Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography

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Yale University Press, Jul 30, 2013 - Biography & Autobiography - 264 pages

The first spiritual biography of Gandhi, whose confidence in the power of the soul changed world history

In his Autobiography, Gandhi wrote, “What I want to achieve—what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years—is self-realization, to see God face to face. . . . All that I do by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the political field, are directed to this same end.” While hundreds of biographies and histories have been written about Gandhi (1869–1948), nearly all of them have focused on the national, political, social, economic, educational, ecological, or familial dimensions of his life. Very few, in recounting how Gandhi led his country to political freedom, have viewed his struggle primarily as a search for spiritual liberation.

Shifting the focus to the understudied subject of Gandhi’s spiritual life, Arvind Sharma retells the story of Gandhi’s life through this lens. Illuminating unsuspected dimensions of Gandhi’s inner world and uncovering their surprising connections with his outward actions, Sharma explores the eclectic religious atmosphere in which Gandhi was raised, his belief in karma and rebirth, his conviction that morality and religion are synonymous, his attitudes toward tyranny and freedom, and, perhaps most important, the mysterious source of his power to establish new norms of human conduct. This book enlarges our understanding of one of history’s most profoundly influential figures, a man whose trust in the power of the spirit helped liberate millions.

 

Contents

part
Birth and Adolescence
Child Marriage
God Enters Gandhis Life
Gandhi in London
Gandhi and Raychand
Gandhis Conversion Experience
Out of Africa
Mahatma Gandhi and Ramana Maharshi
Spiritual Temptations
Spiritual Serendipity
Beefing Up Vegetarianism
The Sex Life of a Celibate
The Bhagavad Gita Gandhis Other Mother
Gandhi God and Goodness
Demythologizing and Analyzing Gandhi

Spiritual Warfare
Touching the Untouchable
Fighting Fire with Light
part
Gandhis Spiritual Biography and Contemporary History
Notes
Index
Copyright

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About the author (2013)

Arvind Sharma was awarded the 2013 Hindu American Foundation’s Mahatma Gandhi Award for the Advancement of Religious Pluralism. He is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University. He lives in Montreal.

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