[Vision2020] Sexual Revelations about Gandhi Blown out of Proportion

[Paul Rumelhart]

In my personal opinion, his sexual proclivities or lack thereof are irrelevant.  
His views on and actions relating to nonviolence and civil disobedience are 
still to be cherished regardless of who he slept with or didn't sleep with.  I 
don't know about others, but Gandhi has never been high on my list of people to 
look towards for examples of how I want to live my sex life.  I'm hard pressed 
to decide who I should look towards as an example, but I'm sure that Gandhi is 
not it.  


Paul




----- Original Message ----
From: "nickgier at roadrunner.com" <nickgier at roadrunner.com>
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Wed, March 30, 2011 9:43:21 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Sexual Revelations about Gandhi Blown out of Proportion

WAS GANDHI A TANTRIC?

By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho

It is now widely known that Gandhi shared his bed with young women as part of 
his experiments in brahmacharya, a Sanskrit word usually translated as 
"celibacy," but generally understood as the ultimate state of yogic 
self-control. 


Gandhi believed that Indian ascetics who sought refuge in forests and mountains 
were cowards, and he was convinced that the only way to conquer sexual desire 
was to face the temptation head-on with a naked female in his bed.

I take Gandhi at his word that he did not have carnal relations with these 
women—his sleeping quarters were open to all to observe—so he was not among the 
"left-handed" Tantrics who engage in ritual sex with their yoginis. Tantrics 
believe that, under the guidance of a guru and tightly controlled parameters, 
people can gain spiritual liberation by means of sexual intercourse. 


Gandhi was not a "right-handed" Tantric either, because this school views the 
male-female dynamic in symbolic terms only and proscribes intimate contact with 
women. 


For Gandhi the virtues of patience, self-control, and courage were absolutely 
essential to defeat the temptation to retaliate and respond with violence.  
Gandhi made it clear that each of these virtues were found most often in women. 
Gandhi once said that he wanted to convert the woman=s capacity for 
"self-sacrifice and suffering into shakti-power." Shakti, the power of the Hindu 
Goddess, is at the center of Tantric ritual and worship.

The women around Gandhi were amazed how comfortable they felt in his presence.  
His orphaned grandniece Manu considered Gandhi as her new mother, and she simply 
could not understand all the controversy surrounding their sleeping together.  
The fact that women felt no unease in his presence was proof to Gandhi that he 
was approaching perfection as a brahmachari.

Of the 16 women closely associated with Gandhi, nine were said to have slept in 
his bed.  Most accounts of Gandhi’s sexual experiments focus on those with Manu 
in 1946-47.

Although he conceded at the time that it “may be a delusion and a snare,” he was 
still confident that sleeping with Manu was a “bold and original experiment,” 
one that required a “practiced brahmachari” such as he was, and a woman such as 
Manu who was free from passion. Confessing as she might not even have done with 
her own mother, Manu told Gandhi that she had not ever experienced sexual 
desire.

Presumably because of these ideal conditions, Gandhi predicted that the “heat 
would be great.” It is not clear whether Gandhi was speaking of yogic heat or 
the heat of the negative reactions that he anticipated. 


One has to admire Manu because it was she, not Gandhi, who suggested that they 
not sleep together any longer.  One cannot admire Gandhi when he said that the 
experiments ceased because of Manu’s “inexperience,” not because of any failing 
on his part.

Gandhi’s "sacred" experiments actually started at his Sevagram ashram as early 
as 1938, when his wife Kasturba was still alive.  Sushila Nayar not only slept 
with him there, but also gave him regular massages in front of visitors. 


Sushila explains: "Long before Manu came into the picture, I used to sleep with 
him just as I would with my mother. . . . In the early days there was no 
question of calling this a brahmacharya experiment. It was just part of a nature 
cure."

The fact that Gandhi changed the justification for these experiments after 
closer public scrutiny suggests that his motivation for these actions may not 
have been as pure as he wanted people to assume.

In an extremely candid confession, Gandhi admits that at Sevagram he had made a 
grave mistake: "I feel my action was impelled by vanity and jealousy. If my 
experiment was dangerous, I should not have undertaken it. . . . My experiment 
was a violation of the establishment norms of brahmacharya." Gandhi, however, 
did not maintain his resolve, because shortly thereafter intimate contact with 
women of the ashram resumed. 


There is evidence that these activities were having a deleterious effect on the 
women’s mental health.  There was intense competition among the women for 
Gandhi’s attention, and several visitors attested to definite signs of 
psychological turmoil among them.

Swami Ananda and Kedar Nath, two visitors with substantial spiritual 
credentials, queried Gandhi as follows: “Why do we find so much disquiet and 
unhappiness around you.  Why are your companions emotionally unhinged?”

In conclusion, if we can call Gandhi a Tantric, then it is a very unique 
nonritualistic, nonesoteric practice combing aspects of both left- and 
right-handed Tantric schools. 


It also must be said, no matter how much we want to hold Gandhi in the highest 
esteem, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Gandhi was 
inconsistent in his justifications for his sexual experiments and not completely 
sincere in carrying them out. 


This would then lead one to question whether these experiments were a spiritual 
necessity or simply a personal indulgence and abuse of power.  If the goal of 
the true Tantric is to transform sexual desire into something sacred, then 
personally I am less and less certain that Gandhi achieved this goal.