E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Pancha Mahavrat… 69decision.However, in the case of child widow, he always stoodfor their remarriage unless she preferred to be a brahmacharini.In the case of child widow, he refused to accept her as widow.She had not been married with her consent, as she was tooyoung for it. Hence, her marriage is as good as invalid and shecould very well remarry. In subsequent years, he expressed hiswillingness to support widow marriage of any women who wasdesirous of re-marriage. This was also his way of putting manand woman on equal footing. His logic was that if a widowerwas free to marry, the same right could not be denied to awidow.The spiritual aspect of brahmacharya was furtherunderlined in 1920,when Gandhi came to the conclusion that abrahmachari was not only ‘a seeker of truth’ but he alone wascompetent to know God. Subsequently, he went to the extentof saying that ‘a full and correct meaning of brahmcharya issearch for Brahman’. Thus, there was a major breakthrough inthe Gandhi’s concept of brahmacharya, as he upgraded both itslevel of seeking and its ultimate fruit. Starting from physicalcontrol of sex desires, he moved to the idea of total control ofall human passions. And its aim shifted and extended frommere mental and physical health to the ultimate goal of selfrealisationand God-realisation. Another major dimensionwhich was added during the same period was that the sky wasthe limit for the power generated from the strict observance ofbrahmacharya. In the process, ‘the senses become atmanoriented and the power that is generated could pervade theentire universe’. In short, the new definition of brahmacharyamarked a departure from individual to cosmic power and fromphysical and mental wellbeing to God-realisation. This shift isso marked that his words need to be quoted: