Ghandi a evil racist similarly to the Dalai Lama."Tibet Paradise" Myth. M.Teresa

[Cosmos]

First off I apologise because all the videos you are about to see are unfurtunatly only available in german.
But I'll try to do my best to summarize what they are saying and translate the video descriptions into english.
So you should be able to understand what they are about...

If any of you know english resources about the true nature of those people or Tibet, feel free to post them here...

So bare with me please.

Well it seems that Mahatma Ghandi, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa are in reality not what they are proclaimed to be.
In fact they seem to be utterly evil persons. Well yeah, it seems there is distorted history again...

The actual deeds, writings, statements and actions of any one of those three figures are quite astounding and jaw-dropping if one really believes the myths that are propagated about them so widely...

Take for example Mahatma Gandhi. There are a vast number of things he said and wrote in his own words that Hitler couldn't have said better.
In short it seems that what he did and actually said was pretty racistic and inhuman, to say it mildely.
For example; Hitler and Mussolini were gentelman in his eyes. I'm just wondering how much his vegetarism was influencing or part of his mindset... I could start telling you similar things about Mother Teresa or The Dalai Lama... But more on them later.

Here is a video series that exposes Ghandis true nature:

Gandhi - Apostel der Unmenschlichkeit Teil 1 von 3 (Gandhi - Apostle of inhumanity Part1 of 3):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTJy4CuIQQs

(german description of the video):

Falls Sie Gandhi für einen pazifistischen, redlichen und sympathischen Freiheitskämpfer halten, sind Sie einer jahrzehntelangen Propaganda auf den Leim gegangen. Gandhi war ein rassistischer religiöser Fanatiker, dessen Reden und Taten von einer tiefen Verachtung für menschliches Leben geprägt waren. Glauben Sie nicht? Hören Sie hier Gandhis eigene Worte.

(english translation of the description of the video):

If you are thinking of Gandhi as a pacifist, honest and sympathetic freedom fighter, you have fallen into the trap of a decades-long propaganda. Gandhi was a racist religious fanatic, whose words and deeds were marked by a deep contempt for human life. You do not believe? Listen here to Gandhi's own words.

Gandhi - Apostel der Unmenschlichkeit 2/3 (Gandhi - Apostle of inhumanity Part2 of 3):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUpHp3yueOw

(german description of the video):

Gandhi, ein Pazifist? Wohl kaum! Sein Aufruf zu gewaltlosem Widerstand sollte nur den Zorn der indischen Bevölkerung auf die Briten verstärken. Er wollte "das ganze Land in Flammen" sehen. Hören Sie hier Gandhis eigene Worte...

(english translation of the discription of the video):

Gandhi, a pacifist? Hardly! His call to non-violent resistance should only reinforce the wrath of the Indian population against the Brits. He wanted to see "the whole country in flames." Listen to Gandhi's own words ...

Gandhi - Apostel der Unmenschlichkeit 3/3 (Gandhi - Apostle of inhumanity Part3 of 3):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXoO_1hHau0

(german description of the video):

Was Gandhi von Widerstand gegen die Nazis hielt, lernen wir hier aus seinen eigenen Worten. Außerdem spielte er eine wichtige Rolle beim Erhalt des menschenverachtenden Kastenwesens und der Unterdrückung der Unberührbaren.

(english translation of the description of the video):

What Gandhi thought of the resistance against the Nazis, we learn here from his own words. He also played an important role in maintaining the inhuman caste system and the oppression of the untouchables.

Now we come to the Dalai Lama and who he actually is and what he has said and done.

Colin Goldner: Hinter dem Lächeln des Dalai Lama (Vortrag Univ. Wien 18.05.2012)
(Colin Goldner: Behind the smile of the Dalai Lama (Lecture Univerity of Vianna 18.05.2012)):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SDuqayOx2Nw

(german description of the video):

Kritischer Vortrag über den Buddhismus und die Person des 14. Dalai Lama Tendzin Gyatsho anlässlich dessen Besuch in Österreich. Der Psychologe und Sozialpädagoge Colin Goldner referiert über die Hintergründe des tibetischen Buddhismus und die vermeintliche Menschenfreundlichkeit des Dalai Lama. Der Vortrag spannt einen Bogen von dem repressiven feudalistischen Mönchsregime, welches vor dem Einmarsch der Chinesen Tibet regiert hatte, über den Aufstieg des Dalai Lama als „Kämpfer für die Menschenrechte", bis zu seinen Verbindungen zu faschistischen Sektenführern und der politisch Rechten in Österreich.

(english translation of the description of the video):

Critical lecture on the Buddhism and the person of the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso on occasion of his visit to Austria. The psychologist and social worker Colin Goldner talks about the background of Tibetan Buddhism and the supposed benevolence of the Dalai Lama. The presentation spans from the oppressive feudal monk regime that had ruled over Tibet before the Chinese invasion, to the rise of the Dalai Lama as a "fighter for human rights," and to his links to fascist cult leaders and the political right wing in Austria.

In short he gives us a brief history about Tibetan Buddhism and it's utterly uppressing monk regime. The living conditions of ordinary Tibetans and the Lamas before and after the Chinese came in. He talks about human rights violations and the role of the CIA. And finally he talkes about the current Dalai Lama. In the beginning he explicitly states that he is not paid by the Chinese for doing this lecture nor is he of the oppinion that the current Chinese societal dynamics are at all exemplary or good.

A quote of the Dalai Lama he is qouting:

If you want to be truly happy just go past the calamity

The image that is promoted about Tibet is that of a mystic almost pradise like place but as Colin Goldner explains it, that was never the case. In fact this specific Tibetan Buddhism that has ruled there in accordance with his opressing monk system was in reality as he said a "hell on earth" for the ordinary people. The ruling monk elite was in power over everything and the vast majority (90%) of the normal people were serfs of this ruling monk system. Hunger, bonded labour and slavery was common practice in tibet even until the mid of the twentieth century. 27 country estates were there to serve the family palace of the Dalai Lama alone. About 40 000 people were in direct serfdom to the family palace of the Dalai Lama alone. Autside of the monasteries was not one single school. The infant mortality rate was at 50% under the age of one year.
The average lifespan of adults was 35 years.

