Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One With the Universal Being

MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI.
In connection with the present essay I wish to tender my affectionate thanks to my faithful collaborator, my sister, and to my friend, Kalidas Nag, whose deep knowledge and indefatigable kindness have guided my steps through the forest of Indian thought.
I also wish to thank the publisher, S. Ganesan of Madras, for having placed, spontaneously, his publications at my disposal.
The literal translation of Mahatma, the name which the people of India gave to Gandhi, is the great Soul, maha , great; atma , soul. The word goes back to the Upanishads, where it is used in speaking of the Supreme Being, and, through communion of Knowledge and Love, of those who become One with Him:
He is the One Luminous, Creator of All, Mahatma, Always in the hearts of the people enshrined. Revealed through Love, Intuition, and Thought, Whoever knows Him, Immortal becomes....
Tagore, on a visit to Ashram, Gandhi's favorite retreat, quoted this stanza, referring to the Apostle.
This is the man who has stirred three hundred million people to revolt, who has shaken the foundations of the British Empire, and who has introduced into human politics the strongest religious impetus of the last two thousand years.
He returned to India in 1891, a rather sad home-coming, for his mother had just died, and the news of her death had been withheld from him. Soon afterward he began practicing law at the Supreme Court of Bombay. He abandoned this career a few years later, having come to look upon it as immoral. But even while practicing law he used to make a point of reserving the right to abandon a case if he had reason to believe it unjust.
Gandhi's activity may be divided into two periods. From 1898 to 1914 its field was South Africa; from 1914 to 1922, India.
That Gandhi could carry on the South-African campaign for more than twenty years without awakening any special comment in Europe is a proof of the incredible short-sightedness of our political leaders, historians, thinkers, and believers, for Gandhi's efforts constituted a soul's epopee, unequaled in our times, not only because of the intensity and the constancy of the sacrifice required, but because of the final triumph.