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Mahatma Gandhi
(1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, Menschenrechtsanwalt, Freiheitskämpfer

 

Bild

Mahatma Gandhi, South Africa, 1909

Erst ignorieren sie dich,
dann machen sie sich über dich lustig,
dann kämpfen sie gegen dich,
und dann obsiegst du.

Mahatma Gandhi


 

Biografische Daten von Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi [sanskrit: महात्मा, mahātmā, deutsch: Große Seele] war ein indischer Politiker, Anwalt und Reformator, Freiheitskämpfer. Als Führer der indischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung war er Verfechter des gewaltlosen Widerstands zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele. Mahatma Gandhi spirituelle Inspirationsquelle war die Bhagavadgita. Sein Lieblingsmantra lautete: Rama = beständige Freude.

 

Gandhis Schlüsselerlebnis
1893 wanderte der junge Rechtsanwalt Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in Durban in Südafrika ein.
Auf eine seiner ersten Reisen von Durban nach Johannesburg löste er am eine Bahnfahrkarte 1. Klasse-Ticket. Auf halber Strecke warf ihn der Schaffner aus dem Zug, da die weißen Reisenden der 1. Klasse keine indischen Passagiere duldeten.
Er verbrachte eine ganze Nacht im kalten Aufenthaltsraum des Bahnhofs Pietermaritzburg. Er sann dabei über Wege zur Gerechtigkeit nach. Dies führte dazu, dass er eine Doktrin des Passiven Widerstands verfasste.

Das Wesen des Seins – Essenz

Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi

Kurz vor seiner Ermordung im Januar 1948 gab der indische Weise Mahatma Gandhi sein letztes Interview.
Ein junger Reporter der Zeitung The Times of India (TOI) befragte ihn:

"Wie haben Sie die Briten gezwungen, Indien zu verlassen?
Die Briten haben seit mehr als 350 Jahren Indien beherrscht.
Sie hatten keine Armee, kein Geld, keine offizielle Position,
keinen Rückhalt durch die Regierung.
Wie haben Sie die Briten zwingen können, Indien zu verlassen?"

 

Gandhis Antwort lautete:

"Ich wiederhole das, was ich bereits der Nationalen Kongresspartei gesagt habe.
Sie verstanden es nicht, doch vielleicht verstehen Sie es.
  • Es war nicht von Bedeutung, was wir sagten, obwohl das wichtig war.
  • Es war nicht von Bedeutung, was wir taten, obwohl das auch wichtig war.
  • Von Bedeutung war das 'Wesen unseres Seins'. Die Essenz dessen, was wir waren,
    veranlasste die [Kolonialregierung der] Briten zu der Entscheidung, Indien zu verlassen."

 

Quelle:Dr. Stephan A. Schwartz, US-amerikanischer Kognitionswissenschaftler, Trend- und Zukunftsforscher, Samueli Institute, Laboratories for Fundamental Research, Autor, Referenz: gelöschter (engl.) Artikel Gandhi on why the British chose to leave India,
veröffentlicht von Gandhitopia.org, 6. Februar 2009
Source: ► Video interview with Stephan A. Schwartz, Ph.D., US American futurologist, senior fellow for Brain, Mind and Healing, Samueli Institute, cognitive sciences research associate, Laboratories for Fundamental Research, author, Non-Violence With Stephan A. Schwartz, presented by the US American New Thinking Allowed TV, host Jeffrey Mishlove, Ph.D. (*1946) US American clinical psychologist,
director of the Intuition Network, radio and television interviewer, author, recorded on 5. February 2017,
YouTube film, 28:00 minutes duration, posted 6. August 2017
Siehe auch:Essenz und ► Charisma und ► Das Wesen des Zauns
See also:The Essence of Beingness

Zitate zum Thema Mahatma Gandhi

Zitate von M. Gandhi

Persönliche Bekenntnisse
Den Gott im Mitmenschen ehren: Einer Überlieferung zufolge soll M. Gandhi auf die Nachfrage des theoretischen Physikers
Albert Einstein, was der indische Gruß Namaste ausdrücke, so geantwortet haben.

  • Ich ehre den Platz in dir, in dem das gesamte Universum residiert. Ich ehre den Platz des Lichts, der Liebe, der Wahr-
    heit
    , des Friedens und der Weisheit in dir. Ich ehre den Platz in dir, wo, wenn du dort bist und auch ich dort bin, wir beide nur noch eins sind. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, zitiert in: NAMASTE, präsentiert von der Webseite casadigiulia.de

 

 

  • Das einzige Diktat, dem ich mich in dieser Welt füge, ist die sanfte innere Stimme. Zitiert aus: Richard Attenborough (1923-2014) britischer Regisseur, Schauspieler, mehrfacher Oscar- und Golden-Globe-Preisträger, Unternehmer, Politiker,
    Präsident der Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) und der British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), Herausgeber, Mahatma Gandhi – Ausgewählte Texte, Goldmann, München, 1. Januar 1983

 

  • Ich bin der Wahrheit verpflichtet, wie ich sie jeden Tag erkenne, und nicht der Beständigkeit. Zitiert in: Gute Zitate

 

  • Und wenn ich verzweifle, dann erinnere ich mich, dass durch alle Zeiten in der Geschichte der Menschheit, die Wahrheit und die Liebe immer gewonnen haben. Es gab Tyrannen und Mörder und eine Zeitlang schienen sie unbesiegbar, doch am Ende scheiterten sie immer. Zitiert in: Deine Menschenrechte

 

Original zitiert in (nach Hinweis von Radhakrishna), präsentiert von der indischen Tageszeitung Young India, S. 1078-1079, 1925

  • Wenn mich Zweifel quälen, wenn mir Enttäuschungen ins Gesicht starren und ich keinen Funken Hoffnung am Hori-
    zont sehe [...] dann nehme ich mir die Bhagavadgita vor und finde darin einen Vers des Trostes, und sofort beginne
    ich inmitten des größten Kummers zu lächeln. Zitiert in: Louis Fischer, Gandhi, S. 19, Heyne Verlag, München, 1989

 

(↓)

Gandhi hörte und folgte der Stimme Gottes.

