Mahatma Gandhi`s Self-Sufficiency Concept
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idea was certainly different. To him, the rule over the self means to rule in
three different aspects of life: man with himself, man with his fellowmen
and man with nature. These three questions are considered then we cover
almost all the questions connected with humanity. The first is man with
himself at present; man experiences the strongest kind of stress, alienation.
Look at the number of patients, mental patients in all hospitals. There are
special hospitals for special mental patients. And that is the result of the
progress that man is supposed to have made. Look at the relationship
between countries, after the Second World War, there are hardly been a
day in the history of the world where there has not been going some kind
of war, conflict between one country and the other. There have been wars,
hundreds of wars, after the Second World War, that is the kind of man’s
relationship with fellowmen. And man is constantly destructing and eroding
the planet, the whole planet, not only the planet but the whole
atmosphere around. I visited some countries in Latin America and when I
went to Brazil, the Brazilian, Amazonian forests, they produce 80 % of the
oxygen that humanity needs, and the Amazonian forests are being
destroyed not in hectares but in square kilometers every year. They have
been fast destroyed by multinational companies and by those as it was
already quoted in my previous lecture,
by the greed of man, not by the
need of man.
So here Gandhi’s philosophy is based on sufficiency which
also takes care of man’s relationship with his fellowmen, with his fellow
countrymen, with other countries of the world, Jay Jagat and also with the
relationship with the man and nature as a whole. So when we consider the
whole idea in the comprehensive way, then self sufficiency means not going
back, but going forward to face the future problems. There may be
problems of course with humanity with different brains working.
But Gandhi pointed how one should try to solve the problems that
may come into the future. One thing that I would like to point out and I first