21. * 'NIRBAL KE BALA RAMA'-(1) :-

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH
by Mohandas K. Gandhi






Though I had acquired a nodding acquaintance with Hinduism and other religions of the world,
I should have known that it would not be enough to save me in my trials. Of the thing that
sustains him through trials man has no inkling, much less knowledge, at the time. If an
unbeliever, he will attribute his safety to chance. If a believer, he will say God saved him. He will
conclude, as well he may, that his religious study or spiritual discipline was at the back of the
state of grace within him. But in the hour of his deliverance he does not know whether his spiritual
discipline or something else saves him. Who that has prided himself on his spiritual strength has
not seen it humbled to the dust? A knowledge of religion, as distinguished from experience,
seems but chaff in such moments of trial.



It was in England that I first discovered the futility of mere religious knowledge. How I was
saved on previous occasions is more than I can say, for I was very young then; but now I was
twenty and had gained some experience as husband and father.



During the last year, as far as I can remember, of my stay in England, that is in 1890, there
was a Vegetarian Conference at Portsmouth to which an Indian friend and I were invited.
Portsmouth is a sea-port with a large naval population. It has many houses with women of ill
fame, women not actually prostitutes, but at the same time not very scrupulous about their
morals. We were put up in one of these houses. Needless to say, the Reception Committee did
not know anything about it. It would have been difficult in a town like Portsmouth to find out which
were good lodgings and which were bad for occasional travellers like us.



We returned from the Conference in the evening. After dinner we sat down to play a rubber of
bridge, in which our landlady joined, as is customary in England even in respectable households.
Every player indulges in innocent jokes as a matter of course, but here my companion and our
hostess began to make indecent ones as well. I did not know that my friend was an adept in the
art. It captured me and I also joined in. Just when I was about to go beyond the limit, leaving the
cards and the game to themselves, God through the good companion uttered the blessed
warning: 'Whence this devil in you, my boy? Be off, quick!'



I was ashamed. I took the warning, and expressed within myself gratefulness to my friend.
Remembering the vow I had taken before my mother, I fled from the scene. To my room I went
quaking, trembling, and with beating heart, like a quarry escaped from its pursuer.
I recall this as the first occasion on which a woman, other than my wife, moved me to lust. I
passed that night sleeplessly, all kinds of thoughts assailing me. Should I leave this house?
Should I run away from the place? Where was I? What would happen to me if I had not my wits
about me? I decided to act thenceforth with great caution; not to leave the house, but somehow
leave Portsmouth. The Conference was not to go on for more than two days, and I remember I
left Portsmouth the next evening, my companion staying there some time longer.



I did not then know the essence of religion or of God, and how He works in us. Only vaguely I
understood that God had saved me on that occasion. On all occasions of trial He has saved me. I
know that the phrase 'God saved me' has a deeper meaning for me today, and still I feel that I
have not yet grasped its entire meaning. Only richer experience can help me to a fuller
understanding. But in all my trials--of a spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and
in politics--I can say that God saved me. When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and
comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship,
prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or
walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.


Such worship or prayer is no flight of eloquence; it is no lip-homage. It springs from the heart.
If, therefore, we achieve that purity of the heart when it is 'emptied of all but love,' if we keep all
the chords in proper tune, they 'trembling pass in music out of sight.' Prayer needs no speech. It
is in itself independent of any sensuous [=sensory] effort. I have not the slightest doubt that
prayer is an unfailing means of cleansing the heart of passions. But it must be combined with the
utmost humility.



*(1) :-
 'Nirbal ke bala Rama'--Refrain of Surdas' famous hymn, 'He is the help of the helpless, the strength of the weak.'