  • Für mich sind die Stimme Gottes, des Gewissens, der Wahrheit, der inneren Stimme oder "der unscheinbaren, leisen Stimme in dir" ein und dasselbe. Ich sah keine körperliche Erscheinung und habe mich auch nie darum bemüht, denn ich
    habe immer geglaubt, Gott ist formlos. Wer Gott verwirklicht, ist für immer von der Sünde befreit [...]. Vielmehr hörte
    ich eine Stimme wie aus der Ferne, die doch ganz nah war. Sie war so unmissverständlich wie eine menschliche
    Stimme, die bestimmt und unwiderstehlich zu mir sprach. Als ich die Stimme hörte, habe ich nicht geträumt. Bevor
    ich die Stimme hörte, wütete ein gewaltiger Daseinskampf in mir. Plötzlich überkam mich die Stimme. Ich hörte ihr
    zu
    , vergewisserte mich, dass es sich um die Stimme handelte, und das Ringen hörte auf. Ich war ruhig. Die Ent-
    schlusskraft formte sich entsprechend, der Termin und die Stunde des Fastens wurden beschlossen [...]. Könnte
    ich noch weitere Nachweise dafür liefern, dass ich wirklich die Stimme gehört habe und kein Echo meiner blühen-
    den Phantasie? Ich habe keine weiteren Beweise, um einen Skeptiker zu überzeugen. Es steht ihm frei zu sagen,
    dass ich einer Selbsttäuschung oder Halluzination unterlag. Es mag sein, dass dem so war. Ich kann keinen Ge-
    genbeweis erbringen. Was ich unumwunden bestätigen kann, ist, dass mich das einstimmige Urteil der ganzen
    Welt gegen mich nicht von dem Glauben abbringen könnte, dass ich Gottes wahre Stimme gehört habe.
    Artikel mit Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Aktivist, Führer, humanitärer, Anwalt, ge-
    waltfreier Freiheitskämpfer, präsentiert von Gandhis Wochenzeitung Harijan (1933-1948), 8. Juli 1933; Ramachandra Krishna
    Prabhu, editor, U. R. Rao, editor, The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi [Der Geist von Mahatma Gandhi], S. 33-34, 1967, Greenleaf
    Books, 1. September 1988

 

Empfehlungen

Bild
  • Aus bitterster Erfahrung zog ich diese eine und höchste Lehre: Man muss den Zorn in sich aufstauen, und so wie gestaute Wär-
    me in Energie umgesetzt werden kann, so kann unser gestauter Zorn in eine Kraft umgesetzt werden, die die Welt zu be-
    wegen vermag.

    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängig-
    keitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, ge-
    waltloser Widerstandskämpfer
    zur Durch-
    setzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, präsentiert von der indischen Tageszeitung Young India, 15. September 1920

 

  • Wir sollten uns nicht für unsere Wut schämen. Es ist ein sehr gutes und kraftvolles Gefühl, das uns motiviert. Wofür
    wir uns schämen sollten, ist die falsche Art, wie wir sie ausdrücken.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängig-
    keitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, zitiert in: Arun Gandhi (*1934) indischer Journalist, Präsident des Gandhi World-wide Education Institute, fünfter Enkel von Mohandas K. Gandhi, Wut ist ein Geschenk. Das Vermächtnis meines Großvaters, Dumont Buchverlag, 19. Juni 2017

 

  • Im Kampf gegen den Krieg sollten die Frauen die Führerinnen sein. Es ist die ihnen gemäße Aufgabe.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, zitiert in: Gandhi über Militär, präsentiert von Gutzitiert

 

Schlussfolgerung

 

  • Die Welt lässt sich nicht verbessern, wenn alle blind der Mehrheit folgen. Es braucht Menschen, die den Mut haben, scheinbar Unumstößliches in Frage zu stellen, die sich trauen, Autoritäten anzuzweifeln und ihren eigenen Verstand
    zu gebrauchen. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, zitiertin: Mutigmacher

 

  • Der letzte Krieg [2. WK] hat deutlicher als sonst die satanische Natur der Zivilisation erwiesen. [...] Jedes Sittengesetz ist von den Siegern [...] gebrochen worden. Keine Lüge war zu schlecht, um angewendet zu werden.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhän-
    gigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Wei-
    ser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, Fritz Werle, Herausgeber, Ursula von Mangoldt, Herausgeber, So spricht Gandhi,
    Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag, München, 1. Januar 1954

 

  • Lächerlich gemacht zu werden, ist wie Unterdrückung. [...] Wenn in einem zivilisierten Land der Spott eine Bewegung nicht umzubringen vermag, dann wird sie langsam respektiert. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, Sammlung von Aufsätzen und Reden Freedom's Battle [Der Kampf um die Freiheit], 2. Auflage, 1922

 

  • Die vier Phasen der Umwandlung
    1. Zuerst ignorieren sie dich.
    2. Dann machen sie dich lächerlich.
    3. Dann greifen sie dich an und wollen dich verbrennen.
    4. Und dann errichten sie dir Denkmäler.
    Und das ist genau das wird den Vereinigten Arbeitern der Bekleidungsindustrie Amerikas zuteil werden.
Nicholas Klein, US-amerikanischer Gewerkschaftssprecher, Rechtsanwalt, Grußad­resse anlässlich eines Kongresses der US-Ge-
werkschaft Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Baltimore, 15. Mai 1918; in abgewandelter Form fälschlich zugeschrie-
ben Mahatma Gandhi

 

  • Du und ich: Wir sind eins. Ich kann dir nicht wehtun, ohne mich zu verletzen. Zitiert in Gutzitiert

 

 

  • Der Schwache kann nicht verzeihen. Verzeihen ist eine Eigenschaft des Starken. Zitiert in: Gutzitiert

 

  • Liebe ist die stärkste Macht der Welt und doch ist sie die demütigste, die man sich vorstellen kann. Zitiert in: Gutzitiert

 

  • Vergesst die Vorstellung, Anhänger zu sein. Niemand führt, und niemand folgt nach. Niemand ist Führer und niemand Anhänger. Wir gehen alle zusammen in einer Reihe. Ich habe das schon oft gesagt, doch ich sage es noch einmal, um euch daran zu erinnern. Zitiert in: MAHATMA – Das Leben Gandhis, 1869-1948, präsentiert von der Webseite Gandhiservice

 

