STORY OF THE MONTH
(Oct 2026)


'I Quit Smoking
and Stealing"

(As Narrated by Mahatma Gandhi)

“I have still to relate some of my failings during this meat-eating period and also previous to it, which date from before my marriage or soon after.

A relative and I became fond of smoking. Not that we saw any good in smoking, or were enamoured of the smell of a cigarette. We simply imagined a sort of pleasure in emitting clouds of smoke from our mouths. My uncle had the habit, and when we saw him smoking, we thought we should copy his example. But we had no money. So we began pilfering stumps of cigarettes thrown away by my uncle.

The stumps, however, were not always available, and could not emit much smoke either. So we began to steal coppers from the servant's pocket money in order to purchase Indian cigarettes. But the question was where to keep them. We could not of course smoke in the presence of elders.

We managed somehow for a few weeks on these stolen coppers. In the meantime we heard that the stalks of a certain plant were porous and could be smoked like cigarettes. We got them and began this kind of smoking.

But we were far from being satisfied with such things as these. Our want of independence began to smart, It was unbearable that we should be unable to do anything without the elders' permission. At last, in sheer disgust, we decided to commit suicide!

But how were we to do it? From where were we to get the poison? We heard that Dhatura seeds were an effective poison. Off we went to the jungle in search of these seeds, and got them.

Evening was thought to be the auspicious hour. We went to Kedarji Mandir, put ghee in the temple-lamp, had the Darshan and then looked for a lonely corner. But our courage failed us. Supposing we were not instantly killed? And what was the good of killing ourselves? Why not rather put up with the lack of independence?

But we swallowed two or three seeds nevertheless. We dared not take more. Both of us fought shy of death, and decided to go to Ramji Mandir to compose ourselves, and to dismiss the thought of suicide.

I realized that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it.

The thought of suicide ultimately resulted in both of us bidding good- bye to the habit of smoking stumps of cigarettes and of stealing the servant's coppers for the purpose of smoking.

Ever since I have been grown up, I have never desired to smoke and have always regarded the habit of smoking as barbarous, dirty and harmful. I have never understood why there is such a rage for smoking throughout the world. I cannot bear to travel in a compartment full of people smoking. I become choked.

But much more serious than this theft was the one I was guilty of a little later.

I pilfered the coppers when I was twelve or thirteen, possibly less. The other theft was committed when I was fifteen. In this case I stole a bit of gold out of my meat-eating brother's armlet.

This brother had run into a debt of about twenty-five rupees. He had on his arm an armlet of solid gold. It was not difficult to clip a bit out of it. Well, it was done, and the debt cleared.

But this became more than I could bear. I resolved never to steal again. I also made up my mind to confess it to my father.

But I did not dare to speak. Not that I was afraid of my father beating me. No, I do not recall his ever having beaten any of us. I was afraid of the pain that I should cause him.

But I felt that the risk should be taken; that there could not be a cleaning without a clean confession. I decided at last to write out the confession, to submit it to my father, and ask his forgiveness.

I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to him myself. In this note not only did I confess my guilt, but I asked adequate punishment for it, and closed with a request to him not to punish himself for my offence. I also pledged myself never to steal in future.

I was trembling as I handed the confession to my father. He was then suffering from a fistula and was confined to bed. His bed was a plain wooden plank.

I handed him the note and sat opposite the plank. He read it through, and pearl-drops trickled down his cheeks, wetting the paper. For a moment he closed his eyes in thought and then tore up the note. He had sat up to read it. He again lay down.

I also cried. I could see my father's agony. If I were a painter I could draw a picture of the whole scene today. It is still so vivid in my mind. Those pearl-drops of love cleansed my heart, and washed my sin away.

Only he who has experienced such love can know what it is. As the hymn says: 'Only he Who is smitten with the arrows of love. Knows its power.'

This was, for me, an object-lesson in Ahimsa. Then I could read in it nothing more than a father's love, but today I know that it was pure Ahimsa.

When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing it transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power.

This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought that he would be angry, say hard things, and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful, and I believe this was due to my clean confession.

A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance. I know that my confession made my father feel absolutely safe about me, and increased his affection for me beyond measure."

(Excerpts from the book, “The Story of My Experiments With Truth", autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ch.8 "Stealing & Atonement") 


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Notes:

Gandhiji's autobiography is available as a free download from:
https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/gandhiebooks.php

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Sri Sri Paramahansa Yoganandaji met Mahatama Gandhi at the latter’s ashram at Wardha in Aug 1935. Writing about Gandhi’s Autobiography, the great guru says:

“Gandhi has described his life with devastating candour in The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

Many autobiographies replete with famous names and colourful events are almost completely silent on any phase of inner analysis or development. One lays down each of these books with a certain dissatisfaction, as though saying: “Here is a man who knew many notable persons, but who never knew himself.”

This reaction is impossible with Gandhi’s autobiography; he exposes his faults and subterfuges with an impersonal devotion to truth rare in annals of any age.”

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Writing further about Gandhi, Paramahansaji says:

“The Gandhi vow of non-possession came early in his married life. Renouncing an extensive legal practice which had been yielding him an annual income of more than $20,000, the Mahatma dispersed all his wealth to the poor.

The Mahatma’s remarkable wife, Kasturbai, did not object when he failed to set aside any part of his wealth for the use of her and their children.

A tranquil heroine in the intense drama that has been their life together, Kasturbai has followed her husband to prison, shared his three-week fasts, and fully borne her share of his endless responsibilities.

For years Kasturbai performed the duties of treasurer of the public funds which the idolised Mahatma is able to raise by millions.

One day the public treasurer, Kasturbai, could not account for a disbursement of four rupees. Gandhi duly published an auditing in which he inexorably pointed out his wife’s four-rupee discrepancy.

I had often told this story before classes of my American students. One evening a woman in the hall had given an outraged gasp. “Mahatma or no Mahatma,” she had cried, “if he were my husband I would have given him a black eye for such an unnecessary public insult!”

After some good-humoured banter had passed between us on the subject of American wives and Hindu wives, I had gone on to a fuller explanation:

“Mrs. Gandhi considers the Mahatma not as her husband but as her guru, one who has the right to discipline her for even insignificant errors,” I had pointed out.

“Some time after Kasturbai had been publicly rebuked, Gandhi was sentenced to prison on a political charge. As he was calmly bidding farewell to his wife, she fell at his feet. ‘Master,’ she said humbly, ‘if I have ever offended you, please forgive me.’ ” 


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