Thomas Merton And Mahatma Gandhi Essay, Research Paper

Thomas Merton and Mahatma Gandhi both speak of God in a personal way. They both

speak of God as truth. Famous Thomas Merton, Trappist American monk, was a

traditional Christian. Born in France in 1915 and died in Asia in 1968 Merton

was greatly influenced by the complexities of the twentieth century. His

writings served as a personal may in his search for God.. He pursued the

ascending path towards the eternal kingdom of truth, towards heaven, while

leaving the world of shadowy existence behind. Truth would be a passion of his

life. He also took it upon himself to speak on behalf of the disenfranchised of

the word. Thomas Merton was a dynamic, modern man who committed himself to a

lifelong search for a meaningful and authentic way of life. He had only one

desire and that was the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be

submerged in his peace, to be lost in the secret of his face. This singular

passion and boundless energy led him to combine in one life a unique variety of

roles, prolific spiritual writer and poet, monk and hermit, social activist, all

while living at the Trappist monastery in Gethsemani, Kentucky. Merton, a monk

under a vow of silence, found fame by not seeking it, by speaking the truth.

Much can be said with the praise ?the truth will set your free? Merton

provided a path that is still setting people free. Freedom from silence. Many

feel that a monastery is a sanctuary to escape from the realities of the real

world. Merton saw it as helping rescue the world from the new dark ages. ?In

the night of our technological barbarism, monks must be as trees which exist

silently in the dark and by their vital presence purify the air.? Some believe

Merton?s world was the monastery grounds, the whole world was. He believed

that all men and women are to be seen and treated as Christ. Failure to do this,

involves condemnation for disloyalty to the most fundamental of revealed truths.