Knoten
Doppelsträngiger keltischer Knoten
Lindisfarne Gospels
  • Alles steht zum besten mit dir, auch wenn schier alles zu misslingen scheint, solange du nur mit dir selber
    im Reinen bist. Umgekehrt stimmt nichts mit dir, selbst wenn es äußerlich gut zu gehen scheint, solange du nicht mit dir selber
    im Reinen bist. Ausgewählte Texte, S. 23, Goldmann Verlag, München, 1983

 

  • Wer den universalen und alles durchdringenden Geist der Wahrheit von An-
    gesicht zu Angesicht erblicken will, muss fähig sein, auch die geringste Krea-
    tur ebenso zu lieben, wie sich selbst. Und ein Mensch, der danach strebt, darf
    sich von keinem Lebensbereich ausschließen. So hat meine Ehrfurcht vor der
    Wahrheit mich in die Politik geführt; und ich kann ohne Zögern und doch in
    aller Demut sagen, dass ein Mensch, der behauptet, Religion habe nichts
    mit Politik zu tun, nicht weiß, was Religion bedeutet.
    Ausgewählte Texte, S. 77, Goldmann Verlag, München, 1983

 

  • Wenn Gott in allem wohnt, was im Universum existiert, wenn der Gelehrte wie der Straßenkehrer von Gott sind, dann gibt es keinen, der hoch ist, und keinen, der niedrig ist, alle sind ohne Einschränkung gleich, sie sind gleich, weil sie
    die Geschöpfe jenes Schöpfers sind. Zitiert in: Gute Zitate

 

  • Auge um Auge, und die ganze Welt wird blind sein. Zitiert in: Poeteus

 

  • Die Ausbeutung der Armen kann nicht dadurch beseitigt werden, dass man einige Millionäre zugrunde richtet, sondern, indem man den wirtschaftlich Schwachen Wissen bringt und sie lehrt, mit den Ausbeutern nicht zusammenzuarbeiten. Zitiert in: 1000 Zitate

 

  • Bürgerlicher Ungehorsam ist das angeborene Recht jeden Bürgers. Gibt er es auf, hört er auf, ein Mensch zu sein. Zitiert in: Mahatma Gandhi, präsentiert von der Webseite ccsf.de

 

  • Wenn eine Kultur [andere] auszuschließen versucht, wird sie nicht lange überdauern.
    [No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.]
Zitiert in: No Culture Isolation For Me, präsentiert von der (engl.) Webseite mkgandhi.org

 

  • Die Welt bietet genug für jedermanns Bedürfnisse, doch nicht genug für jedermanns Gier. Zitiert in: Poeteus

 

  • Was man mit Gewalt gewinnt, kann man nur mit Gewalt behalten. Zitiert in: Poeteus

 

  • Alle unsere Steitereien entstehen daraus, dass einer dem anderen seine Meinung aufzwingen will. Zitiert in: Poeteus

 

  • Das Ziel weicht ständig vor uns zurück. Genugtuung liegt im Einsatz, nicht im Erreichen. Ganzer Einsatz ist ganzer Erfolg. Zitiert in: Gute Zitate

 

 

(↓)

Siehe auch Meads Erkenntnis:

Hege nie Zweifel daran, dass eine kleine Gruppe aufmerksamer und engagierter Bürger die Welt verändern können. Tatsächlich sind es die einzigen, welche es überhaupt je getan haben. Zugeschrieben Margaret Mead (1901-1978) US-amerikanische Kulturanthropologin, Soziologin, Biologin, Ethnologin, Referentin, Schriftstellerin, zitiert in: Frank G. Sommers, Tana Dineen, Curing Nuclear Madness, S. 158, Methuen, 1984

 

  • Wir sollten weder alles dem Schicksal überlassen, noch auf unsere Anstrengungen eingebildet sein. Das Schicksal wird seinen Lauf nehmen. Wir sollten nur darauf achten, wo wir eingreifen können oder wo das sogar unsere Pflicht ist, unabhängig davon, was das Ergebnis sein wird.
    Wer den Weg der Wahrheit geht, stolpert nicht. Worte an einen Freund, Neue Stadt, Januar 2007, 15. Auflage 2011

 

  • Unser Glück beruht darauf, dass wir tun, was wir für richtig und angemessen halten und nicht, was andere sagen
    oder tun. Zitiert in: Mutmacher

 

  • Glück ist, wenn deine Gedanken, deine Worte und dein Tun miteinander im Einklang sind. Zitiert in: Gedankenwelt

 

Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1929
  • Wenn du im Recht bist, kannst du es dir leisten, die Ruhe zu bewahren,
    und wenn du im Unrecht bist, kannst du es dir nicht leisten, sie zu verlieren. Zitiert in: Poeteus

 

  • Wer Unrecht duldet, ohne sich dagegen zu wehren, macht sich mitschuldig! Zitiert in: Sofia Sörensen, Rezeptlos glücklich: 25 Jahre Erfahrungen mit vegetari-
    scher und veganer Vollwertkost sowie reiner Rohkost
    , S. 294, BoD, 3. Auflage November 2010

 

 

  • Beten ist nicht bitten. Es ist ein Sehnen der Seele. Zitiert in: Gute Zitate, Prayer [Gebet], Indien, 1977, Berkeley Hills Books, Neuauflage Juli 2000

 

  • Kraft kommt nicht aus körperlichen Fähigkeiten. Sie entspringt einem unbeugsamen Willen. Zitiert in: Gute Zitate

 

  • Unter den vielen Lügenmächten, die in der Welt wirksam sind, ist die Theologie eine der ersten. Zitiert in: Poeteus

 

  • Die Wahrheit ist nicht das ausschließliche Eigentum einer einzelnen heiligen Schrift. Die Forderung der Zeit ist nicht eine einzige Religion, sondern die gegenseitige Achtung und Duldsamkeit der Anhänger aller Religionen.
    Zitiert in: Poeteus

 

  • Alles steht zum besten mit dir, auch wenn schier alles zu misslingen scheint, solange du nur mit dir selber im Reinen bist. Umgekehrt stimmt nichts mit dir, selbst wenn es äußerlich gut zu gehen scheint, solange du nicht mit dir selber
    im Reinen bist. Zitiert in: Ausgewählte Texte, S. 23, Goldmann Verlag, München, 1983

 

