Introduction

It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography or story of my life. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, the story will take the shape of an autobiography. My experiments in the political field are now known. But I should certainly like to narrate my experiments in the spiritual field which are known only to myself, and from which I have derived such power as I possess for working in the political field. The experiments I am about to relate are spiritual, or rather moral; for the essence of religion is morality.

Only those matters of religion that can be understood as much by children as by older people, will be included in this story. If I can narrate them in a dispassionate and humble spirit many other experiments will ... obtain from them help in their onward march.

M. K. Gandhi

The Ashram, Sabarmati

26th November, 1925