The current live situation of any given person in Tibet was according to this specific Buddhism the result of past live sins that are still there in this live in the form of Karma. So a poor slave was a poor slave because of his Karma from a past live. If let's say a farmer was complaining about his miserable live circumstances under wich he must live to the elite, then that bad Karma was building up even more (according to the religion/monk rulers) and those people would get awful punishments in the temporary after live and much more awful punishments in the following reincarnation.

But not only that, punishments in this live were also quite horrible.

The penal law of Tibet was characterized by arbitrariness and unbelievable cruelty.
Insubordinate people were skinned alive (skin removed from the body of the living person). For lesser crimes peoples eyes were excelled or hands cut off. Out of human lower leg bones trumpets were made.

All this was also common practise in Tibet until the mid of the twentieth century.
Every single monastery in Tibet (including that of the Dalai Lama) had at least one of this torture chambers in wich those things were done with cleverly thought out instruments of tortur. And so on and so on. In short like in the deepest dark age in europe.

By the way Buddhism that is/was practist in Tibet is/was different than that of other countries. For example there are more gods then in the Indian religion. The Dalai Lama repeatedly says jokingly that there are about 1 000 000 gods... Only Lamas can/could go into the nirvana. Not even monks were/are privileged to that. And of course woman can/could not go into the nirvana... Religious indoctrination was everywere and was used by the monk system.

The current Dalai Lama ordered his treasuries to be removed to his exile place. 800 pack animals transported all those treasuries out to his exile. That was all being done with the help of his two CIA brothers. The Dalai Lama was paid by the US about 200 000 € a year. The CIA was also the main instigator of the rebillion against China.

The Dalai Lama long denied any connections to the CIA. But in the nineties he was forced to admit that he had lied about it, because CIA documents came out that proofed it. Since the 80's he gets millons every year from the National Endowment for Democracy (NDE).
In his first biography the Dalai Lama explicitly endorsed the guerilla war against the chinese (wich was financed and supported by the CIA) and praised the weapons. Those exact passages were, stangly enough , later completely removed in the reformulation of that biography that was published in the nineties... And on and on...

By the way Colin Goldner also tells a little story of how he met Mother Teresa to make an interview with her and how he got the impression of sitting infront of an utterly evil person. In his own words (paraphrasing):

"Never in my live did I met a person that I found that utterly unlikeable at the first glance as this evil, evil old woman. I really have nothing to do with esoteric stuff, but she had an aura of evil arround her."

While Mother Teresa and Colin talked, a nun came into the room and placed a stack of papers on the table, suddenly Mother Teresa started to beat the nun's legs so vehemently and hardly with her walking stick that this was the point Colin Goldner stopped the interview with her.

 

[Mal7]

The image that is promoted about Tibet is that of a mystic almost paradise like place but as Colin Goldner explains it, that was never the case.

Yes the idea that Tibet was a paradise, a Shangri-la or a magical hidden kingdom, or Shambhala became popular in the western world's consciousness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is still popular. Some New Age thinkers or devout followers of Buddhism might be surprised to know that the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism took political ascendency over the other schools with the backing of the military power of the Mongols in the 16th century AD.

In fact this specific Tibetan Buddhism that has ruled there in accordance with his opressing monk system was in reality as he said a "hell on earth" for the ordinary people. The ruling monk elite was in power over everything and the vast majority (90%) of the normal people were serfs of this ruling monk system. Hunger, bonded labour and slavery was common practice in tibet even until the mid of the twentieth century. 27 country estates were there to serve the family palace of the Dalai Lama alone. About 40 000 people were in direct serfdom to the family palace of the Dalai Lama alone. Autside of the monasteries was not one single school. The infant mortality rate was at 50% under the age of one year. The average lifespan of adults was 35 years.

There was corruption and abuse of power in Tibet, as there is in almost any society. The terminology of "serfdom" and "oppressing rulers" of Tibet I think most often originates from the Chinese Communist Party's view of history, which they have been actively promulgating for decades in visibile and hidden ways.

The current live situation of any given person in Tibet was according to this specific Buddhism the result of past live sins that are still there in this live in the form of Karma. So a poor slave was a poor slave because of his Karma from a past live. If let's say a farmer was complaining about his miserable live circumstances under wich he must live to the elite, then that bad Karma was building up even more (according to the religion/monk rulers) and those people would get awful punishments in the temporary after live and much more awful punishments in the following reincarnation.

Yes I think that applies more widely too. In India in the past (and present?) with the caste system, people justified mistreating people of lower castes because it was there karma to be of that low caste. [I think one of Gandhi's good points was his objections to the caste system?] In Thailand, the death penalty for relatively minor crimes was accepted by the Buddhist society on the grounds of karma. In all three countries, I think it could be said that there is, or has been in the past, room for improvement. But human societies being what they are, I don't think they should be held up and compared to an ideal, and criticised mercilessly for not matching that ideal.

But not only that, punishments in this live were also quite horrible.

The penal law of Tibet was characterized by arbitrariness and unbelievable cruelty.
Insubordinate people were skinned alive (skin removed from the body of the living person). For lesser crimes peoples eyes were excelled or hands cut off.

I do not know a source for criminals actually being skinned alive, although some Tantric imagery involves the deities wearing accoutrements such as necklaces of skulls, and wearing or standing on the skin of elephants, humans or other animals.

Out of human lower leg bones trumpets were made.

Making a ritual trumpet instrument out of someone's leg bone was not exactly part of the punishment. The Tibetans also did not bury or cremate their dead, but took them up to a spot where the bodies would be hacked up into small pieces so that vultures could come and eat them and take them away. When the person's spirit/life-force has departed from the physical body at the time of death, the body is of more use to vulture or trumpet players than it is to the body's original owner?

All this was also common practise in Tibet until the mid of the twentieth century.
Every single monastery in Tibet (including that of the Dalai Lama) had at least one of this torture chambers in wich those things were done with cleverly thought out instruments of torture. And so on and so on. In short like in the deepest dark age in europe.

There were some small dark cells for political offenders in the Potala Palace in the early 20th century. I think the overall incarceration rate was probably fairly low compared to most other countries, and compared to the number of Tibetan political prisoners in Chinese jails today.

