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An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth

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I first read this book in the spring of 1998 when I was home with a cold and fever, and I can say that it is one of the best things that ever happened to me. The events described in the book are a hundred years old, but Gandhi has a way of describing their essence which is timeless, and will grip you in a way that makes them entirely relevant to today's world. It made me wonder how the world might have been if people today only followed his ideas. But this is no boring lecture on politics or nonviolence. In fact quite the opposite - it is the sparkling story of a very special man told in his own words. We learn about truth and non-violence in the best way possible, by observing Gandhi's actions as he goes about matters small and big. It brought Gandhi to life in a very special way. I always admired his principles, but now feel closer to Gandhi the man. This is a first-hand account that cannot be ignored. My only regret was that the book ended much too soon (mid 1920's) and there was nothing to cover the rest of his life. I can think of no person of any age who would not be greatly enriched by this book. For the interested, I found the companion book "Satyagraha in South Africa" (also by Gandhi) to be just as good.

There is a lot of discussion as to whether this book is actually an autobiography or not. I am not sure whether it is really a question relevant to the work, but it is probably relevant for people who want to decide whether or not to buy the book. So. It is a recounting by Gandhi of his life as it related to his search for truth. It is not a general autobiography, although you will find autobiographical details. It is also not a series of essays about truth-- Gandhi writes very personally about his search for truth, not necessarily about what he found there. I would say that an autobiography about this specific aspect of his life is a fair enough description.

The book is divided into many small chapters. It is clearly intended for a large audience and the chapters are largely able to stand on their own and simply written. Gandhi addresses issues such as food habits, comparative religion, political involvement, justice and the law, and chastity.

I found it quick and easy to read. I liked his voice as a writer very much. I had the feeling that he was not hiding or leading. He left the reader free to either agree or disagree with his actions and conclusions. Most writers in this space have neither the clarity nor the confidence exhibited in The Story of My Experiments With Truth. More, I enjoyed the book. The tone is often wry and sprightly, and as a whole it is very engaging to read. I might have wished that Gandhi had spent more time on some of the subjects, but that was not the purpose of the work.

Recommended for people with an interest in Gandhi, Indian/South African history, or spiritual exploration. The simple accessible style should make it available to a wide range of readers across virtually all age groups.

From this book we can see that Gandhi took everything in his life, from the smallest details of his diet to the grandest political decisions, very, very seriously. He believed that only a blade of the purest metal could cut through illusion to reveal the underlying truth of a society and of a world. The key to this purity for Gandhi was integrity and consistency in every word and deed. If he made a promise to abstain from milk, or to support a particular political position, he would keep that vow even at the risk of his life.

This concept of integrity started from Gandhi's personal life and extended outward to each community and each nation that he touched with his message and with his political campaigns. When he worked to elevate the status of the Indian community in South Africa, he worked simultaneously to improve the sanitary habits and internal justice of that community, thereby ensuring that there was integrity not only in the nation of South Africa, but also in the Indian community itself. The same pattern can be seen in his work with the Champaran peasants ("ryots") to remove the crushing feudal tribute of indigo required of them by their landlord masters. As he led that campaign, he simultaneously established schools in the region and once again taught the rudiments of sanitation to the oppressed farmers. And of course his tireless campaign against untouchability, and his work to heal the rifts between Muslims and Hindus were both attempts to ensure the integrity of Indian society itself, which he considered a necessary part of attaining Indian independence from Britain, thereby helping to heal the inconsistency of colonialism at the global level, which in turn brought greater integrity to international relations.

Likewise, his promotion of the use of Hindi and Gujarati (this book was written by Gandhi in Gujarati) rather than English in Indian public life, his promotion of homespun Indian cloth and revival of a cottage industry to create it, his civil disobedience in the making of Indian salt from seawater, were all attempts to ensure that the Indian nation and people could define themselves as a more self-sufficient entity having a distinct identity, rather than describing themselves as they related to an external entity, i.e., the British government.

At every level, then, he desired and sought to create one thing: integrity. His ethics seemed to be: every person, every family, every community, every nation, that is founded upon an organic set of relationships, has a right to exist, to strengthen its own identity and to shine forth with its own kind of light. The process of integrating smaller such entities into larger ones must be a dialectical, interactive one that respects differences, rather than one of control or subsumption. In this way, the material world comes to reflect the infinite diversity, and the inviolable integrity, of the All, and the Divine thus creates an expression of itself in that material substrate, however transient and imperfect that expression may be.

Part of his genius as a political organizer lay in his understanding that control hierarchies such as the British colonial administration depended upon the organic processes of Indian society to create the value that they wished to extract and exploit. A policy of peaceful non-cooperation, when carried out in a determined and disciplined fashion, could rob the imperial power of the very wealth upon which it is based, thereby forcing it to release its hold. This exposes the fundamental paradox of imperialism: that it can only rule by breaking down and compromising the very social fabric that generates the wealth upon which it depends. Therefore, there are limits to the measures that it can take to coerce obedience from an organized and disciplined population.

