I propose a discussion on my text "Satyagraha, Three Gunas and the Calling of Hope: Plato, Gandhi, Moltmann and Beyond".

The text was published on 9th June 2025 in the volume "Rethinking Satyagraha: Travel, Truth and Translations". I should very much like to thank Professor Ananta Kumar Giri of the Madras Institute of Development Studies for accepting my text. The link to the volume is the following: https://www.routledge.com/.../Giri/p/book/9781041044062...

In my inquiry, I would like to consider three different interpretations of the human condition in its relation to aspects such as, for instance, transcendence, divinity and truth. For this purpose, I shall first analyse aspects of Gandhi’s meditation on the Bhagavad Gita, then I shall direct my attention to some of Plato’s reflections on good and evil in the human dimension, and finally, I shall concentrate my investigation on Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology of Hope. Through the analysis of the mentioned thinkers, we shall have the opportunity to see three positions which consider as the source of the individual spiritual development the contact with a dimension of reality which is an alternative to the individual’s original life condition. This dimension, which transcends the everyday life dimension of the individual, is manifested to the individual by the revelation of the Gita, in Gandhi’s thought, or by the acquaintance with the ideas, in Plato’s reflections, or by God’s promise, in Moltmann’s observations. One of Gandhi’s aims in his meditation on the Gita consists in showing that the knowledge of the revelation of the Gita represents, for the individual, a primary source in order that the individual could acquire a morally right vision of reality, in general, and of himself, in particular. The revelation expressed in the Gita teaches the right moral education and the right moral foundation. The process of learning obtained through the meditation on the whole Gita can give to the individual the knowledge of truth, of God, of reality, in general, and the knowledge of his own condition, in particular, thereby enabling the individual to learn about his nature, his position in reality, his responsibilities and his duties in life. Through this process of formation, the individual can become able to organise his own mind towards the acquisition of goodness. Learning the Gita proves to be indispensable for improving the strength of sattva – the good component of the soul – and for correspondingly diminishing the influences exercised by rajas and by tamas, which are the negative components of the soul. The necessity of the individual intellectual formation is a central theme in Plato too. In my opinion, one of the central problems of Plato, as regards the structure of the individual soul and the question of the soul’s morally correct education, is to explain the possibility of the existence of good in men’s dimension. Since, in Plato’s opinion, as I shall show on the basis of some statements taken from Plato’s Republic, individuals have negative components within themselves, the presence of evil in the individual and social dimension is relatively easy to explain. On the contrary, the very possibility of the existence of good in the human dimension needs a due foundation. In my view, the dimension of the good in the individual soul can be reached, for Plato, only through the philosophical education directed to a dimension transcending the average way of life. Only the education reached through this kind of philosophical education can deliver the due instruments to limit or to eliminate the presence of the evil components present in the individual soul. In my study, I shall then investigate aspects of Jürgen Moltmann’s interpretation of hope. Moltmann contends that a central point of Christian theology is represented by God’s promise regarding the resurrection from the dead, the new coming of Christ and the renewal of the world through a new creation. Hope is, therefore, the Christian believer’s constitutive disposition emerging as the consequence of God’s promise. God’s promise of resurrection from the dead represents the announcement of the coming of a dimension which is completely different from the present dimension of death. God’s promise is, as such, the refusal and the denial of the realm of death. Hope means, for the Christian believer, becoming aware of the alternative constellation represented by God’s new creation; it constitutes the opening to a future which is, as such, a dimension alternative to both the present and the past. Hope is, therefore, the mind’s liberation from any interpretation of time and history as a repetition of identical events. Furthermore, hope means, for the Christian believer, becoming aware of the failures of the dimension in which the hoping individual is living.