|
"Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction
devised by the ingenuity of man."
Mohandas K. Gandhi on nonviolence
The Immortal Truth of Gandhi
You as a man amidst a world of groundless hate
could have become bitter and forlorn.
But to cruelty and condemnation you couldn't relate
and your search for Truth was more deeply born.
You spread your infamous power of one;
senseless venom you refused to tolerate.
In your leadership to see freedom and peace begun.
you took the reins of your dream and directed your fate.
You showed that peaceful resistance
takes the power of violence away.
That with dedication and persistence;
Freedom Fighters could take India back one day.
You showed that peaceful power is grand
and lived by your deep human emotion.
you travelled over your homeland
endeared by people; given devotion.
Freedom fighters rallied to your side
and fought with peaceful hearts.
Their trust in your Truth they did confide
and thus a pacific revolution for India starts.
You urged them to take their lives in hand
and regain the voice of India once more.
To revive the ways that made India grand
and reclaim the trades once done before!
The denial of weapons held no ground
for in passive strength armies were raised.
A peaceful rebellion embraced and found
the adversary helpless beneath fearless gaze.
Boycotts, marches and fasting were your way
and never a hand was raised by you!
Your messages could give back power today,
if people; heart and soul chose to see it through!
Not only India learns from your voice
but the world over must see and take note.
You showed the world we have a choice
and that in violence we need not retaliate.
You knew great men are small and small men great
and each individual has a right.
A right to make peace and harmony their fate
and realize a world in a concordant light.
You inspired and lended your vision to the blind
and walked with them through thick and thin.
In your words we still seek and find
the understanding we need to fight and win.
Equality for all despite race, gender, religion or caste
you promoted unity, understanding and care.
Through your heart your life has never passed
the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi yet lives everywhere!
All rights reserved, © genielassie
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi known to the world today as Mahatma (Great Soul) Gandhi, was born in 1869 in Porbander, in
Gujarat, in Western India.
When he was 13 years old his marriage was arranged to Kasturbai Makanji also 13, and the daughter of a local merchant.
(Gandhi was later to speak strongly of the cruel custom of child marriage).
After finishing his schooling he decided to study law. He went to England to enroll at the Inner Temple. He was called
to the Bar in the summer of 1891.
He moved to South Africa in 1893 to practice law. His experiences in South Africa changed his life. While he was there,
he came face to face with blatant racism and discrimination of a kind that he had never witnessed in India. The humiliation
he felt at the hands of officials turned him from a meek and unassertive individual into a determined political activist.
He had originally gone to South Africa on a one year contract to work for an Indian law firm in Natal Province. There he took
up various grievances on behalf of the Indian community and gradually found himself first as their advocate on civil rights
issues and finally as their leader in a political movement against racial discrimination and for South African Indian rights.
His methods were unusual. He launched a struggle against the authorities which in keeping with his strict Hindu beliefs was
based on a strict adherence to non-violence. This meant that it consisted of passive resistance - the peaceful violation of
certain laws, the courting of collective arrests (he urged his followers to fill the jails), non-cooperation with the authorities,
boycotts and spectacular marches. These methods were later to be perfected back in India in the fight for independence from
the British Empire.
In South Africa he worked to improve the rights of the immigrant Indians and at that time he developed his creed of passive
resistance against injustice and he was repeatedly arrested for the protests he led.
He returned to India in 1915 with his wife and children. Soon he took up the struggle for independence from Britain. His
strong belief in non violence and religious tolerance never wavered. These beliefs came first and he often even fasted and
protested the violence against the British who ruled India which he sought to overcome.
When independence was achieved it was not due to war fare but human will. But the country was divided into Hindu and Muslim
and so the violence continued. His protests also continued. He fasted to the brink of death and this act finally eased the
riots. In his auto biography, My Experiments with Truth, Gandhi taught that truth could only be gained through non violence
and tolerance of others. He believed that peace takes courage and through these beliefs he taught others to master and overcome
fear.
He lived a very simple life and believed it was wrong to kill animals for food or clothing. Gandhi developed a method
of direct social action, based upon principles of courage, nonviolence, and truth, which he called Satyagraha. In this method,
the way people behave is more important than what they achieve.
He worked and suffered greatly for peace until his death in 1948 by an assassin as he walked through a crowd to take evening
prayer.
I have always loved the teachings of this kind, compassionate and peaceful man who sacrificed so deeply to attain peace
for so many. The work and legacy he leaves and the good he has put into the world with his peaceful protests, prayers and
teachings are monumental to the cause of peace and non violence. Few men have accomplished more in terms of these causes.
------------researched by Mary6
Sayings of Gandhi:
Wherever there are wars, wherever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.
Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.
