Great Soul

Mohandis Gandhi, who earned the name Mahatma (“Great Soul”) attributable to his extraordinary ministry, is the subject of a new biography by Joseph Lelyveld profiled in the March 30, 2011 edition of The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/books/in-great-soul-joseph-lelyveld-re-examines-gandhi.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Gandhi&st=cse.  What struck me most from the review by Hari Kunzru was Gandhi’s eagerness for “Theosophy — a creed whose blend of Hinduism and Western Spiritualism made it a magnet for holders of unconventional ideas.”  During his early days in London, Gandhi reached out beyond his Hindu faith and the constraints of caste to seekers from other walks of life.  Here through a friend, he discovered Tolstoy who embraced the universal human condition in the philosophy of nonviolence.
Some have called GladdeningLight’s premise syncretism, a betrayal of one’s faith in the hopes of reconciliation and union from disparate beliefs.  Rather, our premise is one of respect for ideas that in turn breeds understanding.  Gandhi gives us a beautiful example of aspiration sought from an inquisitive nature.  This diminutive eastern man from an obscure Indian village is enthralled by the westerner Tolstoy’s treatise on nonviolence (The Kingdom of God is Within You), hence Martin Luther King who changed our brothers and sisters for all time.