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Gandhi at Wada Ashram

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Brief overview

Yogananda's 1935 visit to Gandhi's Wardha ashram presents non-violence as a disciplined, practical science of daily living.

  1. Non-violence is trained, not temperamentalGandhi calls it a disciplined life like a soldier's, reached only when mind, body and speech coordinate.
  2. Control of the palate precedes self-controlHe studies Western diet books to find the best rational vegetarian diet for celibate satyagrahis.
  3. Renunciation means giving up motive, not just moneyHe disbursed a practice yielding over twenty thousand dollars a year and set nothing aside for his family.
Executive Summary AI
  • Chapter XLIV of Autobiography of a Yogi opens with the narrator, Miss Bletch and Mr. Wright arriving one August morning at Warda station, met by Mahadev Desai and driven to Maganvadi, where Mahatma Gandhi greeted them in writing because it was his Monday of silence.
  • Mr. Desai wrote out in Mr. Wright's travel diary the eleven satyagraha vows taken by Gandhi's strict followers — non-violence, truth, non-stealing, celibacy, non-possession, body labor, control of the palate, fearlessness, equal respect for all religions, and freedom from untouchability — and Gandhi signed the page on 27th August, 1935.
  • At eight o'clock Gandhi ended his silence and explained that the weekly twenty-four hours, begun to catch up on correspondence, had become a vital spiritual need, before asking Desai to arrange a Town Hall talk on yoga.
  • The narrator records Gandhi's vow of non-possession — he gave away a legal practice worth more than twenty thousand dollars a year — and his wife Kasturabai's acceptance of it, including the published audit of her four-rupee discrepancy as public treasurer.
  • Across conversations on ahimsa, diet, celibacy and Kriya Yoga, and in the closing pages on war, Gandhi argues that the law of love is a greater science than any modern science and claims non-violence has penetrated India deeper than any other doctrine.
Key Quote
“A group of us go every morning at five o'clock to serve the nearby villagers, and teach them simple hygiene.”
— Mirabai
Key Quote
“In this land I feel that I have come back home.”
— Mirabai
Key Quote
“But now those twenty-four hours have become a vital spiritual need. A periodical decree of silence is not a torture, but a blessing.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

Transcript

0:00 CHAPTER XLIV. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI. by parahamsa yogananda with mahatma gandhi at warda welcome to warda mohadev desai secretary to mahatma gandhi greeted miss bletch mr wright and myself of Kadar, homespun cotton. Our little group had just dismounted at the Warda station
0:47 on an early morning in August, glad to leave the dust and heat of the train.
0:54 Consigning our luggage to a bullock cart, we entered an open motor-car with Mr. Desai
1:00 and his companions, Baba Saheb Deshmukh and Dr. Pengale. A short drive over the muddy
1:09 country roads brought us to Maganvadi, the ashram of India's political saint.
1:17 Mr. Desai led us at once to the writing-room where cross-legged sat Mahatma Gandhi, pen in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other,
1:28 on his face a vast, winning, warm-hearted smile. Welcome, he scribbled in Hindi. It was a Monday,
1:38 his weekday of silence. Though this was our first meeting, we beamed on each other affectionately in nineteen twenty five mahatma gandhi had honoured the ranchi school by a visit
1:53 and had inscribed in his guest-book a gracious tribute the tiny one hundred pound saint radiated physical, mental, and spiritual health. His soft brown eyes shone with intelligence,
2:08 sincerity, and discrimination. This statesman has matched wits and emerged the victor in a thousand
2:18 legal, social, and political battles. No other leader in the world has attained the secure niche in the hearts of his people
2:27 that Gandhi occupies for India's unlettered millions. Their spontaneous tribute in his
2:35 famous title Mahatma, Great Soul, for them alone Gandhi confines his attire to the widely cartooned loincloth,
2:48 symbol of his oneness with the downtrodden masses who can afford no more.
2:56 The ashram residents are wholly at your disposal.
3:00 Please call on them for any service with characteristic courtesy the mahatma handed me this hastily written note as mr dessai led our party from the writing-room towards the guest-house to a tile-roofed building with latticed windows. A front yard well twenty-five feet across was used,
3:28 Mr. Dess, I said, for watering stock. Nearby stood a revolving cement wheel for threshing rice.
3:37 Each of our small bedrooms proved to contain only the irreducible minimum a bed hand made of rope the whitewashed kitchen boasted a faucet in one corner and a fire-pit for cooking in another
3:54 simple arcadian sounds reached our ears the cries of crows and sparrows the lowing of cattle and the rap of chisels being used to chip stones.
4:06 Observing Mr. Wright's travel diary, Mr. Desai opened a page and wrote on it a list of
4:13 satyagraha, vows taken by all the Mahatma's strict followers, satyagrahis, non-violence truth non-stealing celibacy non-possession body labor control of the palate fearlessness equal respect for all religions lectures. Freedom from untouchability. These eleven should be observed as vows, in a spirit
4:48 of humility. Gandhi himself signed this page on the following day, giving the date also 27th
4:58 August, 1935. Two hours after our arrival, my companions and I were summoned to lunch. The Mahatma was already
5:09 seated under the arcade of the ashram porch, across the courtyard from his study. About twenty-five
5:16 bare-footed satyagrahis were squatting before brass cups and plates, a community chorus of prayer, then a meal served from large brass
5:28 pots containing chapatis, whole wheat, unleavened bread, sprinkled with ghee, talsari, boiled and
5:37 diced vegetables, and a lemon jam. The Mahatma ate chapatis, boiled beets, some raw vegetables, and oranges. On the side of his plate
5:49 was a large lump of very bitter neem leaves, a notable blood-cleanser. With his spoon he
5:56 separated a portion and placed it on my dish. I bolted it down with water, remembering childhood days when mother had forced me to swallow the
6:06 disagreeable dose. Gandhi, however, bit by bit was eating the neem paste with as much relish as
6:15 if it had been a delicious sweetmeat. In this trifling incident I noted the Mahatma's ability to detach his mind from the senses at will. I recalled the famous
6:28 appendectomy performed on him some years ago. Refusing anaesthetics, the saint had chatted
6:35 cheerfully with his disciples throughout the operation, his infectious smile revealing
6:41 his unawareness of pain. The afternoon brought an opportunity for a chat with gandhi's noted disciple daughter of an english admiral miss madeleine slade now called mirabai with enthusiasm, as she told me, in flawless Hindi, of her daily activities. Rural reconstruction
7:08 work is rewarding. A group of us go every morning at five o'clock to serve the nearby villagers,
7:16 and teach them simple hygiene. We make it a point to clean their latrines and their mud-thatched huts. The villagers are illiterate,
7:27 they cannot be educated except by example, she laughed gaily. I looked in admiration
7:33 at this high-born Englishwoman whose true Christian humility enables her to do the
7:41 scavengering work usually performed only by untouchables. I came to India in 1925,
7:49 she told me. In this land I feel that I have come back home. Now I would never be willing

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