As imperialism breaks down the internal relations of a society, it simultaneously presents that breakdown as a justification for its continued dominance, since otherwise (it claims) the disparate parts of the organic system would surely attack and consume each other in internecine conflicts. Thus, Gandhi's implicit answer to Hobbes' notorious quote that without the state life would be "nasty, brutish and short" was evidently to re-build the fraternal relationships of the sundered parts of the organic social and political animal (e.g., Hindus and Muslims), thereby rendering the state-based control structure a superfluous and unnecessary "remedy."

Although there are many aspects of this book that could be improved for the naive reader (of which I count myself as one) by creating an annotated edition, the narrative retains its hold because of the sense of discovery and self-revelation that emerges from every page.

As we each grapple with the finiteness of our own lives and the question of how meaning can be derived from something so transient as this life and this world, Gandhi's integration of the material with the spiritual in his own life provides a rare and helpful example. As he writes at the end of the book, "I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means." In a world that is increasingly run by totalitarian corporations that impose their control over people, governments and the environment with results that are utterly destructive to the integrity of each, Gandhi's struggle for a spiritual politics and a political spirituality shines in a way that can still give us hope today, if only we will take our lives as seriously as he took his own.

I write this review with mixed emotions.

I am struck by the overwhelmingly positive comments written by others because on many levels I was disappointed in this book. On the otherhand, Gandhi is one of the men I respect most in this world and reading a book written in his own words in itself sheds light on this remarkable man and, for that reason, makes it a book worth reading despite my many criticisms.

CRITICISMS:

- As alluded to by others, much of this text, which purports to be "The Story of [Ghandi's] Experiments With Truth", is taken up by the most mundane of subjects including the non-stop dialogue about his vegan eating habits, fruitarianism, sanition, dietics, and his never ending experiments with holistic/naturalpathy type medicine (much of which he surprisingly refers to as quakery).

- The book covers far fewer spiritual truth-type experiments than I would have expected from this remarkable man - especially given the title. Much of the spiritual truths he discovers are not applicable to the common person. Rather much of his discussed spiritual truths are for Mahatmas. For instance, a tremendous amount of the book is devoted to topics of brahmacharya (celibacy), aparigraha (non-possesson - ie: not owning possessions), fasting and living communally in his various Ashrams.

- The book was written by Gandi in prison in the early 20's and was completed in 1925, 23 years before his assasination and just as he was starting to have an impact using his variation of Tolstoy/Thereau/Christ's concepts of passive resistance - what Ghandi called - Satyagraha - a combination of the Sanskrit words "truth" and "firmness"). As a result, most of the more important events of his life had not yet occured. It was only in the last 75 pages of this 500 page book where Gahndi started to detail the early events that occured and actions Ghandi took as India started taking its first baby steps towards home rule.

- He only briefly touched on some of his most important South African Satyagraha events - some of which he doesn't discuss at all.

- The book is replete with italisized Sanskrit and other foreign words that are not defined in the book. There is no glossary (or at least not in the 1957 Beacon Press volume that I red). Most of these words cannot be found in a typical English dictionary. So, I was left not understanding much of what he was writing about.

- Much of the text assumes the reader is fully conversant with the political events and personalities of the day and specifically those from South Africa, England and India. You need to consult encyclopedias regularly to understand the events and context of much of what he writes about. By way of example he frequently references both of the "Khilafat Question" and the "Rowlatt Committee Recomendations" but never tells the readers what these are about. So, his substantial commentary on these topics was totally lost on me. As an FYI, I have since learned that:

1. The "Rowlatt Committee Recomendations" related to legislation drafted by Sir Syndey Rowlatt drafted in 1919 empowering the British colonial government to search and arrest people without warrant, detain suspects without trial, and try people before courts without jury or right of appeal.

2 I still don't know what the Khilafat Question was about but you gleen from the book that it was something very important to Muslim Indians which, as part of his plan to unite Hindus and Moslims, Ghandi was in support of.

- The book assumes you understand the Indian class system of the time and he speaks often of the "untouchables" which I didn't (when I read it) understand. I have since determined that the "untouchables" were lower than the lowest caste under Hinduism. They were referred to as untouchable because physical contact with these people was viewed as defiling.

- He constantly refers to his other writings if the reader wants to find out about a particular subject that he chooses not to discuss - and he chooses not to discuss a great number of topics. Most of those writings are not available for us to consult in the new millenium even if we wanted to but, and, more importantly, many of these are critically important topics for understanding his leadership of India/Pakistan out of British rule. For instance, he mentions that the Bagh (Amritsar) Massacre caused him sadness but didn't discuss it at all. Yet, this very massacre was of critical importance in terms of drawing attention to him and his cause and galvanizing the movement and the world behind his cause.

- More often than not dates are not given and he jumps around in time making it very difficult to follow the order of events.

- Given that Gandhi moved a lot it sure would have been nice to have a map since, as a North American, I know virtually nothing about Indian/South African geography, states and cities.

