about Gandhi
In India, baniya, "businessman," is exactly what you mean by a Jew. India has its own Jews. They are not Jews, they are baniyas. Mahatma Gandhi appeared to be only a businessman.
But he never lied; even though in the very midst of all kinds of lies, he remained rooted in his truth.
Whatsoever was truth to him, he was full of it.
It is a totally different matter that I don't think his truth to be of any worth, but that is my problem, not his. He never lied.
He was not a man who could agree with: "Jump before you think." No, he was a businessman. He would think a hundred times before taking a single step out of his door, what to say of a jump. He couldn't understand meditation, but that was not his fault. He never came across a single Master who could have told him something about no-mind, and there were such people alive at the time.
Even Meher Baba once wrote a letter to Gandhi not exactly that he himself wrote; somebody must have written it for him, because he never spoke, never wrote, just made signs with his hands. Only a few people were able to understand what Meher Baba meant. His letter was laughed at by Mahatma Gandhi and his followers, because Meher Baba had said, "Don't waste your time in chanting `Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.' That is not going to help at all. If you really want to know, then inform me and I will call you."
They all laughed; they thought it was arrogance. That's how ordinary people think, and naturally it looks like arrogance. But it is not, it is just compassion -- in fact, too much compassion. Because it is too much, it looks like arrogance. But Gandhi refused by telegram saying, "Thank you for your offer, but I will follow my own way"... as if he had a way. He had none.
But there are a few things about him -- his cleanliness. Now, you will say, "Respect for such small things...?" No, they are not small, particularly in India, where saints, so-called saints, are expected to live in all kinds of filth. Gandhi tried to be clean.
He was the cleanest ignorant man in the world, but at least he respected all religions. Of course for the wrong reasons, because he did not know what truth is, so how could he judge what was right? -- whether any religions were right; whether all were right, or whether any ever could be right. There was no way.
Again, he was a businessman, so why irritate anybody? Why annoy them? They are all saying the same thing, the KORAN, the TALMUD, the BIBLE, the GITA, and he was intelligent enough -- remember the "enough," don't forget it -- to find similarities in them, which is not a difficult thing for any intelligent, clever person. That's why I say "intelligent enough," but not truly intelligent. True intelligence is always rebellious, and he could not rebel against the conventional, the traditional, the Hindu or the Christian or the Buddhist.
You will be surprised to know that there was a time when Gandhi contemplated becoming a Christian because they serve the poor more than any other religion. But he soon became aware that their service is just a facade for the real business to hide behind. The real business is converting people. Why? -- because they bring power. The more people you have, the more power you have.
If you can convert the whole world to be either Christian or Jew or Hindu, then of course, those people will have more power than anybody ever had before. Alexanders will fade out in comparison. It is a power struggle.
The moment Gandhi saw it -- and I say again, he was intelligent enough to see it -- he changed his idea of becoming a Christian. In fact, being a Hindu was far more profitable in India than being a Christian. In India, Christians are only one percent, so what political power could he have?
It was good that he remained a Hindu, I mean for his mahatmahood; but he was clever enough to manage and even influence Christians like C.F. Andrews, and Jainas, Buddhists, and Mohammedans like the man who became known as "the frontier Gandhi."
This man, who is still alive, belongs to a special tribe, Pakhtoons, who live in the frontier province of India. Pakhtoons are really beautiful people, dangerous too. They are Mohammedans, and when their leader became a follower of Gandhi, naturally they followed. Mohammedans of India never forgave "frontier Gandhi" because they thought he had betrayed their religion.
Gandhi himself had first thought of becoming a Jaina. His first guru was a Jaina, Shrimad Rajchandra; Hindus still feel hurt that he touched the feet of a Jaina.
Gandhi's second master -- and Hindus will be even more offended -- was Ruskin. It was Ruskin's great book, UNTO THIS LAST, that changed Gandhi's life. Books can do miracles. You may not have heard of the book, UNTO THIS LAST. It is a small pamphlet, and Gandhi was going on a journey when a friend gave it to him to read on the way because he had liked it very much. Gandhi kept it, not really thinking to read it, but when there was time enough he thought, "Why not at least look into the book?" And that book transformed him.
That book gave him his whole philosophy. I am against his philosophy, but the book is great. Its philosophy is not of any worth, but Gandhi was a junk-collector. He would find junk even in beautiful places. There is a type of person, you know, who even if you take them to a beautiful garden they suddenly come upon a place and show you something that should not be. Their approach is negative. And then there is a type of person who will collect only thorns -- junk-collectors; they call themselves collectors of art.
It is not the book that matters, it is the man who reads, chooses and collects.
Gandhi was against progress, against prosperity, against science, against technology. In fact, he was against almost everything: more technology and more science, and more richness and affluence.
I am not for poverty, he was. I am not for primitiveness, he was.
He had an immense capacity to feel the pulse of millions of people together.
Gandhi had the capacity to know the pulse of the people.

As far as I know, he was a very sincere man.
He could appreciate even that which was alien to him and tried his best to remain open, to absorb.
His simplicity... nobody could write so simply and nobody could make so much effort just to be simple in his writing. He would try for hours to make a sentence more simple, more telegraphic. He would reduce it as much as possible, and whatsoever he thought true, he tried to live it sincerely.
That it was not true is another matter, but about that what could he do? He thought it was true and he lived it whatsoever the consequences. He lost his life just because of that sincerity.
With Mahatma Gandhi, India lost its whole past, because never before was anybody in India shot dead or crucified. That had not been the way of this country. Not that they are very tolerant people, but just so snobbish, they don't think anybody is worth crucifying... they are far higher.
With Mahatma Gandhi India ended a chapter, and also began a chapter.
And it is better to die the way he died, rather than dying on a hospital bed -- particularly in India. It was a clean and beautiful death in that way. And I am not protecting the murderer, Nathuram Godse. He is a murderer, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He cannot be forgiven.