Facing Death Fearlessly, So Others Can Live Without Fear

Abstract

Mohandas K. Gandhi, a political leader and spiritual figure, placed the practice of death in the center of his method of satyagraha, which relied on nonviolent direct action, mandating self-sacrifice. Through a close analysis of Gandhi’s writings, select influential texts, and historical examples, this chapter focuses on Gandhi’s approach to death in order to draw broader lessons for the contemporary debates on dying and death. It explores how Gandhi’s method of satyagraha—based on the principles of nonviolence and love-force—mandated fearlessness in death as the core principle. The chapter provides a brief survey of the historical examples he used to support his views on cultivating amity with death. It then examines Gandhi’s thought and practice in the “art of dying,” which included committing himself to serving the diseased, maintaining equipoise at the deaths of his loved ones, and, in effect, curating his own death, thereby helping quell a tide of violence among various religious factions.