stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

EVEN IF IT HAPPENED.... 75
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As Tigunait noted above, Mahatma Gandhi was indeed sleeping
with teenage girls (including his cousin’s granddaughter) toward
the end of his life. As odd as it may sound, however, all reports are
that the two parties were literally just sleeping beside each other,
for him to test his resistance to sexual desire.
In explaining his position, Gandhiji said that it was indeed
true that he permitted women workers to use his bed, this
being undertaken as a spiritual experiment at times. Even if
there were no trace of passion in him of which he was conscious,
it was not unlikely that a residue might be left over,
and that would make trouble for the girls who took part in
his experiment [cf. “In the presence of one perfected in nonviolence,
enmity (in any creature) does not arise”—Patanjali,
Yoga Sutras] (Bose, 1974).
The possible psychological effects of that on the girls themselves,
even without any breach of his brahmacharya celibacy vow,
does not seem to have concerned the Mahatma.
Of course, Gandhi’s very human displays of (non-righteous)
temper alone would have been enough to demonstrate to him or
anyone else that he was not yet perfected in ahimsa. Those eruptions
were indeed reported by his one-time secretary, N. K. Bose, a
distinguished anthropologist who resigned the former secretarial
position in part because of his objections to the Mahatma’s above
“experiments.” Gandhi’s own admitted “detestation of sensual connection,”
too, is a type of psychological violence upon himself. For,
when it comes to metaphysical questions regarding attachment,
repulsion is no better than is attraction.
Both Chapter XVIII of Bose’s (1974) My Days with Gandhi
and Chapter 4 in Koestler’s (1960) The Lotus and the Robot give
reasonable analyses of the all-too-human psychological reasons
behind Gandhi’s emphasis on celibacy. Included in those is the
Mahatma’s abandoning of his father on the latter’s deathbed to be
with his young wife sexually, thus being absent from the old man’s
death, for which he never forgave himself.
Koestler also covers Gandhi’s disappointing treatment of his
children, in the same book. That handling included the Mahatma’s
denying of a professional education to his oldest sons, in the attempt
to mold them in his image. The eldest was later disowned by
the “Great Soul” for having gotten married against his father’s