The Chinese did have a kind of "House of Horrors" museum of Tibet in Beijing to show Tibetan torture instruments. I am not sure if it still exists. This museum's focus was more on propaganda than actual reality.

Some punishments for criminals in Tibet before 1950 may have seemed physically more brutal, but were possibly more humane in other ways. For example, criminals such as thieves might have their feet shackled together with metal clasps, but were otherwise still free to move around in society, albeit a little slower than in their unshackled state, rather than being separated from society. In the past, a repeat offender might have had a hand or an arm cut off.


By the way Buddhism that is/was practist in Tibet is/was different than that of other countries. For example there are more gods then in the Indian religion. The Dalai Lama repeatedly says jokingly that there are about 1 000 000 gods... Only Lamas can/could go into the nirvana. Not even monks were/are privileged to that. And of course woman can/could not go into the nirvana... Religious indoctrination was everywere and was used by the monk system.

The current Dalai Lama ordered his treasuries to be removed to his exile place. 800 pack animals transported all those treasuries out to his exile. That was all being done with the help of his two CIA brothers. The Dalai Lama was paid by the US about 200 000 € a year. The CIA was also the main instigator of the rebillion against China.The Dalai Lama long denied any connections to the CIA. But in the nineties he was forced to admit that he had lied about it, because CIA documents came out that proofed it. Since the 80's he gets millons every year from the National Endowment for Democracy (NDE).

Maybe he does not realise the NDE is a front organisation for the CIA? He couldn't remember the name of one of the Popes he had met (John Paul II) when he spoke recently.

In his first biography the Dalai Lama explicitly endorsed the guerilla war against the chinese (wich was financed and supported by the CIA) and praised the weapons. Those exact passages were, stangly enough , later completely removed in the reformulation of that biography that was published in the nineties... And on and on...

Yes the CIA were involved in arming and aiding the Tibetan Khampa rebels in their revolt against the Chinese troops. The USA had a strategic interest in limiting the expansion of Communist China. When USA relations to China warmed, the CIA withdrew their support of the Tibetan revolutionaries.

The Dalai Lama himself is generally pretty consistent in opposing violence. He continues to oppose violence used by some Tibetans today, if only because violence against a much more powerful opponent is going to be ineffective.

Here is a passage which quotes from the Dalai Lama's first autobiography "My Land, Me People" (1962):

Before such evidence and the desperate nature of the situation, some reaction might be expected; but we read on the following page of his memoirs a disheartening admission of the Dalai Lama's lack of personal strength and resolution. Fully aware of all the implications of the war, of its extents, and of the terrible fate of his people and race, the Dalaia Lama writes:

Part of me greatly admired the guerilla fighters. They were brave people, men and women, and they were putting their lives and their children's lives at stake to try to save our religion and country in the only way that they could see. When one heard of the terrible deeds of the Chinese in the East, it was naturally human to seek revenge. And, moreover, I knew they regarded themselves as fighting in loyalty to me as Dalai Lama: the Dalai Lama was the core of what they were trying to defend.

In spite of this declaration, the Dalai Lama, standing by his pacifist principles, concludes: 'However great the violence used against us, it could never be right to use violence in reply.'
In the name of such a principle the Dalai Lama condemned those fighting for his religion and everything he represented.

- Michel Peissel, Cavaliers of Kham: The Secret War in Tibet (1972), page 91.

Although pre-1950 Tibet was not as entirely cut-off from the outside world as the myth of Shangri-la suggests, it did I think maintain a naievety and kind of mediaevalism about its society that was uncommon in the modern world. More recently, the Tibetan Government-in-Exile as switched for the first time to a democratic method of electing its cabinet members. The Dalai Lama announced in 2011 that he was abdicating from the role of political leader of Tibet, and would hence forth be its spiritual leader only, or as he puts it tongue-in-cheek, he would now be "semi-retired".

Here are a few books on Tibetan history from either a more neutral point of view, or a more Tibet-biased point-of-view (although o:
The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 by Tsering Shakya (1999) (this book banned in China)
Tibet: A Political History by Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa (1967)
Into Tibet:The CIA's First Atomic Spy and his Secret Expedition to Lhasa by Thomas Laird (2007)
A History of Modern Tibet 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State by Melvyn C. Goldstein (1989)
Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations by Warren Smith (1996)
Warriors of Tibet: The Story of Aten and the Khampas' Fight for the Freedom of their Country by Jamyang Norbu (1979)
Tibet: Past and Present by Sir Charles Bell (1924).

 

[obyvatel]

Hi Pashalis,

What is the data provided in the video about Gandhi? My view of Gandhi does not come from western sources. He is a relatively recent political figure and his life has been studied in detail. In India, there are people who support Gandhi and there are those who don't. The reasons they have are based on recorded and observed facts of his life. My first impression from the english translations that you provided about the videos is that it is propaganda and disinformation. Need data to validate or invalidate that preliminary impression.

Regarding your comments

[quote author=Pashalis]
For example; Hitler and Mussolini were gentelman in his eyes. I'm just wondering how much his vegetarism was influencing or part of his mindset...
[/quote]

We have the advantage of looking at Hitler and Mussolini with a lot of data about their actions. The same situation was not true back when Gandhi lived. Also, India was fighting for independence from British rule at the time and the Axis powers were the enemy of the enemy. Some famous Indian figures actively wanted to ally themselves with Germany or Japan in the hope of gaining independence faster. Gandhi was an exception. He also wrote a letter to Hitler.

_http://www.kuriositas.com/2013/04/mahatma-gandhis-dear-friend-letter-to.html


Regarding vegetarianism, many members in this forum have found vegetarianism as not being conducive to physical and mental well-being. As far as I know, most of them were not born vegetarians. The westerners are more familiar with the militant versions of vegetarians who are active in guilt-tripping and trying to force their version of reality down others' throats. Personally I have always been a meat-eater but I have had many interactions with born vegetarians who have been vegetarians for several generations. Like meat eaters, vegetarians come in all different types and shades. There are sane and rational vegetarians in the world - at least as sane and rational as meat eaters. In my opinion there is not enough data to support a hypothesis that vegetarianism is somehow connected to mental disbalance.