  • Und im Wissen, dass die Seele den Körper überlebt, brennt er nicht ungeduldig darauf, den Sieg der Wahrheit im gegenwärtigen Körper zu erleben. Zitiert in: Facharbeit (Schule) von Andrea Köbler Tod – Und dann?, 2005

 

  • Wenn ich die Frauen Asiens erwecken könnte, könnte ich Indien in einem Tag retten.
    Zitiert (engl.) in: Richard L. Johnson, Herausgeber, Gandhi's Experiments with Truth. Essential Writings by and about Mahatma
    Gandhi
    , S. 156, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lexington Books, 2006

 

Referenz: de.Wikiquote-Eintrag Mahatma Gandhi

Quotes by M. Gandhi

Personal avowals

 

  • You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
    Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

  • I have been known as a crank, faddist, madman. Evidently the reputation is well deserved. For wherever I go, I draw
    to myself cranks, faddists, and madmen. Article, presented by the Indian newspaper Young India, 13. June 1929; also pub-
    lished in the book: Krishna Kripalani, editor, All Men Are Brothers. Autobiographical Reflections, S. 163, 2005

 

 

(↓)

Intuition

 

(↓)

Despair

  • When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, always.
    Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

(↓)

Positive influence of women

Gandhi's mother Putlibai and his wife Kasturba influenced his path greatly.

  • The outstanding impression my mother has left on my memory is that of saintliness. She was deeply religious. She would not think of taking her meals without daily prayer. She would take the hardest of vows and keep them without flinching. Illness was no excuse for relaxing them. Autobiography by Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, The Story Of My Experiments With Truth, chapter 1 "Birth and Parentage", 1925

 

  • I contemplate a mental, and therefore, a moral opposition to immoralities. I seek entirely to blunt the edge of the
    tyrant’s sword, not by putting up against it a sharper-edged weapon, but by disappointing his expectation that I
    would be offering physical resistance. Article, presented by the Indian newspaper Young India, 8. October 1925

 

(↓)

Using anger wisely:

  • I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger con-
    trolled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonvio-
    lent freedom fighter, presented by the Indian newspaper Young India, 15. September 1920, reprinted in: The Collected Works of
    Mahatma Gandhi
    , volume XXI, S. 252, April 1913-December 1914, 1964

 

(↓)

Scenario: A plane is flying over Gandhi's ashram to bomb him

Gandhi's prayer solution meets escalation of physical force with soul force. It overcomes the tendency toward fear and flight. It is constructive as well as a form of resistance.

 

(↓)

Marriage, the cauldron

 

(↓)

Women

  • I began work among women when I was not even thirty years old. There is not a woman in South Africa who does not know me. But my work was among the poorest. The intellectuals I could not draw [...] you cannot blame me for not having organized the intellectuals among the women. I have not the gift [...] but just as I never fear coldness on the part of the poor when I approach them, I never fear it when I approach poor women. There is invisible bond between them and me.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, non-vio-
    lent freedom fighter, cited in: Articles on and by Mahatma Gandhi Gandhiji and Empowerment of Women, presented by mkgandhi.org, Dr. Vibhuti Patel, Director, PGSR, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai, undated

 

(↓)

Men's injustice to women

  • To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, non-
    violent freedom fighter, cited in: article ''To the Women of India’', presented by the Indian newspaper Young India, 4. October 1930

 

(↓)

Compassion and kinship

  • Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest of us being happy. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: autobiographical reflections A&C Black, All Men Are Brothers, UNESCO / The Columbia University Press, 1958, Continuum, 1980, S. 73, Continuum, 20. September 2005, cited in: AZ Quotes

 

(↓)

Finding solace in Holy Scriptures

  • I find a solace in the Bhagavadgītā that I miss even in the Sermon on the Mount. When disappointment stares me in the face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagavadgītā. I find a verse here and a verse there and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming tragedies – and my life has been full of external tra-
    gedies – and if they have left no visible, no indelible scar on me, I owe it all to the teaching of Bhagavadgītā.
    According to Radhakrishnan cited in: Article, presented by the Indian newspaper Young India, S. 1078-1079, 1925

 

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Leadership: setting a good example

  • My co-workers and I never hesitated to do sweeping, scavenging, and similar work, with the result that others also took it up enthusiastically. In the absence of such sensible procedure, it is no good issuing orders to others. All would assume leadership and dictate to others, and there would be nothing done in the end. But where the leader himself beco-
    mes servant, there are no rival claimants for leadership.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author, The Essential Gandhi, S. 107, Vintage Books, edited edition 1962, 12. January 1983

 

(↓)

Women

  • Women's marvellous power is lying dormant. If the women of Asia wake up, they will dazzle the world. My experiment in non-violence would be instantly success-
    ful if I could secure women's help.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, presented by the website gandhitopia.org, cited in: Richard L. Johnson, editor, Gandhi's Experiments with Truth. Essential Writings by and about Mahatma Gandhi, S. 156, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lexington Books, 2006

 

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Leaders living the change

  • I adopt the change [loin cloth and chaddar] because I have always hesitated to advise anything I may not myself be prepared to follow.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author,
    The Essential Gandhi, S. 159, Vintage Books, edited edition 1962, 12. January 1983

 

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Role modeling

  • My strength lies in my asking people to do nothing that I have not tried repeatedly in my own life.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author,
    The Essential Gandhi, S. 186, Vintage Books, edited edition 1962, 12. January 1983

 

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Death and killing

 

 

  • Taking life may be a duty. Even man-slaughter may be necessary in certain cases. Suppose a man runs amuck
    killing anyone that comes in his way. Anyone who despatches this lunatic will earn the gratitude of the community
    and be regarded as a benevolent man.
    Gandhi on Non-Violence. A Selection From the Writings of Mahatma Gandi, New Directions, 1st printing edition May 1965

 

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Simplicity

  • If I preach against the modern artificial life of sensual enjoyment, and ask men and women to go back to the simple life epitomized in the chakra, I do so because I know that without an intelligent return to simplicity, there is no escape from our own destruction. Cited in: Quotetab

 

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Daily resolve

 

 

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Guided on faith by the "inner voice"

