The Wilderness and Gandhi // Chris Mason
Painting by Gerald Brimacombe. gbrim@integraonline.com
Recently I had the distinct pleasure of traveling up into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in Northern Minnesota. This is a wilderness area filled with beautiful and pristine lakes, woods, sheer cliffs and wildlife. All of this was created and left behind by the last glaciers retreating across North America, perhaps 10,000 years ago? One night we had a Loon (the State bird of Minnesota) float repeatedly 10 feet form our campsite and on another occasion we had a Snowshoe Hare visit us multiple times. On our last night we camped 50 yards from Canada across a channel and saw a black bear swimming across!
Not only was it an invigorating experience—on our last day we battled as we canoed directly into constant 30 mph winds with gusts as high as 40 mph—but it made me think of Gandhi. Gandhi was all about self-reliance, self-restraint and being able to confront your situations with grace and character. Put those notions together with his dislike of Modern Western Society and I am convinced that Gandhi would be quite at home in the BWCA! Up there you cannot simply do as you please, you are part of a team and if the team does not function well together, with cooperation and understanding, then your life there (the quality of your experience) will simply not be as pleasant or as rewarding.
One is consistently challenged to do things you may not have thought possible. For example, that last day, with the 30 mph headwind, I was never afraid but I did wonder if I could keep paddling hard enough to get us to our destination. I have never been so tired or pushed physically. I knew I could do it, but doubt did creep inward. I must confess that twice I ranted at the wind and waves. In retrospect, that was disrespectful because raging at the wind and waves is to shout against nature. It is not a sign of being in control of oneself. Wilderness travel teaches us is that we are not in control; ultimately the elements are the master. We can however, choose to control ourselves. To bluster at nature was also not in good keeping with Gandhi’s ideas of spirituality.
In the end, it struck me that nowhere is ahimsa more in evidence than in the wilderness. There, the things we take for granted as we live our daily lives are beyond our reach and we must, once more, rely on ourselves and our comrades for survival, good company and the best possible world. There are no superiors and no disenfranchised. There is only the good nature of humankind coexisting with the natural world. That and the fabulous surroundings are more than enough to bring one true joy and happiness. Gandhi would love it!
Chris Mason teaches history at Guy B. Phillips Middle School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was a fellow at the Ahimsa Center in 2009.
Seeing that you are so interested in Gandhi and have such great respect for him, I would like to suggest to you a tool of his which he proclaimed as being the staff of his life – Ramanama, the name of God. Repeat the name ceaselessly in your mind, at all times of the day, until it becomes a part of you. You will work out the kinks that arise. Gandhi used Rama as God’s name because Rama had the most meaning to him, but you should use whichever name has most meaning for you – God, Jesus, Krishna, etc.
I myself have been performing this “experiment” for a few months now and have most certainly been saved by Ramanama in certain situations. And in others I blew aside the name or did not speak it from the heart and failed. I have the faith that the longer it is repeated the stronger it becomes, and so continue repeating it though I fail and fall a thousand times.
I know that your Gandhi experiment is over but I think you ought to continue it. Gandhi himself would experiment with a thing for months, a year, before he decided on its results or value. I think to be true to the spirit of Gandhi, which you respect so much, you ought to do the same. A week cannot give even a shadow of the real results you would obtain from performing such an experiment. You must also realize that the experiment can do only good, not harm: what is one year of your life, a life which is destined to end one day anyways? Though I would warn in this experiment that you not imitate Gandhi but rather learn from him as you would a teacher.