The Danish Peace Academy
GANDHI AND NORDIC COUNTRIES
Collected by E. S. Reddy - EReddy@aol.com and Holger Terp
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In the files of Holger Terp. |
INTERVIEW TO MR. AND MRS. BJERRUM, BANGALORE, JULY 1927
Among the new missionary friends is a Danish couple Mr. and Mrs. Bjerrum… Gandhiji was at his wheel when the friends came.
Mr. Bjerrum: This is a new wheel different from the ones we saw at the Exhibition.
GANDHIJI: Yes, it is a travelling charkha. When you fold it, it looks like a medicine chest, and a medicine chest it is for our poor people.
After giving their pleasant impressions of the Exhibition, Mr. Bjerrum began to talk of the students of his college. "The dress of most of our students in Europeanised," he informed Gandhiji not without some sorrow.
GANDHIJI: It is a great pity that Christianity should be mixed with foreign dress and foreign ways of eating and drinking.
Mrs. BJERRUM: It is indeed. But don't you think a change has already begin?
GANDHIJI: Well, a change in thought is certainly coming over, but not a corresponding change in conduct.
And with this he narrated some of his experiences with the friends of the Y.M.C.A. of Calcutta.
Mr. BJERRUM: May we know what form in your opinion missionary work should take if the missionaries are to stay in India?
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Source: Missionær-Album, 1919. |
GANDHIJI: Yes. They have to alter their attitude. Today they tell people that there is no salvation for them except through the Bible and through Christianity. It is customary to decry other religions and to offer their own as the only one that can bring deliverance. That attitude should be radically changed. Let them appear before the people as they are, and try to rejoice in seeing Hindus to become better Hindus and Mussalmans better Mussalmans. Let them start work at the bottom, let them enter into what is best in their life and offer nothing inconsistent with it. That will make their work far more efficacious, and what they will say and offer to the people will be appreciated without suspicion and hostility. In a word let them go to the people not as patrons, but as one of them, not to oblige them but to serve them and to work among them.
Mr. BJERRUM: Thank you. We are going to Denmark next year and would like to take some message from you.
GANDHIJI: The external is always an expression of the internal, and if the people of Denmark would serve us, let them teach us their life-giving industry of cooperative dairy and cattle-breeding.
LETTER TO MRS. E. BJERRUM, MAY 11, 1928
The Ashram,
Sabarmati,
May 11, 1928
I must try to answer your questions today.
What you say about prayer at the Ashram is largely true. It is still a formal thing, soulless; but I continue it in the hope of it becoming a soulful thing. Human nature is much the same whether in the East or in the West. It does not therefore surprise me that you have not found anything special about prayers in the East and probably the Ashram prayer is a hotchpot of something Eastern and something Western. As I have no prejudice against taking anything good from the West or against giving up anything bad in the East, there is an unconscious blending of the two. For a congregational life a congregational prayer is a necessity and, therefore, form also is necessary. It need not be considered on that account to be hypocritical or harmful. If the leader at such congregational prayer meetings is a good man the general level of the meeting is also good. The spiritual effect of an honest intelligent attendance at such congregational prayers is undoubtedly great. Congregational prayer is not intended to supplant individual prayer, which, as you well put it, must be heartfelt and never formal. It is there you are in tune with the Infinite. Congregational prayer is an aid to being in tune with the Infinite. For man who is a social being cannot find God unless he discharges social obligations and the obligation of coming to a common prayer meeting is perhaps the supremest. It is a cleansing process for the whole congregation. But, like all human institutions, if one does not take care, such meetings do become formal and even hypocritical. One has to devise methods of avoiding the formality and hypocrisy. In all, especially in spiritual matters, it is the personal equation that counts in the end.
The roll call is not the ordinary roll call. It is a note of the results of the daily yajna, that is, sacrifice. Everyone says what he has spun. Spinning has been conceived in a sacrificial spirit. The idea is to see God through service of the millions. The day must not close without every member of the congregation confessing whether he or she has or has not performed the daily sacrifice to the measure of his or her promise. It is therefore not business at the end of the prayer, but it is the finishing touch to the prayer. It is not done at the beginning of the meeting, because those who are late should have the opportunity of registering their sacrifice. Remember, too, this is a sacrifice not intended to be made in secret. It is designed to be done in the open.
In my opinion, Christianity or the message of Jesus is a response to the human want even as are the messages of Krishna, Buddha, Muhammad and Zoroaster. Though they were designed and delivered at different places and at different times, they have also a universal value. According to the needs of the time one message puts more emphasis on one thing than upon another. A man of religion will not hesitate to profit by all these messages and according to his predilection derive more comfort from one than from another.
I do believe that real art consists in seeing the hidden beauty of moral acts and effects and, therefore, much that passes for art and beauty is, perhaps, neither art nor beauty.
I think I have now answered all your questions. You will please remind me if I have missed any and you will not hesitate to write to me again if I am anywhere obscure or unconsciously evasive.
My love to both of you.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. E. Bjerrum
United Theological College
Bangalore
From: SN 13221 and 15365; Collected Works, Volume 36, pages 304-06
Notes:
Mr. Bjerrum is Pastor Hans H. Bjerrum.
From: Young India, July 14, 1927; Collected Works, Volume 34, pages 163-64
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