Edit: Here is a link to Gandhi's subsequent letter to Hitler which also addresses Mussolini - dated Dec 24, 1940
_http://www.mkgandhi.org/letters/hitler_ltr1.htm

 

[Cosmos]

Hi Pashalis,

What is the data provided in the video about Gandhi? My view of Gandhi does not come from western sources. He is a relatively recent political figure and his life has been studied in detail. In India, there are people who support Gandhi and there are those who don't. The reasons they have are based on recorded and observed facts of his life. My first impression from the english translations that you provided about the videos is that it is propaganda and disinformation. Need data to validate or invalidate that preliminary impression.

The author of those videos is citing from this books and articles:

"Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity" by G.B Sing:
_http://www.amazon.com/Gandhi-Divinity-G-B-Singh/dp/1573929980/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374217933&sr=8-1&keywords=ghandi+behind+the+mask

and

"Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi" edition 1, edition 2, edition 3, edition 5, edition 8, edition 9...

and

"Gandhi: The South African Experience, Johannesburg, 1985" by Maureen Swan:
_http://www.amazon.com/Gandhi-African-Experience-History-Southern/dp/0869752324/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374219366&sr=1-1

and from "Ghandis Hero":

"Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,1954"

and

"The before Yielding is Gandhi's Appeal" The New York Times, 9. April 1930

and

"Penderel Moon (Hrsg.), Wavell; The Viceroys's Journal, London 1973"

and

Louis Fisher, Gandhi and Stalin; Two Signs at the World's Crossroads, New York 1947

and

Ghandi, Young India, 19 January 1921

and

"What Congress and Gandhi have done to the untouchables." by B. R. Ambedkar second edition, Bombay 1946
_http://www.amazon.com/What-Congress-Gandhi-have-untouchables/dp/B007T2AON0/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374220788&sr=1-2&keywords=What+B.R+Ambedkar

 

[obyvatel]

Here is my perspective on some of the sources cited above.

Gandhi, Ambedkar and the caste system

Gandhi was not a finished product from the beginning of his public life. He admitted to being wrong many times and towards the end of his life, he also said (recorded in his collected works) that his writings be burned after his death because people may form wrong ideas based on some things he had written. One of the areas where his views underwent a lot of change was the caste system. He had opposed the social injustices committed against the most disadvantaged strata of the society (known as the untouchables) for a long time. However initially was against the wholesale abolition of the caste system. He held some dubious ideological views on this matter but these views changed after his discussions and arguments with Ambedkar. Gandhi favored a slow reformation of the system from within by appealing to the good sense of the people by means of exhortation towards the ideal of service to humanity. He wished for a unified India with different castes and religions serving each other and the country's interests - which was an idealistic and somewhat utopian view. Ambedkar was a firebrand who wanted political action from outside providing reservations and privileges to the lower castes. Gandhi's reservations against this method perhaps stemmed from the fear of further fracturing the society at a time when the colonial British power was ever active in fomenting dissent within Indian society among Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others as well as within the various religions themselves.


Ambedkar belonged to the lower caste of untouchables. His father served in the British army. He faced persecution when in school. His intelligence was recognized and he was sponsored for higher studies abroad in the London School of Economics and Columbia University and he earned a doctorate degree. This was not common at that time in India - even for the so-called higher castes. He entered politics and became a champion for the cause of untouchables and lower castes. He was a fierce critic of Gandhi and argued with him quite a bit. There is also reason to believe he influenced Gandhi's views on the caste system based on the chronology of Gandhi's writings. A paper which traces such a dynamic is
here:
_http://www.academia.edu/3263/Changes_in_Mahatma_Gandhis_views_on_caste_and_intermarriage

Despite his intelligence, Ambedkar seemed narrowly focused on obtaining advantages for his caste and constituency. Gandhi had a wider view of the situation that was developing due to overt and covert activities of the British colonialists who had always followed a "divide and rule" policy. IMO Gandhi often saw the forest and put different priorities to various issues than what Ambedkar had. See a sample excerpt of Gandhi and Ambedkar's correspondence here
_http://www.mkgandhi.org/Selected%20Letters/amb-gandhi%20corr..htm

Despite being a public figure with a lot of enemies and opposition, Gandhi did not have any body guards and freely mingled with people till the end of his days. He was desperately sad and bitterly disappointed that despite his efforts, the situation that he had tried his best to avoid - that of internal violence between Indians in a civil war like situation - had come to pass. According to some estimates, half a million people died - or rather were butchered during those months of insanity in 1947. Trains would start from one side with families fleeing with whatever belongings they could carry with them and would arrive at the other side full of piles of dead bodies; men, women and children massacred mercilessly. Many survivors on the Indian side blamed Gandhi and his policies for this situation - believing his policy of appeasement to be responsible in part. Such beliefs led to Gandhi's assassination by the fundamentalist Godse.


Gandhi and the Jews

Fischer's paper regarding Gandhi's quote about Jews and suicide has been studied and debated quite a bit. Here is the excerpt.

Source: _http://stevereads.com/weblog/2007/12/10/gandhi-the-jewish-victims-of-the-holocaust-should-have-committed-mass-suicide/

“I would challenge Hitler to shoot me or cast me into the dungeon,” Gandhi wrote in his article. “I would not wait for fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example … Suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy.”

Magnes rejected Gandhi’s idea. “The slightest sign of resistance,” he wrote, “means killing or concentration camps or being done away with otherwise. It is usually in the dead of night that they are spirited away,” Magnes recalled. “No one except their terrified families is the wiser. It makes not even a ripple on the surface of German life. The streets are the same, business goes on as usual, the casual visitor sees nothing. Contrast this with a single hunger strike in an American or English prison, and the public commotion that this arouses.

I said [in an interview with Gandhi], “Did you ever receive a letter, back in 1938 or 1939, from Dr. Judah Magnes, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem? He wrote it after you had made a statement urging the Jews of Germany to practice passive resistance against Hitler.”

“I don’t remember the letter,” Gandhi confessed, “but I remember my own statement. I did not urge passive resistance. That is the wrong term. Many years ago, in South Africa, I spoke at a large public meeting presided over by Herman Kallenbach, a rich Jew of Johannesburg. I lived at his house often and formed an attachment for him. He introduced me as the champion of passive resistance. I stood up and said I did not believe in passive resistance. Satyagraha is something very active. It is the reverse of passive. Submission is passive and I dislike submission. The Jews of Germany made the mistake of submitting to Hitler.”

