Sunday
At a time when many white nationalist Christians are rationalizing governmental brutality, “True Religion” by the great 16th century Hindi poet and reformer can help those who wish to regain their moral center. Tulsidas goes to the heart of the matter with his simple message, “Serve thy brethren.” The poem was translated from the Sanskrit by Mahatma Gandhi when he was in prison for opposing British colonial rule.
I came across the poem in Poems of War Resistance, an anthology that my father published at the height of the Vietnam War.
True Religion
By Tulsidas
Trans. by Mahatma Gandhi
This and this alone
Is true religion-
To serve thy brethren:
This is sin above all other sin,
To harm thy brethren:
In such a faith is happiness,
In lack of it is misery and pain:
Blessed is he who swerveth not aside
From this straight path:
Blessed is he whose life is lived
Thus ceaselessly in serving God:
By bearing others’ burdens,
And so alone,
Is life, true life, to be attained:
Nothing is hard to him who, casting self aside,
Thinks only this—
How may I serve fellow-men?
