The Danish Peace Academy

GANDHI AND NORDIC COUNTRIES

Letter, January 25, 1919

[This was in reply to a letter in which Miss Faering asked: “Do we take a vow in order to help and strengthen our character? Does God require us to take any kind of vows? Can a vow not become fatal? I do ask you Bapu in all reverence because I desire to get more light over this question. I believe that God suffers because you now are suffering, Bapu, although you suffer with joy. But if God is a father, and if God is perfect love, does it not then cause suffering to Him when His children take burden upon them, which they are not asked to carry? If you could explain [to] me the deeper meaning of the vow it might help me in my own life.”

She was perhaps referring to the vow taken by Gandhi some years earlier not to drink milk, because of the cruel way in which cows were milked in India. In February 1919 when he was very ill, he was persuaded to drink goat’s milk.]

Bombay,

January 25, 1919

My dear Esther,

I shall try to answer your very very pertinent question as fully as possible. A vow is nothing but a fixed resolution to do or abstain from doing a particular thing. During the self-denial week, the members of the Salvation Army take a vow to abstain from taking jam or other eatable for a fixed period. During Lent, the Roman Catholics undergo certain privations. That is also a vow. In each case, the result expected is the same, viz., purification and expression of the soul. By these resolutions, you bring the body under subjection. Body is matter, soul is spirit, and there is internal conflict between matter and spirit. Triumph of matter over the spirit means destruction of the latter. It is common knowledge that [this is] in the same proportion that we indulge the body or mortify the soul. Body or matter has undoubtedly its uses. The spirit can express itself only through matter or body. But that result can be obtained only when the body is used as an instrument for the uplifting of the soul. The vast majority of the human family do not use the body in that manner. The result is triumph of the body or matter over the spirit or the soul. We who know the soul to be imperishable living in a body which ever changes its substance and is perishable must by making fixed resolutions bring our bodies under such control that finally we may be able to use them for the fullest service of the soul. This idea is fairly clearly brought out in the New Testament. But I have seen it nowhere explained as fully and clearly as in the Hindu scriptures. You will find this law of self-denial written in every page of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Have you read these two books? If not, you should one of these days read them carefully and with the eye of faith. There is a great deal of fabulous matter about these two books. They are designed for the masses and the authors have deliberately chosen to write them in a manner that would make them acceptable to the people. They have hit upon the easiest method of carrying the truth to the millions, and experience of ages shows that they have been marvelously successful. If I have not made myself sufficiently understood or written convincingly, please tell me so and I shall endeavour again. I have undergone an operation. Today is the sixth day. I do not know whether it is a successful operation. It was performed by an eminent surgeon.⁵⁸ He is undoubtedly a very careful man. It would be no fault of his if I have to continue to suffer pain in spite of the operation.

With love,

Ever yours,

Bapu

Source: The Diary of Mahadev Desai; Collected Works, Volume 15, pages 76-77

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