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Prayer - Mahatma Gandhi

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<strong>Prayer</strong><br />

own thought. The very effort to describe is a limitation. It defies analysis and<br />

you have nothing but scepticism as the residue."<br />

Was it of such people that Pope wrote —<br />

"With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,<br />

With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,<br />

He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest;<br />

In doubt to deem himself a god or beast;<br />

In doubt his mind or body to prefer;<br />

Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;<br />

Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,<br />

The glory, jest and riddle of the world."<br />

Be Humble<br />

But to proceed, "What about the people who cannot pray" asked Dr. Fabri.<br />

"Be humble", said <strong>Gandhi</strong>ji, "I would say to them, and do not limit even the real<br />

Buddha by your own conception of Buddha. He could not have ruled the lives of<br />

millions of men that he did and does today if he was not humble enough to<br />

pray. There is something infinitely higher than intellect that rules us and even<br />

the sceptics. Their scepticism and philosophy do not help them in. critical<br />

periods of their lives. They need something better, something outside them<br />

that can sustain them. And so if someone puts a conundrum before me, I say to<br />

him, 'You are not going to know the meaning of God or prayer unless you reduce<br />

yourself to a cipher. You must be humble enough to see that in spite of your<br />

greatness and gigantic intellect you are but a speck in the universe. A merely<br />

intellectual conception of the things of life is not enough. It is the spiritual<br />

conception which eludes the intellect, and which alone can give one<br />

satisfaction. Even moneyed men have critical periods in their lives; though they<br />

are surrounded by everything that money can buy and affection can give, they<br />

find [themselves] at certain moments in their fives utterly distracted. It is in<br />

www.mkgandhi.org Page 28

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