Consume: The Essential Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi

The Essential Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book changed my life. It is by far the best biography I have ever read, but I think the unique format lends itself to that. While it is officially an anthology, the editor strung it in a way that Gandhi himself narrates the story. Drawing from all of Gandhi’s writings, this blend really makes up something special.

It is more than the fact that it is packed with a bunch of quotes you might find on dentist office posters or written on your mirror though (which there are plenty of that I will note at the end of this review). It inspired me to be a better person. I second what Einstein said, that “generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked this earth” (323).

One of the most refreshing things about this biography is that Gandhi is very frank and honest about his human shortcomings. This might sound really silly, but I remember once taking the Meyer Briggs personality test and noting that Gandhi was also an INFJ (of course someone else took it for him, but still). After reading this book I can start to believe that he and we may have actually shared a lot in common, at least, when he was young. As a child he was “very shy” and would run straight home from school because he “could not bear to talk to anybody” (6). He also admits that he was very afraid of things (11), had a problem with secrecy (12), and once had to confess to his father than he stole from his brother (13). I laughed as I went through marking the pages—so many parallels to my own life, particularly his obsession with seeking truth (14). I remember as a young teenager some of my earliest terrible poems were about the conundrum of truth, especially around the time of my parents’ divorce. It does not really shock me that I am now very interested in the authenticity of experience and storytelling for my field study projects. I doubt I would have made that connection had I not read this biography.


I’m not saying I hope to be half as good as a person as Gandhi was, but it does give me hope that I can try.

In general I appreciated learning more about the history of both South Africa and India’s independence. I finally have a story to put behind the man you see in the pictures with his homespun kadi. I think the most amazing part of his life was his death, and how he seemed to know exactly what it was that would happen. He said that he did “not want to die of a creeping paralysis…a defeated man.” He went on to say that “an assassins’ bullet may put an end to my life. I would welcome it… I shall be content to be written down an imposer if my lips utter a word of anger or abuse against my assailant at the last moment (318). And of course, his last words when Godse’s bullet hit him on January 25, 1948 were “Oh, God” (323).

I would like to learn more about the modern India and where Gandhi fits in (or does not fit in) to it. I look at all my rupee notes and see pictures of this man who is the father of India, yet you cannot find homespun anywhere in Delhi. The villages are being filtered into the ever growing cities. All major world car dealerships are on every street corner. His economic theories are so antiquated that it is hard to tell what his lasting impact has been on India. I am anxious to look more into this. The tension is definitely evident by the end of this book after Independence with the formation of Pakistan, but what did it look like from there?

I am left with further questions about his family life—which seems to be the only glaring fault I could find with the man in later life. At first this was something that really bothered me. Can you save the world and still be there at home? Could Gandhi have been Gandhi and still put his family first? He does not seem to think so—going as far as saying that he sees “no purpose or meaning in having a family or raising children. You can do more service to mankind by not forming those attachments.” It seems to be a common theme in my field study here in India and in Eastern thought in general, which is very contrary to my own religious beliefs as a Latter-day Saint. By the time we get to his wife’s death though I felt like I had a better picture. She died in his lap in jail, to which he admits she was his “teacher in non-violence” and his “better half.” They were married for 62 years.

What a man. What a story. I just want to throw out a few favorite quotes:

“Brute force will avail against brute force only when it is proved that darkness can dispel darkness” (80)

“A government that is evil has no room for good men and women except in its prisons” (154)

“A reverent study of other religions will not weaken or shake one’s faith in one’s own religion” (185)

“A man is but a product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes” (163)

It is not “ungentlemanly to labor with one’s hands and feet for one’s livelihood or schooling… An academic grasp without practice behind it is like an embalmed corpse, perhaps lovely to look at but nothing to inspire or ennoble” (205)

“Three-fourths of the miseries in the world will disappear if we step into the shoes of our advisories and understand their standpoint” (222)

“We tend to become what we worship” (237)

“Prayer has saved my life” (269)

“I am an irrepressible optimist, because I believe in myself” (274)

“If I had no sense of humor I should long ago have committed suicide” (276)

“There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever” (277)

“It is trite saying that one half of the world knows not how the other lives. Who can say what sores might be healed, what hurts solved, were the doings of each half of the worlds inhabitants understood and appreciated by the other?” (284)

“The art of dying follows as corollary from the art of living” (300)

“After I am gone no single person will be able to completely represent me. But a little bit of me will live in many of you” (319)



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