CONCLUSION

Despite these many limitations, I have come to better understand this incredible man and would generally recommend it to anyone wanting to understand this man on a more personal level. But, if you are expecting a book that recounts the events that were depicted in the movie Gandhi, you will be very disappointed.

I have red the original version of this book - written by Gandhi in Gujarati, and two things are most noticeable: First is that he is very honest. He didn't try to hide things to make them look nice and good, neither he tried to exaggerate them to look spectacular and dramatic. He just put them as they were. Second is that his language is very simple, a reflection of his philosophy. His aim was to convey his thoughts, not to produce literary work, so he used simple style and simple words. He wanted reader to see what he had to say, not how it was said.

A great work.

I have always admired Mr. Gandhi, but really knew very little about him. This book tells of his early life, something most biographies skip choosing to focus on his life in India.

Great historical detail of colonial India, living in England and South Africa. A must read for anyone interested in Mr. Gandhi or that period of history.

The book has also influenced greatly the way I view life. A very spiritually uplifting book, even for non-Hindus.

Well, we all follow "the experts" (although at 48, I am beginning to learn). We all follow the authorities. What would happen if one just kept a totally blank mind toward everything and learned from just plain LIVING. Gandhi makes it clear at the beginning of the book that this is the only way to gain truth. Not to be strongly influenced by others. His agreements and fondness of other theologians really only comes after his experiments. They have to agree with him first. As you begin to read this book, you are on a jouney. It's like being a Martian or being from another planet simply because Gandhi will simply not take anything as truth unless he has experimented with it himself. He was very much the spiritual scientist. This book is also very easy reading. The chapters are short enough to stop and come back to as well. And it is journey which Gandhi makes clear that anybody can follow. You can't really follow this man's experiments. He wants you to do your own experiments. So this book is really quite an adventure. Gandhi's politics, as he makes clear in this book, really stem from his experiments in truth. You can begin yourself. Wake up, tell your wife she is fat, and see what happens! Gandhi came to the conclusion of always practicing "ahimsa". He would practice it over and over again to see if it worked. And he came to the conclusion that it did. As he once said, "Ahimsa is heaven". Ahimsa means non-violence in thought, word, and deed. One can still defend oneself while loving one's enemy. He saw "satya", or truth as synonymous with non-violance. This man stole at one point, eat meat, was far from celibacy. Buy and read this fabulous scientific inquiry into "How to Live". Then start experimenting for yourself. Good luck on your journey. And please be careful! Gandhi nearly killed himself SMOKING!

I have just finished reading Mahatma Gandhi's "An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth." Of the 10,000 books I have read, Gandhi's autobiography is, quite simply, the most uplifting book I have ever read (excluding scriptures and 'holy' books).

What impressed me the most was Gandhi's extreme clear-mindedness. He was a master of prioritizing; he almost always did the most important task first. Although he took exception with a few specific applications of "The Law," he was devoted to the general principles of British law. Gandhi was non-judgmental. He understood the other side and continued to see the opposition as people.

Always on the path of self-improvement, Gandhi was committed to principle. He virtually always "walked his talk." His personal discipline and integrity were matched only by his desire to serve and his commitment to non-violence and to Truth itself.

The inner development of Mahatma Gandhi's life is wonderfully educational. The book clearly shows what one man can accomplish through will -- coupled with integrity.

This book should not be read for literary purposes. It will come as an disppointment for people who expect poetry or prose in their readings. My idea was to learn more about Gandhi and I was very satified as this book nearly accomplished that for me. This book is as simple to read as the man himself. Gandhi tells us most sincerely and honestly that he would not have been what he became, if it was not for certain events that changed his life. Even in his writings Gandhi reflects his modesty and simplicity. He does not fall short of acknowledging his weaknesses and his wrongs. Great philosphy right out of the mind of the great philospher!

Your view of this book will depend to a great extent on the reasons you choose to read the book and the extent of your historical knowledge about Gandhi in particular and the history of India in general.

I must confess that I was disappointed because I was reading the book with the expectation that I would gain a better understanding of Gandhi and his place in Indian history.

The book is not really an autobiography. It covers only a limited period of his life. And those periods are not fully convered. For example, there are references to time he spent in jail in Africa but there is nothing in the book about the details of the time spent in jail or the reasons he was jailed. He only relates bits and pieces of his life.

The book would be much more beneficial to someone who had a strong historical knowledge of Gandhi.

There are many people introduced in the book but no adequate background information on them. There is much discussion about certain events but there is inadequate discussion about the background of the events. This goes on throughout the book. There are many people, places and movements that I did not fully understand because he either assumes the reader knows or in some cases it directs the reader to other publications.

The book is not complete within itself. To truly appreciate the book, you need more backgound information.

Because the book only covers a certain period of his life, I am left to wonder if he changes his thinking as he progresses. Gandhi subtitled the book, "The story of my Experiments With Truth". But there are a lot of things that makes you wonder about what led him to his position on being a father and husband. He seemed to have little concern for his wife or his children.

It was interesting getting an inside look at the man. However it seems much more suitable for advanced study than as a first exposure to the life of Gandhi.