

Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 268 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi





Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya (717 - 801 ce) was born in Basra. As a child, after the death of her parents, Rabi'a was sold into slavery. After years of service to her slavemaster, Rabi'a began to serve only the Beloved with her actions and thoughts. Since she was no longer useful to the slaveowner, Rabi'a was then set free to continue her devotion to the Beloved.

Rabi'a taught that the true lover, whose consciousness is unwaveringly centered on the Beloved, is unattached to conditions such as pleasure or pain, not from sensory dullness but from ceaseless rapture in Divine Love.



Rabia was once asked, "How did you attain that which you have attained?"
"By often praying, 'I take refuge in You, O God, from everything that distracts me from You, and from every obstacle that prevents me from reaching You.'"

Rabi´a al-Adawiyya, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?

Rabia al-Adawiyya

~~

I have two ways of loving You:
A selfish one
And another way that is worthy of You.
In my selfish love, I remember You and You alone.
In that other love, You lift the veil
And let me feast my eyes on Your Living Face.

Rabi´a al-Adawiyya. Doorkeeper of the heart:versions of Rabia. Trans. Charles Upton

~~

The source of my suffering and loneliness is deep in my heart.
This is a disease no doctor can cure.
Only Union with the Friend can cure it.

Rabi´a al-Adawiyya, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

I have made You the Companion of my heart.
But my body is available to those who desire its company,
And my body is friendly toward its guest,
But the Beloved of my heart is the guest of my soul.

Rabi´a al-Adawiyya translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

Brothers, my peace is in my aloneness.
My Beloved is alone with me there, always.
I have found nothing in all the worlds
That could match His love,
This love that harrows the sands of my desert.
If I come to die of desire
And my Beloved is still not satisfied,
I would live in eternal despair.

To abandon all that He has fashioned
And hold in the palm of my hand
Certain proof that He loves me---
That is the name and the goal of my search.

Rabi´a al-Adawiyya, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'

~~

O Lord,
If tomorrow on Judgment Day
You send me to Hell,
I will tell such a secret
That Hell will race from me
Until it is a thousand years away.

O Lord,
Whatever share of this world
You could give to me,
Give it to Your enemies;
Whatever share of the next world
You want to give to me,
Give it to Your friends.
You are enough for me.

O Lord,
If I worship You
From fear of Hell, burn me in Hell.

O Lord,
If I worship You
From hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.

But if I worship You for Yourself alone
Then grace me forever the splendor of Your Face.

Rabi´a al-Adawiyya, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'





Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir (Abu Sa'id ibn Ab'il Khair ) (967 - 1049 ce) referring to himself as "nobody, son of nobody" he expressed the reality that his life had disappeared in the heart of God. This revered Persian Sufi mystic from Khorasan preceded the great poet Jalaluddin Rumi by over two hundred years on the same path of annihilation in Love.

Until you become an unbeliever in your own self,
you cannot become a believer in God.

Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir - 'Nobody, Son of Nobody' - Vraje Abramian

~~

If you are seeking closeness to the Beloved,
love everyone.
Whether in their presence or absence,
see only their good.
If you want to be as clear and refreshing as
the breath of the morning breeze,
like the sun, have nothing but warmth and light
for everyone.

Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir - 'Nobody, Son of Nobody' - Vraje Abramian

~~

Beloved, show me the way out of this prison.
Make me needless of both worlds.
Pray, erase from mind all
that is not You.

Have mercy Beloved,
though I am nothing but forgetfulness,
You are the essence of forgiveness.
Make me needless of all but You.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian

~~

Piousness and the path of love
are two different roads.
Love is the fire that burns both belief
and non-belief.
Those who practice Love have neither
religion nor caste.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian

~~

Be humble.
Only fools take pride in their station here, trapped in
a cage of dust, moisture, heat and air.
No need to complain of calamities,
this illusion of a life lasts but a moment.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian

~~

Suppose you can recite a thousand holy
verses from memory.
What are you going to do
with your ego self, the true
mark of the heretic?
Every time your head touches
the ground in prayers, remember,
this was to teach you to
put down that load of ego
which bars you from entering
the chamber of the Beloved.

