Today, on October 2, as we celebrate national holiday of Gandhi Jayanti, we must revisit the spirituality of Gandhi Ji.
It is held that he was religious-spiritual person who did not believe in rituals and dogmas but principles and values derived from Hinduism. He believed in prayers for affirming and evoking the divine within. However, he recited only those prayers which did not ask for favours from God.
His life was based on simplicity and well being of all. In other words, Sadagi and Sadbhav described his life's philosophy. He was of the view that religion is freedom of choosing and sincerely holding your beliefs. For his life' philosophy he adapted precepts of various religions such as non-violence, love, forgiveness, equality, many-faceted truth or anekantavad.
Mahatma Gandhi took a lot of inspiration from three proverbial wise monkeys and cited their message at many occasions. In India, three monkeys became famous as “Bapu's Three Wise Monkeys.”
The three wise monkeys are an iconic maxim in many Asian countries that stands for the message "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". Three parts of the maxim are said in the same order as early education takes place through 'look-hear-and-say' method. But, we, as humans, need to learn both "what to look-hear-and-say" and "what not to look-hear-and-say."
The three monkeys have names too which are Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru respectively in order for 'see no evil; hear no evil; and speak no evil.'
In the Far East traditions, there is a fourth monkey too is there that stands for 'to do no evil.' The name of this monkey is Shizaru. The tales of these four monkeys are popular in Japan and China.
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