My religion teaches me to love all equally.
every day is a gift from God....
live simply so others may simply live....
------------researched by Mary6
Dhanyavad, Mahatma ji (A Letter of Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi)
by Saurabh Madaan
Respected Mahatma ji,
I am one of those fortunate people who know who you were and what you did.
While others were making plans and conspiracies, you went straight to the paddy fields and joined the poor farmer. While
others spoke of bomb blasts and attacks, you held tightly to the trunk of non-violence. You said to us: "If someone should
slap you on one side of your face, offer the other one with a smile."
They were so many, and you began as the lonely one. And yet, in no time, the entire nation was strongly with you. I admire
how you had so much faith to hold on to your principles in days when more people thought of violence.
Dear Gandhiji, in this world where fashion and show-off reigns, no one has been able to come closer to your iconic dress
code of a dhoti- the simple long stretch of white cloth- yarned on the 'charkha'. You taught masses how to use the charkha,
making it an inseparable part of the "Swadeshi movement". We did not burn their (refers to the then rulers) products,
we did not destroy them. We just started making our own ones. What great vision you had!
As a young man, I am inspired by your principles. There are times when things look hazy, when the world looks useless,
and life, aimless. Then I look at your photograph on the blue wall of my study room- you are standing with your stick, your
fragility strikingly displayed. The dhoti always leaves you half naked, but your spirit beams through with all the dignity
in the universe. With such simplicity and fragility, if you could achieve Freedom from the mightiest empire on earth, then
what can't we, blessed young men, not achieve in life!
I will never understand why someone even thought of killing a soul as pure as yours! I know you had once said, "If
a madman comes to me with a pistol and wants to kill me, I will oblige with a smile." How true you were to your words!
And what a great truth your last words beheld: "He Ram!"
Albert Einstein was so right when he said "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as
this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."
I salute you, O Mahatma, looking gratefully towards the grey monsoon sky with tears in my eyes, hoping that you will be
looking down upon us with love and blessings.
Your son,
Saurabh.
~~~~~~Acrostic Quotes: Words Of Mahatma Gandhi~~~~~~
W oman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental
capacities. She has the right to participate in the minutest
details in the activities of man, and she has an equal right
of freedom and liberty with him.
O ne's own religion is after all a matter between oneself
and one's Maker and no one else's.
Real suffering, bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone.
Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to
Satyagraha.
Democracy must in essence, therefore, mean the art and
science of mobilising the entire physical, economic and
spiritual resources of all the various sections of the
people in the service of the common good of all.
Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering
and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.
Of all the animal creation of God, man is the only animal
who has been created in order that he may know his Maker.
Man's aim in life is not therefore to add from day to day to his
material prospects and to his material possessions, but his
predominant calling is, from day to day to come nearer to his
own Maker.
Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is
not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain
the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance
of all morality. (Mahatma Gandhi)
All the religions of the world, while they may differ in
other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this
world but Truth. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms
of spirituality. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance
and assimilation. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Truth is by nature self-evident, as soon as you remove the
cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
(Mahatma Gandhi)
Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is.
The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and
knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man,
being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he
follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the
brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself
lower then the brute. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Anger is the enemy of Ahimsa(Non-violence) and pride is a
monster that swallows it up. (Mahatma Gandhi)
God tries his votaries through and through but never
beyond endurance. He gives them strength enough to go through
the ordeal he prescribes for them. (Mahatma Gandhi)
An India in which the poorest shall feel that it is their
country, in whose making they have an effective voice, an
India in which there shall be no high class and low class of
people, an India in which all communities shall live in perfect
harmony. There can be no room in such an India for the curse of untouchability, or the curse of the intoxicating drinks
and
drugs. Women will enjoy the same rights as men.
Since we shall be at peace with all the rest of the world,
neither exploiting, nor being exploited, we should have the
smallest army imaginable. All interests not in conflict with
the interests of the dumb millions will be scrupulously
respected, whether foreign or indigenous. Personally, I hate
distinction between foreign and indigenous. This is the
India of my dreams. I shall be satisfied with nothing else.
(Mahatma Gandhi)
Non-cooperation is beyond the reach of the bayonet. It
has found an abiding place in the Indian heart. Workers
like me will go when the hour has struck, but non-cooperation
will remain. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Destruction is not the law of humans. Man lives freely
only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of
his brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other
injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on
another is a crime against humanity. (Mahatma Gandhi)
However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives,
I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even
to serve the noblest of causes. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Ill-digested principles are, if anything, worse than
ill-digested food, for the latter harms the body and there
is cure for it, whereas the former ruins the soul and there
is no cure for it. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Compiled by genielassie
Back to Great Legacies of Peace
|