  • I do not know what you call a vision and what you will call prophetic. When I announced my fast of 21 days in jail, I had not reasoned it. On retiring to bed the previous night, I had no notion that I was going to announce a fast for 21 days. But in the middle of the night, a voice woke me up and said,
    "Go through a fast."
    "How many?”, I asked.
    "21 days", was the answer.
Now let me tell you that my mind was unprepared for it, disinclined for it. But the thing came to me clearly as anything could be. Whatever striking things I have done in life, I have not done prompted by reason but prompted by instinct, I would say God. Take the Dandi Salt March of 1930 (the single most important event that set the Indian freedom move-
ment onwards to victory). I had not the ghost of a suspicion how the breach of the salt law would work itself out. Pandit (who later became the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru) and other friends were fretting and did not know what I would do; and I could tell them nothing, as I myself knew nothing about it. But like a flash it came, and as you know, it was enough to shake the country from one end to the other.
Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent
freedom fighter, Prayer, India, 1977, Berkeley Hills Books, reprint edition July 2000

 

Questions

  • How do we rate a society? By evaluating how they treat their minorities.
    Cited in: Quotefancy, cited in: blog article by justice D. Warren, title Unknown, presented by the website UNC School of Law,
    7. March 2012
(↓)

Truth-seeking strategy

  • [Paraphrased] Each person has a piece of the truth, but no one has the whole of it. The first step to a broader truth is to take a stand strongly for our own piece of it, and then to engage in principled struggle with those who disagree. If we listen, more truth emerges from the struggle.

 

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Truth

  • Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected. James Alexander, Best Mahatma Gandhi Quotes, S. 18, Crombie Jardine Publishing, Kindle edition 30. April 2014

 

 

 

  • I don't know absolute truth – only God knows that. I'm human; I know only relative truth, and that changes from day
    to day. My commitment must be to truth, and not to consistency.
    Cited in: Ram Dass [Richard Alpert] (1931-2019) US American professor of psychology, student of the Indian Hindu guru
    Neem Karoli Baba, spiritual teacher, MKUltra agent, author, Paths to God. Living the Bhagavad Gita, S. 144, Three Rivers
    Press, 2004

 

  • Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it.
    But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.
    Krishna Kripalani, compiler, editor, All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections, quote 62, Harijan, 24. November 1933,
    S. 65, Continuum International, New York, London, 2004

 

  • Truth, purity, self-control, firmness, fearlessness, humility, unity, peace, and renunciation. – These are the inherent qualities of a civil resister. Cited in: AZ Quotes

 

 

  • Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.
    Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

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Freedom

 

(↓)

Differentiate!

Natural ⇔ habitual

  • It's very dangerous to mix up the words natural and habitual. We have been trained to be quite habitual at communicating in ways that are quite unnatural.
    Cited in: AZ Quotes

 

Statue
Gandhi statue, Tavistock-Square, London, Great Britain
  • Unfortunately for His Excellency the movement is likely to grow with ridicule as it is certain to flourish on repression. No vital movement can be killed except by the impatience, ignorance or laziness of its authors. A movement cannot be 'insane' that is conducted by men of action as I claim the members of the Non-co-operation Commit-
    tee are. […] Ridicule is like repression. Both give place to respect when they fail to produce the intended effect. […] It will be admitted that non-co-operation has passed the stage [of] ridicule. Whether it will now be met by repression or respect remains to be seen. […] But the testing time has now arrived. In a civilized country when ridicule fails to kill a movement it begins to command respect.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, collection of essays and speeches Freedom's Battle, 2nd edition, 1922

 

  • The four stages of transformation
    1. First they ignore you.
    2. Then they ridicule you.
    3. And then they attack you and want to burn you.
    4. And then they build monuments to you.
    And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
Nicholas Klein, US American labor union advocate, attorney, address to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Baltimore, 15. May 1918; falsely attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

 

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Kindness

 

  • The end is inherent in the means. Cited in: AZ Quotes

 

  • Take care of the means and the end will take care of itself. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: AZ Quotes

 

  • The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated.
    I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, non-
    violent freedom fighter, cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

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Need ⇔ greed

 

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Trivialised quote

We must be the change we wish to see.

  • If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. [...] We need not wait to see what others do.
(↓)

In 1913 Mohandas Gandhi published a piece about snakebites.

  • We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, volume XII, chapter "General Knowledge About Health XXXII: Accidents Snake-Bite", April 1913-December 1914, 1964

 

 

 

 

  • The voice of conscience is the voice of God, and it is the final judge of the rightness or wrongness of every deed
    and every thought. Ethical Religion, S. 39, Navajivan Trust, December 1968

 

  • For me the voice of God, of Conscience, of Truth or the Inner Voice or 'the still small Voice' mean one and the same thing. I saw no form. I have never tried, for I have always believed God to be without form. One who realizes God is freed from sin for ever [...]. But what I did hear was like a Voice from afar and yet quite near. It was as unmistakable as some human voice definitely speaking to me, and irresistible. I was not dreaming at the time I heard the Voice. The hearing of the Voice was preceded by a terrific struggle within me. Suddenly the Voice came upon me. I listened, made certain that it was the Voice, and the struggle ceased. I was calm. The determination was made accordingly, the date and the hour of the fast were fixed [...]. Could I give any further evidence that it was truly the Voice that I heard and that it was not an echo of my own heated imagination? I have no further evidence to convince the sceptic. He is free to say that it was all self-delusion or hallucination. It may well have been so. I can offer no proof to the contrary. But I can say this – that not the unanimous verdict of the whole world against me could shake me from the belief that what I heard was the true voice of God. Article featuring Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, presented in Gandhi's weekly journal Harijan (1933-1948), 8. July 1933; Ramachandra Krishna Prabhu, editor, U. R. Rao, editor, The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, S. 33-34, 1967, Greenleaf Books, 1. September 1988

 

 

  • Interdependence is and ought to be as much as the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. With-
    out interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism.
    His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent
    freedom fighter, cited in: article, presented by the Indian newspaper Young India, S. 93, 21. March 1929

 

  • Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results; we can only strive. And so far as I am concerned, it is enough satisfaction for me to know that I have striven my utmost to discharge the duty that rested on me. Cited in: mkgandhi.org

 

  • Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
    Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors.
    Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits.
    Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
    Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
    Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

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BeingDoingHaving

  • Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it. Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

 

  • Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy. Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

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Love

 

  • The unadulterated love of one person can nullify the hatred of millions. Cited in: Andy Zubko, Treasury of Spiritual Wisdom, S. 232, Blue Dove Foundation, 3rd edition 1998, 1st Indian edition Dehli, India, 2004

 

  • We can only win over the opponent by love, never by hate. Hate is the subtlest form of violence. We cannot be really non-violent and yet have hate in us. Cited in: Harijan, 17. August 1934

 

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Peace

 

  • Firstly, we must acquire greater mastery over ourselves and secure an atmosphere of perfect calm, peace and good will.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, non-
    violent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author, The Essential Gandhi, S. 168, Vintage Books, edited edition (of 1962) 12. January 1983

 

(↓)

Derived from quote: "With love for mankind and hatred of sins."

