E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

50 Contextualising Gandhian ThoughtGandhi’s Definition of God: As an advaitist he did notbelieve in anthropomorphic view of God. He used severalabstract terms to describe God such as ‘supremeconsciousness’, ‘cosmic power’, ‘satya’, etc. He was alsofirmly of the opinion that God is the essence of life’, ‘pureconsciousness’ the embodiment of omnipresence andomnipotence. The use of all these abstract terms was indicativeof his firm faith in God being formless and attributeless. Withthese words as introduction, let us move to some of theGandhian definitions of God. To quote his words:‘There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervadeseverything I feel it, though I do not see it.’ 2 In the same pieceof his writing, he further asserted that:‘I do dimly perceive that while everything around me ischanging, ever dying, there is underlying all that change aliving power that is changeless, that holds altogether, thatcreates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power or spiritis God.’ 3God is not some person outside ourselves or away fromthe universe. He pervades everything….. immanent in allbeings.” 4‘Truth is God, nothing else.’ 5God is not a person ….. ‘The truth is that God is the force.He is the essence of life. He is pure and undefinedconsciousness. He is eternal.’ 6It is clear from these definitions of God, offered byGandhi, that he was quite close to the Vedantic concept of God.He not only rejected the Semitic concept of God being anexternal and transcendental authority but also the avatarvadiconcept of God, quite popular among some sections of theistictradition of India. However, three questions emerge out of thesedefinitions which deserve greater clarification. One, why didGandhi reverse his earlier position ‘God is Truth’ by ‘Truth is