E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Pancha Mahavrat… 81Adi-Sankaracharya view vairagya (non-attachment to theworldly pursuits) a guru (preceptor) and study of scripturesalone could lead one to the right knowledge, which alone couldlead one to the state of moksha.Gandhi’s Critique of the Traditional Indian Thinking aboutMokshaLike many other traditional Indian religious andspiritual concepts, Gandhi critiqued, as well as embellished andenriched the concept of moksha. He primarily found a numberof basic problems with traditional Indian thinking on moksha.He came to realise that although theoretically mokshacontinued to be on top of the Indian spiritual aspirations, but itwas no longer a living concept. As such, it had ceased toinspire, ignite human activities in day to day life. The peopletake it to be too distant a goal to be taken as an integral part ofday to day life. Two, old and traditional ashram life(brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sanyasa) hadalready closed to be a living and vibrant institution. Thus, thereis no consistent movement from one stage of ashram life to itsnext stage. In fact, the entire life pattern of an individual is nolonger being informed by his search for moksha. Search formoksha had come only to be associated with the last stage ofthe ashram life viz., sanyasa which in itself was no longer avibrant institution. In fact, in the sanyasa stage of human life; itwas suffering from the worst kind of insipid and dependencysyndrome. 21 Three, Gandhi was not happy with the fact ofmoksha assuming vertically an other-worldly character. In otherwords, the people had come to believe that it could be attainedin the post-death period. Gandhi’s dissatisfaction with otherworldlycharacter of moksha arose from the fact that mokshahad become a distant goal or what Anthony Parel calls ‘anachieved state of affairs’ and not as a lifelong pursuit. Gandhiwas aware that no embodied soul could attain moksha in its allperfection, but even that requires lifelong engagement and