source: TOI on Line

 All power comes from the preservation and sublimation of the vitality that is responsible for the creation of life” – Mahatma Gandhi, as quoted in Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph’s book, Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays.

Long before Anna Hazare boasted about the power of his brahmacharya in response to Lalu Prasad’s dig to reveal the secret behind his 12-day fast, Gandhi had extolled celibacy as a means to self-realisation and self-discipline, without which he wouldn’t have been half the leader he was, or developed the mental and physical energy to steer the freedom movement. In their essay on “Self Control and Political Potency”, the Rudolphs, both distinguished political scientists formerly with the University of Chicago, refer to a telling piece of self-analysis by the Mahatma in which he acknowledges that it was from “experiments in the spiritual field that I derived such power as I possess for working in the political field”.

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