Mahatma Gandhi

and Buddha's Path to Enlightenment

 ISBN 978-0-979-3205-9-0

by Raghavan Iyer

 Available at Amazon.com
  in both Ebook edition and print version.

 

Studentsof Professor Raghavan Iyer - and there are many thousands scattered around theworld - will need no further explanation regarding his HERMES essays onMahatma Gandhi's thought and life other than noting that all of thoseremarkable essays are gathered together here in one place for the first time,along with his HERMES essays on Buddha and the Path to Enlightenment.As far we understand his intent, these articles were never meant to be anexhaustive explication of the thought of Gandhi, in the way in which it istreated in his revolutionary work, The Moral and Political Thought ofMahatma Gandhi (MPTMG). Rather, the articles were meant to clarifythe central concepts and ideals in Gandhi's thought and to deepen theunderstanding of students of Gandhi and the wider public about those concepts,which are the titles of the core articles in this work: Truth andNon-Violence, Gandhian Socialism; Non-Violent Resistance andSocial Transformation: Satyagraha, Swaraj and Sarvodaya; GandhianTrusteeship in Theory and Practice; Buddhi Yoga and Svadharma; Civilization,Politics and Religion; Sat and Sattva; Truth; Love;and The Seven Deadly Sins.

Asthe quotation near the front of this book makes clear, Mahatma Gandhi conducteda good deal of his adult life - his "experiments with truth" - verymuch in the tradition and the manner of Gautama Buddha. Gandhi took thefoundation of Buddha's revelation - his First Noble Truth, that life is fraughtwith pain and suffering, from birth to death - and turned it inward in a uniqueand deeply creative manner. In his article, The Gandhian Bridge BetweenHeaven and Earth (in HERMES, January 1988) Prof. Iyer makes clear whatshould be an obvious connection to the student of Gandhi's life and thought,but is - remarkably - hardly noticed by many chroniclers of Gandhi. Even to thediligent student of Gandhi, this connection is difficult to grasp, as it isfrequently understood only in an external sense. One can readily grasp thatlife brings suffering to every incarnated being, but it requires a profoundrevolution in consciousness to understand the necessity to actively choosesuffering as a means of self-purification and the means by which an"enemy" might be purged of enmity, opposition, and violence.

Sri Raghavan Iyer earned first-class honors inPhilosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, a doctorate inPhilosophy, and then was selected to be an Oxford Don in philosophy andpolitics. He lectured throughout Europe and also in Africa, and his extensivewritings have been published by Oxford University Press and Concord Grove Press.


 

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