Meaningful Austerities

Thomas Merton and Gandhi are two characters that I admire and respect for the commitments they both made to investigating their inner truth and to taking difficult actions necessary to live from it. In their own unique ways, they have had an inspiring and significant impact on humanity in the realms of civil rights and nonviolence. Here I get the chance to know them better by comparing their writings and styles while zooming in on what they wrote about making big, formative choices in their lives.

In the excerpts I chose to compare, Merton and Gandhi are exploring a theme that is dear to me because of my own history of wrestling and dancing with it; making significant life choices. With very different methods and tones, they describe a part of their process in important, lifelong, character shaping choices they made at specific times in their life; Merton was talking with a friend hoping to receive guidance in his decision on what monastic sect to join, and Gandhi was exploring his moral and economical choice to be a vegetarian.

Merton's choice to become a monk was incredibly significant for him and his life's work.  After his choice to join the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic order as a Trappist monk, Merton went on to be a prolific poetic and political writer and was named “the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's,” by Daniel Berrigan, a prominent peace activist and priest during that era. In the excerpt I chose, he describes himself in a down-to-earth, approachable way, just beginning to approach the gate of this big decision. He voices concern and insecurity in the consequences of his choice. In a personal, vulnerable, and human way he writes, “I was really frightened of all religious rules as a whole, and this new step, into the monastery, was not something I would just take in my stride.” His mind reels around his health and the restrictions he would be agreeing to, including fasting and keeping silence.

He even says to his friend who asks him if he feels he would like the monastic life, “Oh no, not a chance! That’s not for me! I’d never be able to stand it. It would kill me in a week.” Little did he know the choice to turn away from the temptations of the world to become a monk would instead bring him into life and happiness in rich and powerful ways.

        Gandhi, on the other hand, expounds on his “experiments in dietetics.” In this excerpt, he looks at what writers on the subject had to say and criticises the narrow scope of their considerations. He also grapples with whether to eat eggs or to categorize them along with meat, like his mother did. He tries to define what meat is and eventually comes to think that flesh foods  “unsuited to our species” and feels we should eat for the purpose of living and working, not for delight, flavor, or social celebration. He notes, “The difficulties [in giving up certain favored foods] were only passing, for the strict observance of the vow produced an inward relish distinctly more healthy, delicate, and permanent.” For him, the choice to abstain from eating meat was a significant moral (and economic) action. After taking his time collecting personal data in his experimenting he states, “the real seat of taste is not of the tongue but of the mind.” Once he established himself in it, his choice to be vegetarian went on to support his stance and integrity as a world leader in nonviolent action.

The voices and writing styles of Gandhi and Merton are quite different. Gandhi is dry, formal, distant, factual and scientific, where Merton feels closer, more reflective, warmer, like a friend. Merton is a storyteller and poet, where Gandhi feels like a teacher or a scientist in a lab, looking for certain results to suit his logic.  Where Merton investigates his options in a conversation with a friend, Gandhi breaks down the choice to be vegetarian in a very systematic way, like he is talking to a classroom of scientists sitting in desks, very far away. Merton considers what emotional impact his choice will have on him and his ability to handle letting go of things he has grown to think he needs. Gandhi, on the other hand, weighs the medical, scientific, and economic arguments for and against vegetarianism and begins to alter his personal food choices to see what he feels best suits his body and beliefs. Merton’s pace feels more full and fluid, like the reader is taking a walk with him in the park and he is casually talking about his past. In contrast, Gandhi rattles off findings and ethical considerations, in a straightforward way, without any dialog or relational component. 

I personally favor Merton’s story, as I find it to be more welcoming, layered, relatable, and colorful. However, it was interesting to drop into Gandhi’s world to see how such an inspiring leader approached his life. The excerpts I chose to compare provide access to experiencing a slice of a potent, formative time in the lives of Merton and Gandhi. They both describe seeds being planted that would one day grow to blossom in the lives of these inspiring leaders. Through them, I got to sample a taste of what it was like for these two men to make significant choices that would support them in the impact of their future work in the world.