Latin: "Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum." by Saint Augustine, letter 211, 424

  • "Hate the sin and not the sinner" is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world. [...]. It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself. for we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world. An Autobiography. The Story of My Experiments With Truth, part IV, chapter 9 "A Tussle with Power", 1927-1929, 562 pages, Beacon Press, November 1993
    • Hate the sin, but love the sinner. [Original saying: Love the sinner but hate the sin.]
      Traditional Christian proverb, cited in: Edward Irving (1792-1834) Scottish clergyman, main figure behind the foundation
      of the Catholic Apostolic Church, Sermons, Lectures, and Occasional Discourses, 1828
    • "Love the sinner and hate the sin." [Augustinus|Augustine of Hippo]]

 

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Exclusivity is short-lived.

  • No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive. Cited in: Brainyquote

 

  • Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty. You assist an administration most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of
    an evil state is therefore a duty.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Bhikhu Parekh, Indian professor of political theory, University of Hull, Gandhi’s Political Philosophy. A Critical Examination, S. 129, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989, reprint issue 1991; cited also in: quote collection Just how did he swing it?, presented by the Indian newspaper Hindustan Times, 11. August 2007

 

(↓)

Resisting evil systems

  • You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her soul. Cited in: Quotetab

 

(↓)

Civil disobedience is the antidote to lawlessness and corruption.

  • Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or, which is the same thing, corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.
  • Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering without the intoxicating excitement of killing.
  • Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies.
  • Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good.
  • Non-cooperation and civil disobedience are different but [are] branches of the same tree call Satyagraha (truth-power).
  • Tyrants, and murderers […] can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, always.

 

(↓)

Contribution to the world

  • Our contribution to the progress of the world must, therefore, consist in setting our own house in order.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author,
    The Essential Gandhi, S. 154, Vintage Books, edited edition (of 1962) 12. January 1983

 

(↓)

Improving the self, improving the world

  • Instead of thinking of improving the world let us concentrate on self-improvement. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author, The Essential Gandhi, S. 273, Vintage Books, edited edition (of 1962) 12. January 1983

 

(↓)

Self-rule: prerequisite for the liberation of India

  • [W]e can see that if we become free, India is free. And in this thought you have a definition of Sawarj. It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves. It is therefore, in the palms of our hands. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author, The Essential Gandhi, S. 123, Vintage Books, edited edition (of 1962) 12. January 1983

 

(↓)

Taking action individually and collectively

  • [We] are the makers of our own state and [...] individuals who realize the fact need not, ought not, to wait for collective action.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, cited in: Louis Fischer (1896-1970) Jewish-American journalist, author,
    The Essential Gandhi, S. 91, Vintage Books, edited edition (of 1962) 12. January 1983

 

(↓)

Regulations of wealth and social justice

  • Strictly speaking, all amassing or hoarding of wealth above and beyond one's legi-
    timate requirements is theft. There would be no occasion for theft, and therefore no thieves, if there were wise regulations of wealth and absolute social justice. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, Sailesh Kumar Bandopadhyaya, compiler and editor, My Non-violence, chapter 103. Nature Cure for Criminals, Navajivan Trust, 1st edition November 1960

 

  • An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. False attribution; cited in: Quote Investigator

 

  • To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is
    not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend. Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

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Prayer

  • Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly used and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. Cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

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Intellectual ⇔ spiritual concepts

 

(↓)

Court of conscience

  • There is a higher court than courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience.
    It supersedes all other courts.
    Article, presented by the Indian newspaper Young India, 15. December 1921

 

  • Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, Prayer, India, 1977, Berkeley Hills Books, reprint edition July 2000

 

(↓)

Violence

  • The Roots of Violence are:
    ♦ Wealth without work,
    ♦ Pleasure without conscience,
    ♦ Knowledge without character,
    ♦ Commerce without morality,
    ♦ Science without humanity,
    ♦ Worship without sacrifice,
    ♦ Politics without principles.
Cited in: SEVEN DEADLY SINS As per Mahatma Gandhi, presented by the website mkgandhi.org

 

(↓)

Wealth versus morality
Jesus the noblest economist:

Gandhi hinted that he could quote even stronger passages from the Hindu scriptures. The lesson here is: If we could clean our houses, palaces and temples of the attributes of wealth and show in them the attributes of morality we could fight all hostile forces without military strength. He recommended to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything will be added upon the seeker.

  • St. Mark has vividly described the scene. Jesus is in his solemn mood. He is earnest. He talks about eternity. He knows the world about him. He is himself the greatest economist of his time. He succeeded in sermonising time and space – He transcends them. It is to him at the best that one comes running, kneels down and asks, "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said unto him, "One thing thou lackest. Go thy way, sell what thou hast and give it to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven – come, take up the cross and follow me." Here you have an eternal rule of life stated in the noblest words the English language is capable of producing. […] These are real economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce them in our daily life.
    Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter; cited in: Editorial by Fr. Benny Aguiar, Gandhi vs. Christ, presented by the publication "Examiner", official organ of the Bombay (Mumbai) diocese of the New Church, 26. September 1992

 

(↓)

Politics:

  • The greater the institution, the greater the chances of abuse. Democracy is a great institution and therefore it is liable to be greatly abused. The remedy therefore is not avoidance of democracy, but reduction of the possibility of abuse, to a minimum. Cited in: article by the Indian weekly newspaper Young India, 5. July 1931; cited in: 4. Democracy of India, presented by the publication mkgandhi.org

 

  • Democracy is an impossible thing until the power is shared by all, but let not democracy degenerate into mobocracy.
    Cited in: article by the Indian weekly newspaper Young India, S. 404, 12. January 1927; cited in: Essence Of Democracy,
    presented by the publication mkgandhi.org

 

  • The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
    Cited in: article by the Indian weekly newspaper Young India, 1. December 1927; Brainyquote

 

  • When anybody finds any inconsistency between any two writings of mine, if he has still faith in my sanity, he would do well to choose the latter of the two on the same subject. Article, presented by the Indian weekly journal Harijan, 29. April 1933

 

(↓)

Touching Gandhi's feet:

The dignity approach: At the occasion of the Indian independance day, 15. August 1947, cheering people tried to touch Gandhi's feet in respect. He, however, never allowed such gestures of reverence.
Gandhi had learned "Don't bow before another person" from the Quaker William Penn.