“Magnes,” I said, “argued in his letter to you that the Jews could do nothing else.”

“Hitler,” Gandhi solemnly affirmed, “killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. I believe in hara-kiri. I do not believe in its militaristic connotations, but it is a heroic method.”

“You think,” I said, “that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?”

“Yes,” Gandhi agreed,” that would have been heroism. It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to the evils of Hitler’s violence, especially in 1938, before the war. As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”

When I reported this conversation to Dr. Magnes, he said, “It may be that Gandhi is right in thinking that if the Jews had committed suicide they might have impressed the world more deeply than the loss of six million lives has done. Yet I do not see how in the world such an action would be physically possible. The few hundred in the Fortress of Massada were able to commit suicide because they were in a confined place and were up against a belligerent army. How oculd six million or one million or one hundred thousand do anything of the sort? And if they had, would the impression on the world be nay more lasting than the annihilation of the six million has been?”

Mahatma Gandhi has never lived under a thoroughly totalitarian regime; his generosity and humanity make it difficult for him to realize how very cruel a dictatorship can be. In India, and in Palestine, and other plces, violence or organized nonviolence is a form of “public relations.” …

Thus gandhian nonviolence as well as its ugly opposite — Zionist terror — implies the existence of a free democratic society in England (and in America). It is to this court of public opinion that the resisters in India and kidnappers in Palestine have appealed. But suppose there were no democracy in Western nations?

A British prime minister could not order a million people dragged out of their houses and off the streets to be melted down to soap in fiery furnaces. Hitler could — and did.

Was Gandhi aware of the limitation of his method in practical terms as legitimately criticized and pointed out by others? Apparently he did. He wrote elsewhere that he could imagine that a Gandhi under Nazi rule would probably be executed within 5 minutes. Yet he did not see this as invalidating his proposed methods.

[quote author=MK Gandhi]
I can conceive the necessity of the immolation of hundreds, if not thousands, to appease the hunger of dictators… The maxim is that ahimsa [non-violence] is the most efficacious in front of the great himsa [violence]. Its quality is really tested only in such cases. Sufferers need not see the result during their lifetime.
[/quote]

One can agree or disagree to such an approach. Gandhi's views on life and suicide do sound similar to views of Stoics, who considered suicide as a rational option under particular circumstances. Many Stoics had actually followed this path.


I think that the hit piece on Gandhi calling him an evil racist and an apostle of inhumanity is a product of cherry picking information out of context and spinning them together to make a story. As far as I know, Gandhi did not claim to be a saint. Others put that epithet on him. Still others villified him. He held views which were not common in his time. Any analysis of Gandhi without an understanding of the complexity of the environment in which he lived and took a controversial stand is likely to yield erroneous conclusions.

 

[Cosmos]

I think that the hit piece on Gandhi calling him an evil racist and an apostle of inhumanity is a product of cherry picking information out of context and spinning them together to make a story. As far as I know, Gandhi did not claim to be a saint. Others put that epithet on him. Still others villified him. He held views which were not common in his time. Any analysis of Gandhi without an understanding of the complexity of the environment in which he lived and took a controversial stand is likely to yield erroneous conclusions.

Could be and I'm surely not in the position to judge that since I simply have not studied the subject intensely at all.
But from the comments of Ghandi cited in the videos and his views on "non violent" resistance as well as other "inferior races" like black africans, jews and indigenes people, one surely can get the impression of exactly that: "a racist".

The idea or conclusion the video maker and I think also G .B Sing who wrote the book "Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity" arrive, is that of a person that used and did things consciously to enhance violence and seperation through a covert agenda. One surely can come to those conclusions if one reads his own statements at various times. One then also has to wonder if his supposed "change in later years" as you put it, was not just an agenda of his, to muddy the waters of his own statements and doings in earlier years to validate his new status?

Surely if he was a human being, then maybe he really changed later in his live, but there is also the possibility that this change was nothing other then a mask to appear or be judged a certain way later.

It remains that when you read the quotes that are cited of Ghandi in those videos, you simply have to wonder who or what he actually was and if that is not telling us a bit of who or what he and his caracter really was.

And I wouldn't necessarily say that it is a hit piece, cause when you read those quotes of Ghandi himself and his hero it surely sounds sensible and logical to me that one can arrive to that conlusion with the data at hand.

 

[Mal7]

In his first biography the Dalai Lama explicitly endorsed the guerilla war against the chinese (wich was financed and supported by the CIA) and praised the weapons. Those exact passages were, stangly enough , later completely removed in the reformulation of that biography that was published in the nineties... And on and on...

I don't have the first autobiography but will try and track it down and have a look at what it says. It was called My Land and My People, was published in 1962, and there was a new edition of it in 1997. Freedom in Exile (1990) was also an autobiography, and there have probably been a few others as well.

When the Dalai Lama left Tibet in 1959, he was 23 years old, and didn't speak English very well. His English has improved over the decades, but if you look at him speaking on YouTube he is still not totally fluent, and usually has an English-Tibetan translator at his side to help him in public speaking.

The Dalai Lama has said he does not actually write books himself, but just talks. Other people assisting him, or interested in writing about him, listen to and record his talks, or have interviews with him and then go away and write books, and then the Dalai Lama's name will come out on the book as the author. This kind of thing is sometimes called ghost writing. I think it would be fair to say the 1962 autobiography was probably ghost written by someone with better English than the Dalai Lama, based on interviews with him.

The video seems to me to have the flavour of a hit piece from how you have described it. It is a bit like someone saying Jesus was actually against what are considered the usual Christian virtues, because he cursed a fig-tree, and said something about coming with a sword.

The Dalai Lama spends a lot of time travelling the world and giving talks. His talks consistently advocate practising kindness, non-violence, and dialogue. I wonder what the agenda or the psychology is of someone who wants to portray the Dalai Lama as actually supporting violence?

There is one story in Buddhist writings somewhere that is sometimes used as an example of Buddhism supporting violence. A person was on a boat and killed someone, because they had some kind of knowledge that if they did not kill that person, then everyone else on the boat was going to end up dying. The karmic result for the killer in the story was good.

