Abstract
This chapter focuses on the core message of the Gı̄tā, as interpreted by Gandhi and the practical lessons in life and leadership that Gandhi drew from his lifelong study of this timeless spiritual classic. It traces the influence of the Gı̄tā in the fashioning of Gandhi as a servant leader. It demonstrates why the Gı̄tā exercised such a singular hold on Gandhi’s mind and heart. The Gı̄tā was a spiritual reference book for Gandhi. He studied it all his life; he lived, worked, and died according to the spirit of the Gı̄tā. It is well known that Gandhi modeled his life upon the teachings of the Gı̄tā and “constantly referred to it as his ‘spiritual dictionary,’ ‘the mother who never let him down,’ or his ‘kāmdhenū,’ ‘the cow that grants all wishes’.” The Gı̄tā played a pivotal role in guiding, shaping, and solidifying his beliefs and actions.
Gandhi’s firm and sustained belief in spiritual freedom (mokṣa) and self-realization was almost entirely shaped by the teachings of the Gı̄tā. As Gandhi himself tells us in his autobiography and other writings, the Gı̄tā’s emphasis on self-realization and selfless service were the primary sources of inspiration for his life and leadership. This chapter will also examine the question of whether the Gı̄tā advocates war, especially in the light of Gandhi’s interpretation of the Gı̄tā and the epic of the Mahābhārata.
Partially based on the author’s previously published book, Gandhi and Leadership: New Horizons in Exemplary Leadership, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY – September 2015.
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- 1.
M. K. Gandhi, Young India (1925), 1078–1079.
- 2.
See: Ramesh S. Betai, Gītā and Gandhi (New Delhi, India: Gyan Publishing House/National Gandhi Museum, 2002).
- 3.
J. T. F. Jordens, Gandhi and the Bhagavadgita. In Robert Neil Minor (Ed.), Modern Indian Interpreters of the Bhagavad Gītā (New York, NY: State University of New York Press), 88. See: M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1983), 59, 60, 232, 233, 296–297.
- 4.
Mokṣa is a Sanskrit term for liberation, which means freedom from the servitude of sensual pleasures and equanimity toward favorable and unfavorable circumstances while living, and, ultimately, liberation from the conditioned existence—the cycles of birth and death.
- 5.
Gandhi, An Autobiography, viii.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
According to a well-known Indian dictum, “Scriptures do not cleanse the ethically unworthy.”
- 8.
Gandhi, An Autobiography, viii.
- 9.
A. Parthasarathy cited in Dennis Waite, Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita (Winchester, UK: John Hunt Publishing, 2007), 519.
- 10.
Gandhi, An Autobiography, 302.
- 11.
According to the Bible, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (verse 33, King James Version).
- 12.
Gandhi, An Autobiography, 454.
- 13.
Joanne B. Ciulla (Ed.), Ethics, The Heart of Leadership (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004, Second edition), xv.
- 14.
Harry M. Jansen Kraemer, Jr., From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based Leadership (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, April 2011). See also: James O’Toole, Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 2008, 1 (1), 4, Article 10.
- 15.
Swāmī Paramārthānanda, “The Spiritual Journey: Guru Purnima Talk 2008.” Retrieved October 5, 2014: http://www.vedanta.gr/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SwParam_GP2008_Spiritual-Journey_ENA4.pdf
Also see: Swāmī Paramārthānanda, General Talks: Understanding Anger.
- 16.
Young India, September 15, 1920, 6.
- 17.
Arun Gandhi & Bethany Hegedus, Grandfather Gandhi (New York, NY: Antheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012), 32–33.
- 18.
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (New York, NY: A Touchstone Book, 1984, Third edition), 116.
- 19.
See note 2 above.
- 20.
M. K. Gandhi, Young India (1925), 1078–1079. Cited in S. Radhākrishnan, The Bhagavad Gītā: With an Introductory Essay, Sanskrit Text, English Translation, and Notes (London, UK: George Allen and Unwin, 1958), 10.
- 21.
Y. P. Anand as cited in Ramesh S. Betai, Gītā and Gandhi (New Delhi, India: Gyan Publishing House/National Gandhi Museum, 2002), xi. Dr. Y. P. Anand has done a wonderful job of bringing together all of Gandhi’s works on the Gītā and its interpretation in a two-volume set. See: Y. P. Anand, Mahatma Gandhi’s Works and Interpretation of the Bhagavad Gītā (New Delhi, India: Radha Publications, 2009).