 

  • The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to
    be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human indi-
    viduals.
    Article by Petri Liukkonen and Ari Pesonen, Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), 2008

 

(↓)

Christianity

 

(↓)

Christianity

 

(↓)

Happiness

Levels: Thinking – Doing – Being

 

(↓)

War

  • An armed conflict between nations horrifies us. But the economic war is no better than an armed conflict. This is like a surgical operation. An economic war is prolonged torture. And its ravages are no less terrible than those depicted in the literature on war properly so called. We think nothing of the other because we are used to its deadly effects. [...]
    The movement against war is sound. I pray for its success. But I cannot help the gnawing fear that the movement
    will fail if it does not touch the root of all evil – man's greed.
    Cited in: Program Non-Violence – The Greatest Force, presented by the radio and television program The World Tomorrow, sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), 5. October 1926

 

(↓)

Justified war to prevent genocide

  • But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter.
    The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If
    there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the
    wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.
    Open letter, November 1938

 

(↓)

Poverty: The problem is [social] inequality.

Poverty is not the symptom. Poverty is the symptom of the problem. Video presentation by Thom Hartmann thomhartmann.com (*1951) US American former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, radio host of Air America, progressive political commentator, journalist, author, The more equality a society has, the better it does, referencing income inequality researcher Richard Wilkinson, Ph.D. (*1943) British professor emeritus of social epidemiology, University of Nottingham, YouTube film, minute 1:37, 9:01 minutes duration, posted 28. July 2009


 

Reference: en.Wikiquote entry Mahatma Gandhi

Zitate von anderen Quellen

Persönliches Bekenntnis

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Gandhis Hauptwidersacher bekennt:

25 Jahre nach Abschluss der Satyagraha-Kampagne, 1939

  • Gandhi selbst erhielt [während seines Gefängnisaufenthalts], was er sich zweifellos wünschte, eine kurze Zeit der Ruhe und des Friedens. Für ihn verlief alles nach Plan. Für mich, den Verteidiger von Recht und Ordnung, gab es die übliche schwierige Herausforderung, das Ärgernis, ein Gesetz durchzusetzen, das in der Öffentlichkeit wenig Unterstützung fand, und schließlich das Unbehagen, als das Gesetz wieder aufgehoben werden musste. Für ihn war es ein gelungener Coup. General Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950) südafrikanischer Staatsmann, britischer Feldmarschall, burischer General, Symbolfigur, Philosoph, Gandhis Hauptgegner, zitiert in: B. R. Nanda, GANDHI a pictorial biography, PDF, S. 23, Ministerium für Information und Rundfunk, Regierung von Indien, Patiala House, Neu-Delhi, Erstdruck Januar 1972

 

  • Im Hinduismus ist Rama eines der einfachsten, wirksamsten und beliebtesten Mantras. Diesem heiligen Wort liegt die Sanskrit-Wurzel RAM = sich freuen zugrunde [...].
    Rama bedeutet soviel wie beständige Freude. Wenn wir dieses Mantra wiederholen, richten wir unsere Gedanken auf immerwährende Freude tief in uns. Mahatma Gandhis Mantra war Rama. Er sagte einmal, dass es für ihn leichter wäre, wenn sein Leben aufhörte, als wenn das Echo des «Rama» nicht mehr in seinem Bewusstsein widerhallen würde. Genau so geschah es schließlich. Als Gandhis Körper von den Kugeln des Mörders getroffen war, segnete er seinen Angreifer mit gefaltenen Händen und starb mit einem «Rama» auf den Lippen und im Herzen.
    Dr. Annette Cramer, deutsche Musikpsychologin, Musiktherapeutin, Hör- und Stimmtherapeutin, Autorin, Das Buch von der Stimme, Walter Verlag, Düsseldorf, Zürich, 1. Januar 1998

Quotes by various other sources

Personal avowal

 

(↓)

Book review on Richard Toye's book:

Churchill's Empire. The World That Made Him and the World He Made'', St. Martin's Griffin, 2010, reprint edition 19. July 2011

  • When Gandhi began his campaign of peaceful resistance, Churchill raged that he [Gandhi] "ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back." He later added: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."
    This hatred killed. In 1943, […] a famine broke out in Bengal, caused [...] by British mismanagement. To the horror of many of his colleagues, Churchill raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits" and refused to offer any aid for months while hundreds of thousands died.
    Sunday book review The Two Churchills, presented by the US American daily newspaper The New York Times, Johann Hari
    (*1979) British columnist, journalist, writer, 12. August 2010

 

Regret – Insight

(↓)

Uncorrupted spearheads superseding mainstream culture die early.

