MAHATMA GANDHI MEMORIAL MEETING

 On February 10th, 1948, a few days after the martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi, a Memorial Meeting was held at the Indian Institute of Culture under the chairmanship of Rajadharmaprasakta Shri T. Singaravelu Mudaliar. Prof. N. A. Nikam, Prof. Marcus Ward, Shri K. Habibullah Khan and Shri D. V. Gundappa spoke on the occasion and a Condolence Resolution was passed by the 300 to 400 people present on behalf of the public of Bangalore.

 The message sent by Shri B. P. Wadia was read by Dr. L. Dorasami, the Honorary Secretary of the Indian Institute of Culture:

 'The world is mourning the passing of Gandhiji. But those who hold the cause of Culture dear, and especially those who assign the highest place to Soul-culture, have greater reason to bemoan the event of the tragic passing.

 “It is but meet that the Indian Institute of Culture should gather the public to reflect upon the death of India's great Leader. In his person and through his labours Gandhiji has shown what India's mission is, for the fulfillment of which she should prepare herself.

 “In his religion Gandhiji was a true mystic who used the findings alike of ancient Sages and modern teachers. Therefore, as a Hindu, he elevated the status of Hinduism by his interpretations born of soul-striving. He has been able to free Hinduism, to a very great extent, from the sin of untouchability as well as from other superstitions. Also because of soul-striving he gave a turn, unique in history, to the country's active politics. Making his politics subservient to his religion-one the body, the other the soul-he demonstrated what India could become, how she could fulfill her mission to humanity.

 “How did Gandhiji achieve this? By rising to the universal level in every sphere of life. His political patriotism made a him a citizen of the World. His socio-economic outlook made him a trustee of all earnings of all labor. His religious fervor made him a lover of all his fellow-men. He reverenced the whole of Nature-visible and invisible.

 “He was able to rise to the universal status by seeking the noblest in East and West alike. He emerged triumphant from the prevailing conditions in which the educated countrymen of his generation were drowned. Their attitude falsely regarded modern civilization as immensely superior. Conversely they undervalued the ancient and honorable culture of the East. The book which inspired him, guided him and illumined the dark hours of private striving or public endeavor was the Bhagavad-Gita—the Scripture of India and of Hinduism. This Hindu Son of the Great Mother was at first ignorant of the Wisdom of the Song of True Living. He says in his autobiography, called The Story of My Experiments with Truth:

 Towards the end of my second year in England I came across two Theosophists, brothers and both unmarried. They talked to me about the Gita. They were reading Sir Edwin Arnold's translation - The Song Celestial—and they invited me to read the original with them. I felt ashamed, as I had read the divine Poem neither in Sanskrit nor in Gujarati. I was constrained to tell them that I had not read the Gila but that I would gladly read it with them, and that though my knowledge of Sanskrit was meager, still I hoped to be able to understand the original to the extent of telling where the translation failed to bring out the meaning. I began reading the Gila with them.

 I recall having read, at the brothers' instance, Madame Blavatsky's Key to Theosophy. This book stimulated in me the desire to read books on Hinduism, and disabused me of the notion fostered by the mission. ariestbat Hinduism was rife with superstition.

 'Gandhiji assimilated the ever-young and ever-living instruction of the marvelous book of devotion for the purposes of daily life and labor. But three other books enlightened him to sing his own song of saint-life; they were by great Occidental Reformers-Tolstoy, Ruskin and Thoreau. Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Ruskin's Unto "This Last and Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.

 "Thus the best of East and West mingled in his blood. In his hidden heart awoke the Power of Love which moves to Righteousness. He embodied India as she should be; his message when it flowers will be the Message of India to the World.

 Our immediate task is dual: first, to destroy the curse of religious sectarianism in our own person. Each one of us must throw out the corrupting influence of creed and caste, of race and religion. From the irreligion in which separated communities are now imprisoned we must free ourselves and become truly religious. Also, we must help the Government of the day, which is our own native one, to sweep out of existence all sectarian associations, all caste organizations, all communal societies, so that India one and indivisible, united and whole, may arise.

 "May the Power of Death which regenerates bring to each one of us and to the Nation as a whole the Peace of Wisdom and the Light of Love to go forward with courage to India's divinely destined goal, for the realization of which Gandhiji sacrificed in life as in death."

 CONDOLENCE RESOLUTION

 This meeting of the public of Bangalore, held under the auspices of the Indian Institute of Culture, expresses its profound grief and sense of incalculable loss, suffered by India in common with the whole world, at the passing of Mahatma Gandhi, the most authentic voice in our time of the rich moral and spiritual culture of this ancient land, and the noblest exponent of the message of universal humanism. The meeting feels no doubt that the world will ever cherish his inspiring memory with gratitude in its heart, and translate his great teachings into terms of pure dharma in individual and social life, and of fellow-feeling in inter-class, inter communal, interracial and international relationships.

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