Mahatma Gandhi ashes scattered in sea off South Africa

[demoleft]

Source: bbc

Some of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi's ashes, kept for decades by a family friend, have been scattered off the South African coast.

The ashes were sprinkled on to the Indian Ocean in a Hindu ceremony attended by about 200 people to mark the 62nd anniversary of Gandhi's death.

They were handed over to the family last year after the family friend died.
...
"Gandhi's great grandson poured the ashes into the sea and afterwards people threw flowers as a sign of their final goodbyes."

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8486549.stm

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i'd like it for me when it's time as well.
one with the ocean.

[RedCloud]

1. So long, dear friend of Peace and life!

[FailureToCommunicate]

2. How fitting for a man who scattered his beliefs across the world should now be

traveling global ocean currents...

[kratos12]

3. We need more Ghandis

Instead we are plagued with Bushs and Palins and Dinos.

[panzerfaust]

7. Be careful what you wish for ...

Mahatma ("Great Soul") Gandhi was a brave and profoundly disturbed individual.

He hated human sexuality: "...I must declare with all the power I can command that sensual attraction even between husband and wife is unnatural."; and "Procreation ought to be looked upon as duty and sexual union resorted to for that purpose only." Though, oddly, he did like cuddling with naked teenage girls - this he explained as being done only to condition himself to an absence of desire.

He opposed all use of modern medicine (Allowing his wife to die of pneumonia - in British custody - rather than allowing the British to give her antibiotics; A grand-niece was saved from dying of appendicitis only because her parents finally took her to an actual medical doctor - who operated and saved her life) and he declared that "All illness is the result of the violation of the laws of nature, in other words, the penalty of sin against Him since He and His laws are one."

Least you think him simply a Christian nutter, the capitalized pronoun he was using referred not to the imaginary god of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, but to the actual God Ramanama - a God so powerful that simply reciting His Holy Name could cure any manner of ills for example "Ramanama is the unfailing remedy for eradicating malaria."

A case can be made that he was a racist, and some of his early difficulties in South Africa arose from his disgust and anger at having Indians classified as African blacks - compared with whom Indians were, he said, obviously infinitely superior. Gandhi supported the British in their putting down of the Zulu wars of rebellion. Though Nelson Mandela was an admirer of Great Soul, and a follower of his methods, other black South Africans feel differently and they protested against a statue of Great Soul being erected in 2003.

True, after returning to India, he did espouse equal civil rights for women and for untouchables, and is known, and justly honored, as favoring non-violent protest against authority rather than supporting armed insurrection.

However, it is at least arguable that the Indian sub-continent would be a much more peaceful place than it is today had Great Soul's fundamentalist religious fervor not driven Muhammad Ali Jinnah - the leader of the Indian Muslims (a very progressive and moderate man, who was married to a kafir (one who rejects the truth: ie, a non-Muslim)) - to come to the belief that the only way in which the Muslim minority would not be oppressed was by forming their own nation: Pakistan - the birth of which was accompanied by at least one million lives lost in religious war, a religious war which continues to this very day.

Oh, and he also was quite confident that the Bihar earthquake, which killed 30,000, was the result of God's anger over the treatment of the untouchables. Ali Jinnah reproached him for ascribing to God, this natural occurrence.

Hummm, earthquakes as the Hammer of God - where have we heard that recently? In truth, I expect that Mr Robertson and Great Soul would have much else in common in their view of the world.

In short, people are very complex. There are no saints. In contemporary America Gandhi would likely be a member of the religious right.


A man, and part of his legacy.

[Psephos]

8. Good post n/t

[concerned1]

9. Thanks for the info

Gandhi was no saint, that's for sure.

[struggle4progress]

4. ... in 1939 .. Dr. John R. Mott .. asked Gandhi to single out the most creative experience of his

life. This was Gandhi’s reply: "I recall particularly one experience that changed the course of my life. Seven days after I had arrived in South Africa the client who had taken me there asked me to go to Pretoria from Durban. It was not an easy journey. On the train I had a first-class ticket, but not a bed ticket. At Maritzburg, when the beds were issued, the guard came and turned me out. The train steamed away leaving me shivering in cold. Now the creative experience comes there. I was afraid for my very life. I entered the dark waiting room. There was a white man in the room. I was afraid of him. What was my duty; I asked my self. Should I go back to India, or should I go forward, with God as my helper and face whatever was in store for me? I decided to stay and suffer. My active non-violence began from that day" ... http://www.encounter.co.za/article/112.html

[greiner3]

5. On would think;

That from the attendance cited that this was not a published event.

[InfiniteThoughts]

6. courage ...

the more that i experience life, the more i realize the power of non-violence. the most important part in the journey of non-violence is the strength required in following it. it is sad that the same nation, India, that gave the world Gandhi, today suffers from a complete breakdown. Politicians think that rioting & violence is the answer for all issues. The world isn't any better/different. Wish we had a Gandhi amongst us today!

[AngryAmish]

10. pic