I notice that no-one has come along to defend Mother Teresa yet. Christopher Hitchens also wrote an unflattering book about Mother Teresa: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice:

In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions - not the other way around. With characteristic elan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary as a spurious, despotic, and megalomaniacal operative of the wealthy who long opposed measures to end poverty, and fraternized, for financial gain, with tyrants and white-collar criminals throughout the world.

- publisher's blurb about Hitchens' book on Mother Teresa.

 

[obyvatel]

I think that the hit piece on Gandhi calling him an evil racist and an apostle of inhumanity is a product of cherry picking information out of context and spinning them together to make a story. As far as I know, Gandhi did not claim to be a saint. Others put that epithet on him. Still others villified him. He held views which were not common in his time. Any analysis of Gandhi without an understanding of the complexity of the environment in which he lived and took a controversial stand is likely to yield erroneous conclusions.

Could be and I'm surely not in the position to judge that since I simply have not studied the subject intensely at all.
But from the comments of Ghandi cited in the videos and his views on "non violent" resistance as well as other "inferior races" like black africans, jews and indigenes people, one surely can get the impression of exactly that: "a racist".

There is also the fact that Gandhi's contemporary critics like Orwell point out- that he treated statesmen and common people in the same way. In his time and situation few people in a position similar to his were able or willing to do it. Context is very important in analyzing any person's behavior. There is no person in the world who has taken up a stand on a topic that is important for society and not been vilified. To understand what is what, it is important to study things in detail before reaching a conclusion.

I have not read GB Singh's material. The other material is not new; they have actually been studied and analyzed for a long time. This is not ancient history after all. Gandhi has been criticized and villified for a lot of things he did or did not do (as in inaction) - but the conclusions reached from these studies are far removed than what is presented in the english translation of the German videos. As far as Singh is concerned, I see that he is a career army man. Army people for obvious reasons do not like Gandhi in general. He is also a Sikh and the main province where the Sikhs come from (Punjab and surrounding states in India) were one of the two worst affected by partition. I have family members who were affected by the partition and held a negative view of Gandhi. For those who lived through those insane times in India and were directly affected by the partition, it was very difficult to have an objective view of Gandhi. I do not know if any of this affects Singh's research or not - but it is worth putting on the table imo.

This brings me to another point. It seems to me that you watched a few videos and bought the story being spun. When you brought the material over here, it did not look like your attitude was tentative and asking "what do you guys think"? False information is worse than no information - so that is worth keeping in mind.

Something that has been in the back of my mind regarding the videos is the question "why". Why this interest in putting a new twist on Gandhi with old material in a German video? What I write is speculation and should be treated as such. To the typical Westerner who is unaware of the details of Gandhi's life and circumstances, what Gandhi stands for is non-violent resistance to tyrannical authority (please correct me if I am wrong here). Many people would perhaps take the information provided in the videos, draw "logical" conclusions as Pashalis has done, and move on without deeper digging. What would be the effect of these conclusions on people's minds? Gandhi is long dead and villifying his name perhaps has the effect of calling into question what he stands for - the principle of non-violent resistance to authority. If Gandhi is an apostle of inhumanity and racism, then what he stood for is also false and should be rejected. Then the opposite pole - violence against authority - gains legitimacy. Given the present times and situation, if my speculation is on the right track, this angle is worth considering imo.

 

[Cosmos]

I think that the hit piece on Gandhi calling him an evil racist and an apostle of inhumanity is a product of cherry picking information out of context and spinning them together to make a story. As far as I know, Gandhi did not claim to be a saint. Others put that epithet on him. Still others villified him. He held views which were not common in his time. Any analysis of Gandhi without an understanding of the complexity of the environment in which he lived and took a controversial stand is likely to yield erroneous conclusions.

Could be and I'm surely not in the position to judge that since I simply have not studied the subject intensely at all.
But from the comments of Ghandi cited in the videos and his views on "non violent" resistance as well as other "inferior races" like black africans, jews and indigenes people, one surely can get the impression of exactly that: "a racist".

There is also the fact that Gandhi's contemporary critics like Orwell point out- that he treated statesmen and common people in the same way. In his time and situation few people in a position similar to his were able or willing to do it. Context is very important in analyzing any person's behavior. There is no person in the world who has taken up a stand on a topic that is important for society and not been vilified. To understand what is what, it is important to study things in detail before reaching a conclusion.

I have not read GB Singh's material. The other material is not new; they have actually been studied and analyzed for a long time. This is not ancient history after all. Gandhi has been criticized and villified for a lot of things he did or did not do (as in inaction) - but the conclusions reached from these studies are far removed than what is presented in the english translation of the German videos. As far as Singh is concerned, I see that he is a career army man. Army people for obvious reasons do not like Gandhi in general. He is also a Sikh and the main province where the Sikhs come from (Punjab and surrounding states in India) were one of the two worst affected by partition. I have family members who were affected by the partition and held a negative view of Gandhi. For those who lived through those insane times in India and were directly affected by the partition, it was very difficult to have an objective view of Gandhi. I do not know if any of this affects Singh's research or not - but it is worth putting on the table imo.

This brings me to another point. It seems to me that you watched a few videos and bought the story being spun. When you brought the material over here, it did not look like your attitude was tentative and asking "what do you guys think"? False information is worse than no information - so that is worth keeping in mind.

Yes I've to admid that. So it might be in order to change the headline to a more neutral/asking one?
For me it was a suprise (a chiller or jaw-dropper would be more fitting I think) to read those statements cited in the videos above from Ghandi.
I as somebody who doesn't know much about him or the times and system he lived in, had the impression (as many do I think) of him being a piece advocating person and a person that promoted non-violent resistance. So it shouldn't be all that suprising that I was rather shocked reading what he wrote, because in the end those quotes are not peaceful nor are they really promoting non-violent resistance...

Something that has been in the back of my mind regarding the videos is the question "why". Why this interest in putting a new twist on Gandhi with old material in a German video? What I write is speculation and should be treated as such. To the typical Westerner who is unaware of the details of Gandhi's life and circumstances, what Gandhi stands for is non-violent resistance to tyrannical authority (please correct me if I am wrong here). Many people would perhaps take the information provided in the videos, draw "logical" conclusions as Pashalis has done, and move on without deeper digging. What would be the effect of these conclusions on people's minds? Gandhi is long dead and villifying his name perhaps has the effect of calling into question what he stands for - the principle of non-violent resistance to authority. If Gandhi is an apostle of inhumanity and racism, then what he stood for is also false and should be rejected. Then the opposite pole - violence against authority - gains legitimacy. Given the present times and situation, if my speculation is on the right track, this angle is worth considering imo.

