Mahatma Yoga

Can politics ever be ennobling and soul-uplifting? Yes, Gandhiji's politics was so. Was the Einstein of 20th-century politics -- Mahatma Gandhi -- a leading exponent of Yoga? Yes, Gandhiji was. These puzzling affirmative answers are true in a much deeper sense and more surprising manner than you may have ever imagined.

Gandhiji's politics was not the usual politics; it was driven by an eclectic, universal, soul-uplifting philosophy of the spirit that he pieced together by scouring the religious philosophies of the world, ranging all the way from Jesus Christ to Jainism. Gandhiji was not your typical yoga exponent; he was an exponent of its ultimate form, wherein yoga metamorphoses into spirituality.

What was this unique spirituality that Mahatma Gandhi developed for himself? How correct was it? How appropriate was his adoption of that philosophy to drive his politics? Why was he a "Mahatma", a great soul? What is this "Mahatma Yoga" that Gandhiji practised?!

We wish we could have asked Mahatma Gandhi himself all these questions. Although Gandhiji had hoped to live to a 120 years at least, he fell prematurely to the assassin's bullets at the age of 79. However, a three-decades-long close associate of Gandhiji, Pandit Sudhakar Chaturvedi, lived from 1897 to 2020, beyond the 120 years that Gandhiji had wished for himself. And, we were fortunate enough to listen first-hand to Pandit Chaturvedi's insights into Gandhiji and his thought processes, thereby being guided by them in this exploration of Gandhiji's philosophy. With that touchstone, we comb through Gandhiji's writings – he wrote copiously, fortunately – to get a good idea of the evolution of Gandhiji's spiritual philosophy over his life, and how that evolution simultaneously constrained and drove his refreshingly ennobling politics.

Gandhiji’s philosophy was fascinatingly and strangely eclectic, not quite fitting in well with widely accepted Hindu philosophy yet firmly rooted therein, borrowing heavily from other religions, and still in a stage of evolution when the assassin’s bullet prematurely ended Gandhiji’s spiritual quest in his then current lifetime:



“Old as I am in age,

I have no feeling that

I have ceased to grow inwardly

or that my growth will stop

at the dissolution of the flesh... ”



(M.K. Gandhi, Harijan, 29-4-1933, pg.2)



With yoga blooming the world over, in a variety of forms, across boundaries of geography, religion, gender and age, Mahatma Gandhi continues to be relevant through his Mahatma Yoga, a full 151 years after his birth in 1869 and a full 71 years after the dissolution of his flesh. Come, let us find out what this mahatma yoga is …



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