Prayer - Mahatma Gandhi

Prayer
10. A DIALOGUE WITH A BUDDHIST
(By M.D.)
The Meaning of Prayer
Gandhiji had enough time to think and write during his recent visit to
Abottabad, especially as he was kept free of many engagements and
interviewers. But even there he had some interviewers—not of the usual type
interested in politics or topics of the day but of the unusual type troubled with
ultra-mundane problems. History has it that discourses on such problems used
to take place in this region hallowed of old by the steps of the followers of
Buddha. One of the interviewers of Gandhiji described himself as a follower of
Buddha, and discussed a problem arising out of his creed. He is an archaeologist
and loves to live in and dream of the past. Dr. Fabri—for that is his name—has
been in India for many years. He was a pupil of Prof. Sylvan Levy and came out
as assistant to the famous archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein. He served in the
Archaeological Department for many years, helped in reorganizing the Lahore
Museum, and has some archaeological work to his credit. Delving deep in
Buddhistic lore has turned him into a stark rationalist. He is a Hungarian and
had in the past corresponded with Gandhiji and even sympathetically fasted
with him. He had come to Abottabad specially to see Gandhiji.
He was particularly exercised about the form and content of prayer and would
very much like to know what kind of prayer Gandhiji said. Gould the Divine
Mind be changed by prayer Gould one find It out by prayer
"It is a difficult thing to explain fully what I do when I pray," said Gandhiji, "But
I must try to answer your question. The Divine Mind is unchangeable, but that
Divinity is in everyone and everything—animate and inanimate. The meaning of
prayer is that I want to evoke that Divinity within me. Now I may have that
intellectual conviction, but not a living touch. And so when I pray for Swaraj or
Independence for India I pray or wish for adequate power to gain that Swaraj or
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