- 22.
Gandhi, An Autobiography, 59.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Eknath Easwaran, Gandhi the Man: The Story of His Transformation (Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1997), 107.
- 25.
Gandhi, An Autobiography, 233.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Conversations with Sriman Narayan Desai , unpublished interview transcripts. Narayan Desai , son of Mahatma Gandhi’s personal secretary and biographer, Mahadev Desai , lived with Gandhi for 21 years since he was about one-year old. His magnum opus, My Life Is My Message , is the English translation of the epic four-volume biography in Gujarati, Maru Jivan Ej Mari Vani , and is hailed as one of the finest insights into the life of Gandhi. It brings alive Gandhi’s several quests as one indivisible whole, in which the political is not outside the realm of the spiritual. The interviews with Narayan Desai took place in 2013 in Ahmedabad at his sister’s house where he was staying at the time. Sriman Narayan Desai informed this author that for the last 68 years, he has studied and taught only one topic: Gandhi!
- 30.
M. K. Gandhi in John Strohmeier (Ed.), The Bhagavad Gītā According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 2000), 16.
- 31.
Ibid., 14.
- 32.
Michael N. Nagler, Gītā Theory of Action. Retrieved: August 8, 2014: http://mettacenter.org/definitions/gloss-concepts/Gītā-theory-of-action/
- 33.
P. Nagaraja Rao, Introduction to Vedanta (Bombay, India: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966), 102.
- 34.
Eknath Easwaran , trans., The Upanishads, Translated for the Modern Reader (Berkeley, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1987), 205. Gandhi was referring to the first verse of Iśā Upaniṣad here. He regarded it so highly that he is reported to have said that it contained the essence of Hinduism: “If all the Upanishads and all the other scriptures happened all of a sudden to be reduced to ashes, and if only the first verse in the Iśā Upaniṣad were left in the memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live forever.”Verse
Verse īśāvāsyamidaṃsarvaṃyatkiñcajagatyāṃjagat / tenatyaktenabhuñjīthāmāgṛdhaḥkasyasviddhanam // [Enveloped by the Lord must be This All—each thing that moves on earth. With that renounced enjoy thyself. Covet no wealth of any man.]
- 35.
Al Gini, Moral leadership and business ethics. In Ciulla (Ed.), Ethics, The Heart of Leadership, 36.
- 36.
See: Russia court declares Hindu book Bhagavad Gītā legal. BBC News. December 28, 2011. Retrieved March 27, 2017: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-16344615
- 37.
यद् भूतहितं अत्यन्तं, ऐतद सत्यस्य लक्षणं yad
aitad satyasya 
Mahābhārata: Shanti Parva, Mokṣa Dharma, chapter 248, s´loka 16. - 38.
M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1983), 233.
- 39.
For a balanced discussion on this topic, see Jeffery D. Long’s fine essay, War and Non-violence in the Bhagavadgita, Prabuddha Bharata, October 2009. Retrieved March 27, 2017: http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/War-and-Non-violence-in-the-Bhagavadgita-1.aspx
- 40.
BG 2.18.
- 41.
Alladi Mahadeva Sastry, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā with the commentary of Sri Shankaracharya,</Emphasis> 497.
- 42.
Franklin Edgerton, The Bhagavad Gītā (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1964), 185.
- 43.
Ibid., 185–186.
- 44.
The change of vision is effected by gaining the Self-knowledge or the knowledge of the Absolute Reality. See BG 4.35:Verse
Verse yajjñātvā na punarmohamevaṁ yāsyasi pāṇḍava / yena bhūtānyaśeṣeṇa drakṣyasyātmanyatho mayi //
Verse
Verse Arjuna, gaining this [Self] knowledge, you will not be deluded again. By this knowledge, you will see all beings in your Self and in Me.
- 45.
M. K. Gandhi in John Strohmeier (Ed.), The Bhagavad Gītā According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books), 16.
- 46.
Ronald Duncan (Ed.), Selected Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (New York, NY: Beacon Press, 1951), 46.
- 47.
M. K. Gandhi in John Strohmeier (Ed.), The Bhagavad Gītā According to Gandhi, 16.
- 48.
Mahadev Desai, trans., The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gītā According to Gandhi (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1956), 135. As stated earlier, Gandhi views the setting of the Gītā in a battlefield as an allegory for the moral struggles of the human life. The Bhagavad Gītā’s call for selfless action inspired many leaders of the Indian independence movement including Mahatma Gandhi.
