A Complete Handbook of Nature Cure: Gandhian Thoughts for a Perfect Living

by Mahatma Gandhi, Morarji Desai (Foreword), Bharatan Kumarappa (Editor)

Gandhiji had a passion to tend the sick and serve the poor. He valued life close to nature for its simplicity and evolved and practiced simple rules of health. He had almost a religious faith in vegetarianism which led him to carry out dietetic reform based on pragmatic results obtained from personal experiments. He was tremendously influenced by the writings of Dr. Kuhne on Nature Cure. He believed that human body, mind, and spirit could be maintained in a state of perfect health by the observance of simple rules. He attempted to discover causes of ordinary ill health and improvised simple remedies of Nature Cure. He established a Nature Cure Centre at Uruli in pursuance of his belief that the poor could not afford costly medicines and remedies and that he owed it to them to let them have the benefit of his lifelong experiments in Health and Hygiene. The human body is a wonderful and perfect machine. If it gets out of order, it can set itself right without medicine, provided it is given a chance to adjust itself. If we are not abstemious in our habits of food etc. or if our mind is agitated by passion, emotion or anxiety, the body cannot eliminate all the refuse and that part which remains uneliminated turns into toxins whose presence gives rise to symptoms which we call disease. The disease is an attempt of the body to get rid of toxins. If the body is helped in the process of elimination by fasting, cleansing of the bowels by enemas, baths, and massages, the body could be restored to its normal health. This is in brief what Gandhiji meant by Nature Cure. This book contains a valuable collection of Gandhiji's thoughts on Nature Cure etc. and is indeed as rich in its information as it is constructive in its outlook. I commend this book for serious study by all those who are interested in the cure of ailments through natural remedies. Morarji Desai

68 pages, Paperback

Published January 7, 2018

About the author

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.

The son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Hindu Bania community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law in London. Gandhi became famous by fighting for the civil rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians in South Africa, using new techniques of non-violent civil disobedience that he developed. Returning to India in 1915, he set about organizing peasants to protest excessive land-taxes. A lifelong opponent of "communalism" (i.e. basing politics on religion) he reached out widely to all religious groups. He became a leader of Muslims protesting the declining status of the Caliphate. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, and above all for achieving Swaraj—the independence of India from British domination. His spiritual teacher was the Jain philosopher/poet Shrimad Rajchandra.