Mahatma Gandhi’s Great Statement on Religion: “All the great faiths of the world are equal…”

He admits a New York Christian to his Ashram: “life with me is a very hard life and perhaps much simpler than you have imagined.”

Gandhi’s thoughts on religion are crucial and have gathered much interest and respect. An article on the subject stated that Gandhi “believed in judging people of other faiths from their stand point rather than his own.” He welcomed contact of Hinduism with other religions, and “believed a respectful study of other’s religion was a sacred duty and it did not reduce reverence for one’s own…He expected religion to take account of practical life, he wanted it to appeal to reason and not be in conflict with morality.” He believed Jesus “expressed the will and spirit of God but could not accept Jesus as the only incarnate son of God.” All good people were also sons or daughters of God. “If Jesus was like God or God himself, then all men were like God or God Himself. But neither could he accept the Vedas as the inspired word of God, for if they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the Koran? He believed all great religions were fundamentally equal and that there should be innate respect for them, not just mutual tolerance.” He also conceived that “all religions were more or less true.”

Gandhi established the Sabarmati Ashram in 1915 which also served as a school to teach basic skills including literacy as a means to promote Indian self-sufficiency. The Ashram was the starting point of his famed Salt March march to Dandi in 1930 to protest the British Salt Law, sparking a mass campaign of civil disobedience that resulted in the jailing of some 60,000 for illegally producing salt. It had a massive impact on the Indian independence movement. In response, the British Raj seized the ashram in 1933. Local citizens decided to preserve the site, but Gandhi vowed only to return when India had achieved independence. Assassinated in early 1948, Gandhi was unable to keep his pledge.

Euthymios Chagaris emigrated to the United States from Kalamata, Greece in the early 1920s, and after study at New York University and Columbia, established himself as a teacher in Hoboken, New Jersey. According to a newspaper article at the time, in 1931 Chagaris wrote Gandhi asking permission to join his Sabarmati Ashram. He received a reply from Gandhi, and as the article says, “is planning to start for India in about a month.” The newspaper article quotes Gandhi’s letter in its entirety.

Typed letter signed, from Gandhi’s Ashram at Sabarmati, July 26, 1931, to Euthymios Chagaris of Hoboken, admitting him to the Ashram, inviting him to be adventurous, and making his most important statement about religions. “I have your letter. You should know that the climate of India is not suitable for those who are brought up in the rigorous climate of the West. And then, life with me is a very hard life and perhaps much simpler than you have imagined. However, if you have the means so as to enable you to come to India and go back comfortably in the event of disappointment, you may venture out and see things for yourself.”

Gandhi continues by making a statement on the equality of all faiths. “In no case is it necessary to become a Hindu. The Rule at the Ashram is to enable everyone to make the fullest progress in the faith of his or her forefathers, the belief being that all the great faiths of the world are equal for their respective professors.”

This is in accord to a statement he made in his book, “My Religion”, in which he wrote, “My position is that all the great religions are fundamentally equal. We must have innate respect for other religions as we have for our own. Mind you, not mutual tolerance, but equal respect”.

It is also interesting that he characterizes life with him on the Asram is “a very hard life” and “perhaps much simpler than you have imagined.”

This is the most significant letter of Gandhi on religion that we have ever carried. Provenance: The Chagaris descendants.