- 49.
The Diary of Mahadev Desai, 172 [Cited in Anand T. Hingorani (Ed.), Gandhi for 21st Century: The Teachings of the Gītā (Mumbai, India: Bharitya Vidya Bhavan, 1998), 9.].
- 50.
Cited in Hingorani, Gandhi for 21st Century, 10.
- 51.
Ibid., 19.
- 52.
This introduction was written in 1929 to accompany Gandhi’s Gujarati translation of the Bhagavad Gītā. He later translated the essay into English and published it in 1931 in the pages of his periodical, Young India, under the title Anāskatiyoga: The Gospel of Selfless Action [Strohmeier (Ed.), The Bhagavad Gītā According to Gandhi, 14].
- 53.
Strohmeier (Ed.), The Bhagavad Gītā According to Gandhi, 18.
- 54.
Ibid.
- 55.
Ibid., 21.
- 56.
Ibid., 23.
- 57.
Eknath Easwaran, cited in Louis Fischer (Ed.), The Essential Gandhi (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2002), xvi.
- 58.
Ibid., xvi.
- 59.
Adapted from Eknath Easwaran, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā (New York, NY: Vintage Spiritual Classics, 2000), 67–69; Franklin Edgerton, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā (New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1964), 15–17; Dhiman, Sahaja-Gītā: The Essential Gītā, 36–39; See also, Strohmeier (Ed.), The Bhagavad Gītā According to Gandhi; Hingorani, Gandhi for 21st Century. Also see, Betai, Gītā and Gandhi.
- 60.
Easwaran, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā, 59.
- 61.
Vihari-Lala Mitra, trans., Vālmīki’s Yoga-vāsiṣṭha-mahārāmāyaṇa. Online edition, Retrieved February 10, 2015: http://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/yoga-vasistha-volume-2-part-ii/d/doc118202.html
- 62.
Easwaran, cited in Fischer, The Essential Gandhi, xvii [author’s adaptation].
- 63.
Ibid., xvii.
- 64.
P. H. Burgess, Sayings of Mahatma Gandhi (Singapore: Graham Brash, 1984), 47.
- 65.
J. B. Kriplani, Gandhi: His Life and Thought (New Delhi, India: Publications Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India, 1970), 8.
- 66.
Lin Yutang, The Wisdom of Lao Tzu (New York, NY: Random House, Modern Library, 1948/1976), 292.
- 67.
Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York, NY: Penguin New Directions Books, 1965), 114–115.
- 68.
“The Greatest Music Leaders.” Retrieved July 20, 2018: http://www.greatmusicleaders.org/home/johann-sebastian-bach
- 69.
R. K. Prabhu & U. R. Rao (Ed.), The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1996), 13–14.
- 70.
M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1983), 454.
- 71.
J. B. Severance, Gandhi: Great Soul (New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1997), 100.
- 72.
J. H. Bridgeman (Ed.), Aldous Huxley: Huxley and God, Essays (New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 4.
- 73.
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), 22.
- 74.
Ryan Lizza, Leading from Behind, New Yorker, April 26, 2011. Retrieved July 21, 2018: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/leading-from-behind
- 75.
A Traditional Sufi Tale. Author unknown.
- 76.
R. A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality (New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 2009), 171.
- 77.
Jeanine Prime & Elizabeth Salib, The best leaders are humble leaders. Harvard Business Review, May 2014. Retrieved July 22, 2018: https://hbr.org/2014/05/the-best-leaders-are-humble-leaders
- 78.
James O’Toole, Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 2008, 1 (1), 4, Article 10.
- 79.
Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2009, Fourth edition), xxxvii.
- 80.
Guru: Warren Bennis. The Economist, July 25, 2008, Online extra. Retrieved: July 22, 2018: http://www.economist.com/node/11773801
- 81.
This quote is often misattributed to C.S. Lewis. According to the C.S. Lewis Foundation, this quote belongs to the category of misattributed quotes and is NOT by C.S. Lewis. See: http://www.cslewis.org/aboutus/faq/quotes-misattributed/
- 82.
Eknath Easwaran, cited in Louis Fischer (Ed.), The Essential Gandhi (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2002), xvi.
- 83.
M. K. Gandhi, Selected Works, vol. VI (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1968), 153; 176.
aitad satyasya 
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Dhiman, S. (2019). Be the Change: The Making of a Servant Leader. In: Bhagavad Gītā and Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67573-2_10
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