To your mind feed understanding,
to your heart, tolerance and compassion.
The simpler your life, the more meaningful.
The less you desire of the world,
the more room you will have in it
to fill with the Beloved.

The best use of your tongue
is to repeat the Beloved's Name in devotion.
The best prayers are those in
the solitude of the night.
The shortest way to the Friend
is through selfless service and
generosity to His creatures.

Those with no sense of honor and dignity are best avoided.
Those who change colors constantly
are best forgotten.
The best way to be with those
bereft of the Beloved's qualities,
is to forget them in the
joy of silence in one's corner of solitude.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody"

~~

Drink from this heart now,
for all this loving it contains.
When you look for it again,
it will be dancing in the wind.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian

~~

Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart,
never give up, never losing hope.
The Beloved says, "The broken ones are My darlings."
Crush your heart, be broken.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian

~~

If you do not give up the crowds
you won't find your way to Oneness.
If you do not drop your self
you won't find your true worth.
If you do not offer all you
have to the Beloved,
you will live this life free of that
pain which makes it worth living.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian



Sheikh Sultan Bahu (1628 - 1691 ce) belonged to the Qadiri Order of Sufis and is known by the title of Sultan-ul-Arifin (king of the Gnostics). Born in the Soon Valley, he wrote in both Persian and Punjabi, and is regarded as one of the most prominent Sufi poets of the Indo-Pak subcontinent.


Those who have not realized God will wander,
homeless in this world, destitute in the next.
But watch the lovers dance with ecstasy,
as they merge into the oneness of God [Allah].

Sultan Bahu, translated by J.R. Puri and K.S. Khak

~~

The river of oneness has surged,
quenching the thirst of the deserts and wastelands.
If you don't nurture God's love in your heart,
you will be dry and parched like those deserts.

Sultan Bahu, translated by J.R. Puri and K.S. Khak

~~

The Lord is an ocean of oneness
in which lovers swim as they please, free of care.
In their own turn, they appear in the world
to dive deep into that ocean, to gather pearls.
Among the pearls is a gem --
unique in value, unmatched in lustre --
that shines like the moon.
We are all in the employ of the Lord, O Bahu;
let us pay homage to him through our prayers.

Sultan Bahu, translated by J.R. Puri and K.S. Khak

~~

Repeat the Name of God,
and always contemplate on Him
while doing your repetition --
keener than a sword is such remembrance [Zikhr, Simran].

Sultan Bahu, translated by J.R. Puri and K.S. Khak

~~

Repeat the Name of God, O Bahu,
and free yourself from the worries of life.

Sultan Bahu, translated by J.R. Puri and K.S. Khak

~~

Those who enshrine the Lord in their hearts, O Bahu,
have both the worlds at their command.

Lovers remain completely intoxicated
in the ecstasy of their love for the Beloved.
They offer their souls to the Beloved
while still living
and thus immortalize themselves
in this life and the hereafter.

Sultan Bahu, translated by J.R. Puri and K.S. Khak



Muhammed Ibn 'Ali Ibn 'Arabi (1165 - 1240 ce) Known as Muhyiddin (the Revivifier of Religion) and the Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Master), he was born into the Moorish culture of Andalusian Spain and traveled widely throughout the Islamic countries.


O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Kaa'ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.

ibn al-`Arabi, Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson

~~

All that is left
to us by tradition
is mere words.

