Journal #13

I've been reading the biography of Gandhi and I think it's fascinating! I find that it's interesting how the author describes his life and how he acted when he was a child. For example, Gandhi went through a rebellious phase where he ate meat, smoke, and even didn't really believe in a god or religion for a while. For some reason that really surprised me because we tend to forget that even spiritual leaders are real people and they have moments of weakness and learning periods as well. However, I contrast the information that is given about Gandhi in this book to what is said about the history of our spiritual leaders within the church. Very rarely do we hear the "rebellious stages" of the prophets of the church and if anything is said, it is generally vague. I am also taking a President's of the Church course where we are learning about the lives of all the previous prophets of the church and in the book that we read it really doesn't talk as openly about the downfalls of the prophets. Although the readings to say that they were human and made mistakes, had issues, etc. etc. they don't give examples.
I think that this is a cultural example of how we view our religious leaders. For example, in "The Cultural Dimensions of International Business" it discusses how the image of leaders is different in every culture. In America, it's a positive image to see the President in jeans, or showing love towards his family, etc. etc. We enjoy knowing that he is "human". On the other hand, in some cultures the leader of the nation is never photographed in jeans, always in a business suit. The leader is meant to be strong and the citizens don't necessarily want to see his/her "human" side. I feel that this is the same way within our religion. Although we recognize that the leaders of our church are only human, we are never really openly told about that part of their lives, it is always very positive.
Now admittedly I am not an expert on Hinduism; however, I do find that the fact that this type of content would be printed about the major spiritual leader of Hinduism shows that the believers are not as concerned about the past image of their leaders. Or maybe it just shows that the author of this is book is not as concerned about portraying Gandhi in a perfect light as other authors of books of other religious leaders. Regardless I think that this is an interesting concept worth looking into.