Encounters with Christ must be followed by the encounters and both must be

experienced with the same love. It?s a love that frees, not a love that wants

to possess or manipulate. The great Indian teacher, Mahatma Gandhi, philosophy

was very similar. Merton loved people, but he also loved nature. He told us to

begin ?by learning how to see and respect the visible creation which mirrors

the glory and the perfection of the invisible God?. Everything that surrounds

us, the trees, the ocean, the waves, the sky, the sun, the birds, it is in all

this that we will find our answers. God is omnipresent; we do not see this

because we are not contemplative. Merton believed a Christian society is one in

which men give their share of labor and intelligence and in return receive their

share of the fruits of the labor, which is seen in the Kingdom of God, a society

centered upon the divine truth and the divine mercy. In such a society the

prophetic role of the monk would be fulfilled, in the sense that his

renunciation of the right of ownership was an affirmation of God?s ownership

of everything and of man?s right to be a possessor only in so far as he was

willing to share with others what he did not need. Merton did not feel impelled

to become involved in political deeds. He believed the monk?s duty was to

cultivate consciousness and awareness however, truth and God demanded he speak

out loudly and often against all forms of war. He stated that the Vietnam war

was an example of Americans seeing their country as the center of the world,

imposing their will, in the name of freedom, on weaker nations that might stand

in their way. It was a needless destruction of human life, a rape of a culture

which could only lead to the death of the spirit of an exhausted people. He saw

men striving to negotiate for peace, and failing because their fear overbalanced

their true good will. ?The root of all war is fear.? He taught that we must

fearlessly love even the men we cannot trust, for the enemy was war itself, and

peace could not be brought about by hatred. ?Peace does not consist in one

man, one party, one nation, crushing and dominating everyone else. Peace exists

where men who have the power to be enemies are, instead, friends by reason of

the sacrifices that they have made in order to meet one another on a higher

level, where the differences between them are no longer a source of conflict. By

such reasoning, Merton brought himself very near to Gandhi?s position on war

as well as that of the struggle for civil rights. He saw nonviolence as not

merely the only just means but also the only practicable one of resisting evil

and injustice. Merton believed the Gandhian teachings on civil disobedience were

of urgent importance to the world and especially to Americians. The Christian

does not need to fight and indeed it is better that he should not fight, for

insofar as he imitates his Lord and Master. His writings on racial justice and

peace were strong and influential. They were changing the thoughts on

Christians. Many people in the private sector and government officials were

upset that an obscure Monk would speak out like this. Fanatics of all stripes

stepped forward with treats against Thomas Merton. It was in the same way,

Gandhi set out to show that the problems of a subjugated India were those of the

conquerors and not of the conquered. Merton?s view of non-violent protests of

US involvement in Vietnam is similar to that of Martin Luther Kings ideas of

non-violence in Civil Rights issues. King said ?The purpose of non-violent

protest, in its deepest and most spiritual dimensions is to awaken the

conscience of the white man to the awful reality of his injustice and of his

sin, so that he will be able to see that the black man problem is really a white

problem: the cancer of injustice is rooted in the heart of the white man

himself. Merton admired Gandhi for preparing for publication a selection of his

sayings on non-violence, and here was perhaps the most striking example in

history of the combination of a spiritual life with the liberal politics which

it irradiated; it was other men?s lack of inner light that made Gandhi?s

achievement seem in the end a failure. Mahatma Gandhi was one of the foremost

political leaders of the 20th century. He dedicated his life to peace. He was

born in 1869 to Hindu parents in India. He learned from his mother and neighbors

the Indian maxim, ?There is nothing higher than Truth?. He also learned that

harmlessness or nonviolence was the highest virtue. In 1888, his family sent him

to London to study law and in 1891 he was admitted to the bar. He moved to

southern Africa and spent 20 years improving the rights of the immigrant

Indians. South Africa abounded in color prejudices, even Gandhi with his

professional standing and British education was often subjected to all kinds of

humiliation against which he revolted and protested only to provoke more insult

and sometimes physical assault. It was then he developed his creed of nonviolent

resistance against injustice, satyagraha, meaning truth and firmness. He was

frequently jailed as a result of the protests that he led, but before he

returned to his homeland, he drastically changed the lives of the Indians living

in South Africa. Returning to India, he witnessed discriminatory legislation

being proposed by the British rulers that would take away the rights of

citizenship from Indians. This continued his nonviolent civil disobedience

movement in order to gain independence from British rule. He hoped that the

rulers would ultimately would realize their mistakes and rectify the wrongs. The

masses took up Gandhi?s call and his movement spread throughout India. He

applied the method of truthfulness and love to organize the people to make them

nonviolent to win their righteous struggle against the British Government.

Gandhi had taken a vow of poverty and lived as the people did, even though he

had a choice, because of this Gandhi became a trusted leader. He became the

international symbol of free India. He believed wholeheartedly that if he was to

serve society, he had to give up his greed for money, hankering pleasures and

lead a life of utter simplicity and self-control and teach others by his own

example. Refusing earthly possessions, he wore a loincloth and shawl like that

of the lowliest Indians and survived on vegetables, fruit juices, and goat?s

milk. He lived a spiritual and abstemious life of prayer, fasting and mediation.

He was quite sensitive to the charms of nature. He wanted to understand nature

as an expression of God and tried to see life in everything breaking down even

the customary distinction between the animate and the inanimate. During the long

struggle for independence, he never wavered in his unshakable belief in

nonviolent protest and religious tolerance. When the Muslim and Hindu countrymen

committed acts of violence, whether against the British or against each other,

he would fast until the fighting ceased. Finally in 1947, India won its freedom,

however to Gandhi?s despair the country was divided into Hindu India and

Muslim Pakistan. Violence broke out and he was disheartened. The feeling that

all he had done was useless because of his countrymen fighting each other over

religion. Nonetheless he plunged himself into helping repair the riot razed

areas and fasted for peace in those places where the fighting continued over

religion until it ceased. However, Gandhi did not celebrate freedom for very

long. He was shot to death by a Hindu fanatic on January 30, 1948 as he was

going to evening prayer. He died with freedom, peace and love within his heart.

He lived a simple life in a world of mounting complexity and practiced

nonviolence in a country that seen brutality on the part of the governing

powers. Religion to Gandhi meant participating in politics, people oriented

politics. Gandhi believed that in order to be truly religious you needed to take

an active part in politics. Religion involves all forms of human life, while at

the same time it provides a moral foundation of human nature and human society.

Human progress can be assured only if the life of an individual, society or

country is based on the fundamental moral principle of truth To Gandhi truth was

God. Politics dedicated to serve the needs of humanity leads inevitably to a

better understanding of Truth. Gandhi believed that everyone should be free to

choose his own religion. ?Religion is a very personal matter. We should try by

living the life according to our lights to share the best with one another, thus

adding to the sum total of human effort to reach God.? The aim of fellowship

should be to help man to become a better Christian. ?God did not bear the

cross only 1900 years ago, but he bears it today, and he dies and is resurrected

from day to day. If would be poor comfort to the world if it had to depend upon

a historical God who died 2000 years ago. Do not them preach the God of history,

but show him as he lives today through you. Thomas Merton had the same

philosophy, ?What we are asked to do people may find God by feeling how he

lives within us. Gandhi was endeavoring to see God through service of humanity,

for he knew that God was neither in heaven, nor down below, but in everyone and

everything. In todays society, competitive economic progress is the root of most

rivalries-greed for possession. When large headlines of cruelty, corruption and

greed are plastered in the news media it usually announces moral chaos, but our

system chooses to overcome the sickness of it. Making excuses by rationalizing

and justifying on the basis of some half-mixed theories of abnormal psychology

and the progress of science and technology. Both Merton and Gandhi tried to make

us realize the discipline in order to improve the quality of our own life. It

was by faith and determination that Gandhi made himself so great and became the

moral leader of millions, and achieved by the methods of truth and love things

which looked like miracles in modern age. He surrounded himself with his

brothers and sisters and lived like they did. Merton surrounded himself with his

community only. Through his prayers and writings he reached the outside world

and showed that God was neither in heaven, nor down below, he is in everyone and

everything. They both realized that the world?s condition made it more

important than ever for the great religions to reach the level of mutual

understanding and mutual enrichment. They publicly made it know that the present

of war is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves. There is in

reality not the slightest logical reason for war. They fought for the abolition

of war and to use a nonviolent means to settle conflicts. Religions are

different roads converging to the same point. Why does it matter that we take

different roads? As long as we all have the same ultimate goal-God. Without

love, especially love of our opponents and enemies, Gandhi and Merton both

insisted that neither profound personal nor social transformation could occur.

It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an

understanding of who he is and who we are. Instead of pushing our enemy down and

trying to climb out by using him as a stepping stone we help ourselves to rise

by extending our hand to help him rise. They both taught us to open our eyes to

the truth and to direct our actions to others that are blinded so they may see

the truth.

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