It is up to us
to find out what they mean.

ibn al-`Arabi, Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson

~~


Were it not for
the excess of your talking
and the turmoil in your hearts,
you would see what I see
and hear what I hear!

ibn al-`Arabi, Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson

~~

When my Beloved appears, With what eye do I see Him? With His eye, not with mine, For none sees Him except Himself.

ibn al-`Arabi, Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson



Baba Kuhi of Shiriz, a Persian dervish-poet who died around 1050 ce: (see also a brief essay Eyes of the Heart)


In the market, in the cloister--only God I saw.
In the valley and on the mountain--only God I saw.
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation;
In favour and in fortune--only God I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation,
In the religion of the Prophet--only God I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance,
Qualities nor causes--only God I saw.
I oped mine eyes and by the light of His face around me
In all the eye discovered--only God I saw.
Like a candle I was melting in His fire:
Amidst the flames outflashing--only God I saw.
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly,
But when I looked with God's eyes--only God I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished,
And lo, I was the All-living--only God I saw.

Baba Kuhi, in The Mystics of Islam, translated by Reynold A Nicholson



Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj known as al-Hallaj (the wool-carder), he was put to death in Baghdad for having uttered ana 'l haqq (I am the Truth):


I am He whom I love,
and He whom I love is I:
We are two spirits
dwelling in one body.
If thou seest me,
thou seest Him,
And if thou seest Him,
thou seest us both.

al-Hallaj, Kitab al-Tawasin, in The Mystics of Islam, by Reynold A Nicholson

~~

Thy Spirit is mingled in my spirit
even as wine is mingled with pure water.
When anything touches Thee,
it touches me.
Lo, in every case Thou art I!"

al-Hallaj, Kitab al-Tawasin, in The Mystics of Islam, by Reynold A Nicholson


~~


Amir Khusrau (1253 - 1325 ce ) Indian Sufi mystic, musician, poet and scholar. He was a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, and is one of the most beloved poets of the Chishti Sufi lineage.

Love came and spread like blood in my veins and the skin of me,
It filled me with the Friend and completely emptied me.
The Friend has taken over all parts of my existence,
Only my name remains, as all is He.

~~


Moinuddin Chishti (1141 - 1230 ce) born in Khorasan. A widely beloved Persian spiritual leader who carried the Chishti lineage to India.

The noise of the lover is only up to
the time when he has not seen his Beloved.
Once he sees the Beloved, he becomes calm and quiet,
just as the rivers are boisterous before they join the ocean,
but when they do so, there are becalmed forever.

~~

The one who knows becomes perfect only when
all else is removed from in-between him and the Friend.
Either he remains or the Friend.

~~


Hazret-i Uftade (1490-1580 ce) Mehmed Muhyiddin Üftade was a widely revered Turkish saint, and founder of the Jelveti order of Sufis who emphasized the return into the midst of society after learning to overcome the lower-self.

If you desire the Beloved, my heart,
Do not cease to pour out lamentations.
Observing His existence, reach annihilation!
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.

Let tears of blood pour from your eyes
May they emerge hot from the furnace
Say not that he is one of you or one of us
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.

Let love come that you may have a friend
Your distresses are a torrent
Sweeping you along the way to the Friend
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.

Take yourself up to the heavens
Meet the angels
And fulfill your desires
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.

Pass beyond the universe, this [unfurled] carpet
Beyond the pedestal and beyond the throne
That the bringers of good tidings may greet you
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.

Remove your you from you
Leave behind body and soul
That theophanies may appear
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.

Pass on, without looking aside
Without your heart pouring forth to another
That you may drink the pure waters
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.

If you desire union with the Beloved
Oh Uftade! Find your soul
That the Beloved may appear before you
Say “Oh He and You who is He”.



~~

Other Mystical Poetry:

When the soul is plunged in the fire of divine love, like iron, it first
loses its blackness, and then growing to white heat it becomes like
unto the fire itself. And lastly, it grows liquid, and, losing its nature, is
transmuted into an utterly different quality of being. And as the difference
between iron that is cold and iron that is hot, so is the difference between
soul and soul, between the tepid soul and the soul made incandescent by
divine love.

Richard of St. Victor - de Quattuor Gradibus Violentae Charitatis


God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Source: Wahduddin Web