I think part of the "why" is what I wrote above aka:
Reading the statements of Ghandi wich are quite shocking when you have that widely exepted image of him and for what he stands for in mind.

What one gets at, is a rather stratling disconnect to the image of Ghandi, that one has in his mind, and then what he actually wrote...
So I think it is only natural to find that a bit odd and strange and then question him and who he really was.

But as said, I have not studied the subject, so there could be a lot of things I am missing here...

 

[Michal]

Hi,
I have read recently "Gandhi and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglas (the same writer for "JFK and the unspeakable").
I do not know Gandhi history from any other source than this one.
From J.W. Douglas I definitely have been convinced about goodness of Gandhi and his struggle for peace.

One cited example of Gandhi's attitude from described source by Pashalis:

If you are thinking of Gandhi as a pacifist, honest and sympathetic freedom fighter, you have fallen into the trap of a decades-long propaganda. Gandhi was a racist religious fanatic, whose words and deeds were marked by a deep contempt for human life. You do not believe? Listen here to Gandhi's own words.

His readiness to die walking his way was kind of "contempt" for life but in specific context.
I wish I could understand better German. It is definitely interesting when You face tow completely different opinions about the person.

 

[Voyageur]

Something that has been in the back of my mind regarding the videos is the question "why". Why this interest in putting a new twist on Gandhi with old material in a German video? What I write is speculation and should be treated as such. To the typical Westerner who is unaware of the details of Gandhi's life and circumstances, what Gandhi stands for is non-violent resistance to tyrannical authority (please correct me if I am wrong here). Many people would perhaps take the information provided in the videos, draw "logical" conclusions as Pashalis has done, and move on without deeper digging. What would be the effect of these conclusions on people's minds? Gandhi is long dead and villifying his name perhaps has the effect of calling into question what he stands for - the principle of non-violent resistance to authority. If Gandhi is an apostle of inhumanity and racism, then what he stood for is also false and should be rejected. Then the opposite pole - violence against authority - gains legitimacy. Given the present times and situation, if my speculation is on the right track, this angle is worth considering imo.

Yes it is worth considering and seems to fit - a move away from non-violence ("rejected") as being acceptable perhaps.

Somewhere i have a series of articles by a couple who spent years traveling with the D.Lama (DL) and who also formed other thinking - will see if i can track it down. As for the DL, there is division between the Yellow Hats and the Red/Black Hats and he is on record as supporting the Chinese Karmapa reincarnated candidate over the other Tibetan candidate - this alone has caused further divisions in both Tibet and India. The CIA certainly played a role, and probably still very much do so in mixing up trouble.

I think part of the "why" is what I wrote above aka:
Reading the statements of Ghandi wich are quite shocking when you have that widely exepted image of him and for what he stands for in mind.

What one gets at, is a rather stratling disconnect to the image of Ghandi, that one has in his mind, and then what he actually wrote...
So I think it is only natural to find that a bit odd and strange and then question him and who he really was.

But as said I have not studied the subject, so there could be a lot of things I am missing here...

In thinking about this, it brings to mind the "Hitler" thread and that series of videos. As much as this time period was studied with tons of data, it is asking people to reject the data as being false, and clearly it is not all false. People on both sides of that war do not have clean hands, and horrors were committed by their ideologies and means.

 

[Mal7]

As for the DL, there is division between the Yellow Hats and the Red/Black Hats and he is on record as supporting the Chinese Karmapa reincarnated candidate over the other Tibetan candidate - this alone has caused further divisions in both Tibet and India.

Yellow Hat is another name for the Gelukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. This is the largest school, the Dalai Lama is the head of it.
Red Hat is another name for the other three main schools: Nyingma, Sakya, and Karma Kagyu. The Black Hats are also Karma Kagyu.
Although there are points of issue between the schools, many lamas train in studying the teachings of some or all of the schools. In the 19th century, Jamgon Kungtrul (1813-1899) was prominent in starting the non-sectarian Rime movement (_https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rime_movement).

There is a wikipedia page about the Karmapa controversy here:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karmapa_controversy#Split_recognition_of_the_current_Karmapa

Both candidates are Tibetan, and both have left Tibet to live in India. Ogyen Trinley Dorje has recognized as the current Karmapa Lama by a majority of Karma Kagyu lamas, and by the Dalai Lama, and also by the Chinese Governement. I don't think this makes him the Chinese candidate (he would still be the Karmapa Lama as recognized by the Karma Kagyu lamas even if the Chinese Government hadn't taken a position on the issue.)

Another case, that of the Panchen Lama, is an example of one where the Chinese did appoint there own candidate. The Panchen Lama has been thought of as the second highest lama position after the Dalai Lama. The Panchen Lama was the head of the large Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, the second largest town in Tibet after Lhasa. In 1995, the Dalai Lama announced the recognition of the reincarnation of the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was six years old at the time. The boy and his family were then taken from his home by the Chinese security services and to this day their whereabouts are unknown. The Chinese Government then selected their own candidate to be the 11th Panchen Lama.
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_Panchen_Lama_controversy
_http://tibet.net/2013/04/25/panchen-lama-turns-24-clamour-grows-for-his-release/

In 2011 the Chinese Government, which officially is not supposed to believe in reincarnation, made a law banning the Dalai Lama from reincarnating outside of Tibet :) :
_http://isikkim.com/6-china-bans-reincarnation-of-7-lama-43/

According to the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month will stipulate the procedure by which one is to reincarnate. It is being dubbed, an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.

 

[Buddy]

What one gets at, is a rather stratling disconnect to the image of Ghandi, that one has in his mind, and then what he actually wrote...
So I think it is only natural to find that a bit odd and strange and then question him and who he really was.

Sounds like maybe you were shocked that a "sacred cow" was called into question? That's something we should be doing all the time anyway, I suspect. But if the end to such questioning is a polarized view, then are we finished? What about an observer and his assumptions - even his sometimes shifting answers to what is a moral action? What about Third Force or a broader context that unifies polarized views and mediates bouncing back and forth between them?

