The Danish Peace Academy

GANDHI AND NORDIC COUNTRIES

Letter, [December 7,] 1919

Lahore,

[December 7,] 1919

My dear child,

I have your two letters including the long one. You have done well in sending it. As I have already said, you have come to the ashram not to lose your Christianity, but to perfect it.

If you don’t feel the presence of God at the prayer meetings, then remember that the names Rama and Krishna signify the same as Jesus to you.

You should most decidedly not attend these meetings and you should pray in your private chamber. The prayer meetings are not meant to force anyone into a position. They are meant for free men and women. The children must attend. Those who abstain from sheer laziness must attend. But for you, no one can misunderstand your abstinence. You will therefore please do that which gives you the greatest peace. The ashram is nothing if it does not enable you to realize God more and more fully day by day. If on Sundays or any other days you would go to Church, of course you shall do so.

I am so glad you have given me that long and beautiful letter and enabled me to enter more fully into your heart. Your coming is a joy to me. It will be a greater joy, if upon experience you find it gives you peace, health and real joy and if it thereby enables the other Christians to see that God and Christianity can be found also in institutions that do not call themselves Christian and that truth is the same in all religions though through refraction it appears for the time being variegated even as light does through a prism.

I feel like you that it is too early for you to go to Madras even to meet Miss Petersen. Will she not come to the ashram? She ought to. Let her come and see it in its new habitation and feel its progress if there is any made. Please give her my love.

I do hope you have now completely recovered. You should not trifle with your body. You cannot take the liberties that those born on the soil can. You must therefore insist on the comforts your body needs.

With love,

Yours,

Bapu

Source: My Dear Child, pages 45-46; Collected Works, Volume 16, page 333

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