[Vision2020] Sexual Revelations about Gandhi Blown out of Proportion

[Reggie Holmquist]

Arthur Fonzarelli?

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com>wrote:

> 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.
>
>
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