This same issue, but dealing with a slightly different question, was tackled in a rhetoric debate between Marshall, Texas' Wiley College and Harvard College.

Here is my paraphrased partial transcript:

Resolved: Civil Disobedience is a moral weapon in the fight for justice. [Wiley College argues the affirmative position and starts the debate]:

...But how can civil disobedience ever be moral? Well, I guess that depends on one's definition of the word.

In 1919 in India, ten thousand people gathered in Amritsar to protest the tyranny of British rule. General Dyer trapped them in a courtyard and ordered his troops to fire into the crowd for ten minutes. 379 died. Men, women and children shot down in cold blood.

Dyer said he taught them a moral lesson.

Gandhi and his followers responded, not with violence, but with an organized campaign of non-cooperation. Government buildings were occupied, streets were blocked by people who refused to rise, even when beaten by police. Gandhi was arrested. But the British were soon forced to release him.

Gandhi called that a moral victory.

So what's the definition of 'moral'? Dyer's lesson or Gandhi's victory?

The moral grounding of an option to 'fight' or to 'resist' may even be defined explicitly, yet lead to completely opposite outcomes depending on an observer's orientation due to the assumptions involved concerning 'what is right'. I imagine the same principle of reversal can be applied to anything Gandhi or anyone else says.

And let's not forget that the idea of "civil disobedience' didn't come from a Hindu scripture anyway. It came from Henry David Thoreau, a Harvard graduate. Perhaps the irony of that unseemly commentary about Gandhi would be more visible if it came from Americans?

 

[Mal7]

And let's not forget that the idea of "civil disobedience' didn't come from a Hindu scripture anyway. It came from Henry David Thoreau, a Harvard graduate. Perhaps the irony of that unseemly commentary about Gandhi would be more visible if it came from Americans?

Some of the British philosopher William Godwin’s (1756-1836) ideas also fit well with the idea of civil disobedience. Godwin is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Anarchism".

Godwin’s criticism of law is one of the most trenchant put forward by an anarchist. Where liberals and socialists maintain that law is necessary to protect freedom, Godwin sees them as mutually incompatible principles. All man-made laws are by their very nature arbitrary and oppressive. They represent not, as their advocates claim, the wisdom of ancestors but rather the ‘venal compact’ of ‘superior tyrants’, primarily enacted to defend economic inequality and unjust political power. There is no maxim clearer than this, ‘Every case is a rule to itself,’ and yet, like the bed of Procrustes, laws try to reduce the multiple actions of people to one universal standard. Once begun laws inevitably multiply; they become increasingly confusing and ambiguous and encourage their practitioners to be perpetually dishonest and tyrannical. ‘Turn me a prey to the wild beasts of the desert’, Godwin’s hero in his novel Caleb Williams exclaims, ‘so I be never again the victim of a man dressed in the gore-dripping robes of authority!’

With his rejection of government and laws, Godwin condemns any form of obedience to authority other than ‘the dictate of the understanding’. The worst form of obedience for Godwin occurs however not when we obey out of consideration of a penalty (as for instance when we are threatened by a wild animal) but when we place too much confidence in the superior knowledge of others (even in building a house). Bakunin recognized the latter as the only legitimate form of authority, but Godwin sees it as the most pernicious since it can easily make us dependent, weaken our understanding, and encourage us to revere experts.

- from Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall. Second edition, 2008. pages 207-208.

 

[Mal7]

And let's not forget that the idea of "civil disobedience' didn't come from a Hindu scripture anyway. It came from Henry David Thoreau, a Harvard graduate. Perhaps the irony of that unseemly commentary about Gandhi would be more visible if it came from Americans?

Emerson, Thoreau, and the American Transcendentalists were themselves influenced by Indian and other eastern religious thought.

Comparable mixtures colored the complex mélange of Transcendentalism in the United States, where Swedenborg, along with Plato and Plotinus, mixed with German Romanticism and recollections of the Lake School. Emerson was familiar with translations of Sanskrit, Persian, and Pali texts; his attested reading between 1836 and 1861 includes English versions of Anquetil’s Zend Avesta, the Rig Veda, the Shah Namah, and the Upanishads, and the Bibliotheca Indica of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, in addition to several histories of India, its literature, and its doctrines.

Neither for Emerson, born in the New England of whalers and traders in opium and tea, nor for Thoreau, is it fair to assume, according to William Leonard Schwartz, that European Romanticism directed the thinking of an entire generation exclusively to the Near East. Both Emerson and Thoreau had been steeped in Buddhism. It is true that for a significant group Transcendentalism was, on the whole, the American form of Romanticism; what had come from Germany, up to the time of the Homeric scholar Wolf, had brought between 1817 and 1824 by three of the men who founded the Transcendental Club in 1836. ‘Transcendentalism’, Emerson wrote, ‘is God communicating himself to man,’ a definition in which one can see how a word which jars so completely with Indic spirituality could have been compared to it by the heirs of Pietism. Neo-platonism, idealism, quietism, a religion of inner meaning, inundated the new continent in the wake of Schleiermacher, Herder, and Schelling (undoubtedly through Coleridge as well).
[. . .]
In Emerson’s Journals there are numerous references to Zoroaster, Confucious, and the Vedas, and to the Sybils and the Hindus, who provided new keys to the secret of the spirity. On October 27, 1845 Emerson wrote in his journal: ‘Trace these colossal conceptions of Buddhism and of Vedantism home, and they are always the necessary or structural action of the human mind.’ And on October 1, 1848: ‘I owed . . . a magnificent day to the Bhagavat Geeta. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spake to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us. Let us not now go back and apply a minute criticism to it, but cherish the venerable oracle.’ It is no accident that Thoreau left his friend Emerson his collection of oriental books. Today the reader of Emerson’s essays is struck by their fusion, to all appearances completely natural, of Indic pantheism and laicized gospel morality.

- from The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Rediscovery of India and the East 1680-1880. by Raymond Schwab. NY: Columbia University Press, 1984. pages 200-201.

c.f. Thoreau in Walden:

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water-jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.

Gandhi spent two years studying Law at University College, London. Maybe Gandhi picked up some ideas about civil disobedience from or via Thoreau during this time?