  • We loved Jesus, Socrates, and Gandhi – after we murdered them. While they were alive, they were a tremendous pain in the ass. Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. – these people died relatively young. You don't often live a long life being too far out ahead of your culture.
    Interview with Robert Kegan, Ph.D. (*1946) US American developmental psychologist, professor of leadership studies and adult learning, Harvard University, co-director for the Change Leadership Group, author, Epistemology, Fourth Order Consciousness, and the Subject-Object Relationship or... How the Self Evolves, presented by the dissolved US American magazine What is Enlightenment? / Enlighten-
    Next, Elizabeth Debold, Ed.D., US American gender researcher, senior teacher of evolutionary enlightenment, cultural commentator, senior editor of the dissolved magazine WIE / EnlightenNext (2002-2011), author, issue 22, 2003
(↓)

Satyagraha vs. Duragraha

War in relation to the larger scheme of things

  • Disiciple: He says that war is avoidable.
    Aurobindo: There is no objection to that, but how is war to be avoided? How can you prevent war when the other fellow wants to fight? You can prevent it by beco-
    ming stronger than he, or by a combination that is stronger than he, or you change his heart, as Gandhiji says, by passive resistance or Satyagraha.
    And even there Gandhiji has been forced to admit that none of his followers knows the science of passive resistance.
    In fact, he says, he is the only person who knows all about Satyagraha. It is not very promising for Satyagraha, consi-
    dering that it is intended to be a general solution for all men. What some people have done at some places in India is not Satyagraha but Duragraha.
    Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) Indian Hindu mystic, Evening Talks, recorded by A.B. Purani, undated

 

  • Nonviolence is not necessarily pacifism. Pacifism suggests that we do not retaliate in any way at all, but nonviolence
    is a very active philosophy. It means that we nonviolently stand up against injustice, and it means that we sacrifice
    our lives if necessary.
    Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson leader of Indian independence, director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, source unknown

 

  • Gandhi said that politics should be sacred. He wasn't saying it should be religious, but that we should engage it
    with the fullness of our humanity. Martin Luther King said that the ultimate goal was the establishment of the belo-
    ved community. Look at these two men, both of whom were undeniably the brightest political lights of the 20th century, and you see that they spoke in a context much more philosophical than what we now define as politics. […] And they were not called fuzzy or lightweight thinkers, or New Age nutcases. None of us should apologize for saying, just as Gandhi did, that humanity is not in its right mind. Interview with Marianne Williamson (*1952) US American spiritual teacher, political activist, visionary, lecturer, author, Marianne Williamson on Consciousness, Women and Politics, presented by
    the US American liberal-oriented online newspaper HuffPost, Marianne Schnall, 9. November 2012, updated 6. December 2017

 

  • Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit. [...] not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in what we believe is evil.
    Radio interview Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-born US American theoretical physicist, developer of the theory of general relativity, Nobel laureate in physics, presented by the United Nations, recorded in Einstein's study, Princeton, New Jersey, 1950

 

Bild
  • As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi, my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time that the Christian doctrine of love, ope-
    rating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence, is one of the most potent weapons available to an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.
    Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) US American clergyman, activist, leader of the African American civil rights movement; cited in: article The Formative Influences on Dr. Martin Luther King, presented by the "Peace Magazine", Jr. Gregg Blakely, S. 21, April-June 2001

 

 

  • Besides, Gandhi was not like some of his contemporaries, who too were using religion in their respective struggles for indepen-
    dence. What set him apart was the fact that while others high-
    lighted worldly interests of religious communities – which cre-
    ated hatred and jealousy, he introduced tenets of various religions in politics with a vision that was broad enough to respect the needs of all communities. Religion, he said, in its broadest sense governs all departments of life, including politics. Vishal Arora, Gandhi Showed How Religion Is Used In Politics, presented by "Madras Mail", 22. December 1933, issued by Spero News online, 1. February 2008

 

  • Mahatma Gandhi said that seven things will destroy us. Notice that all of them have to do with social and political conditions. Note also that the antidote of each of these "deadly sins" is an explicit external standard or something
    that is based on natural principles and laws, not on social values.
    • Wealth Without Work
    • Pleasure Without Conscience
    • Knowledge Without Character
    • Commerce (Business) Without Morality (Ethics)
    • Science Without Humanity
    • Religion Without Sacrifice
    • Politics Without Principle
Stephen R. Covey (1932-2012), one of the world's leading management consultants and author of the bestselling book, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, Free Press, 15th anniversary edition 9. November 2004, containing excerpts from Principle Centered Leadership, chapter 7 "Seven Deadly Sins", S. 87-93, Free Press, October 1992

 

  • Civil disobedience: Passive (i.e. nonviolent) resistance to state power, usually involving mass defiance of unpopular laws or passive noncooperation with the authorities. Such methods can cause considerable difficulties for the state, which may be reluctant to use force against nonviolent protestors for fear of inflaming the situation or alienating world opinion. Civil disobedience was first developed as a concerted strategy by Gandhi, who pioneered his techniques of satyagraha first in South Africa and then in British India. Similar methods were subsequently adopted by supporters
    of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1950s, by Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement of the 1960s, and by large crowds demanding reform in Czechoslovakia and other countries in the weeks before the collapse of communism in 1989. History suggests that such techniques are most likely to succeed when the regime is relatively liberal, when its authority is already crumbling, or when peaceful protests are backed by the implicit threat of mass violence should their demands not be met. The Macmillan Encyclopedia, 2001

 

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In reference to Gandhi's quote: A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

  • Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has. Attributed to Margaret Mead (1901-1978) US American cultural anthropologist, sociologist, biologist, popular writer, lecturer, cited in: Frank G. Sommers, Tana Dineen, Curing Nuclear Madness, S. 158, Methuen, 1984

 

  • Gandhi variously translated satyagrahi as truth force, love force, compassion force, and soul force to emphasize that
    it was an actual force which rulers would have to reckon with. He believed that we often remain in our animal nature
    – the origin of brute force – but we can raise ourselves up into our souls and thereby come in contact with a spiritual force infinitely more powerful than brute force. Richard L. Johnson, editor, Gandhi's Experiments with Truth. Essential Writings
    by and about Mahatma Gandhi
    , S. 14, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lexington Books, 2006

 

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Gandhi and his wife Kasturbai

Changed by the crucible of marriage

  • Gradually Gandhi began to see that she (his wife, Kasturbai) was practicing every day what he himself had been admiring as a theoretical ideal. He took up her example, and each became the other's teacher as Gandhi learned Kasturbai's patience and inspired her with his own fiery enthusiasm in return. It was a long arduous, exacting discipline, which he used to say required the patience of a man trying to empty the sea with a cup. But every time they overcame a barrier between them, they found they were not only able to love each other more, they had more love and patience for everyone else as well. By the time Gandhi had learned to bring
    this love to bear even on his enemies, Kasturbai too was in prison, gathering other women to her leadership.
    Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) Indian spiritual teacher, author, translator, interpreter of spiritual literature, teacher of Passage Meditation, Gandhi the Man. How one man changed himself to change the world, Nilgiri Press, 4th edition 11. April 2011

 

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Love

  • When all violence subsides in the human heart, the state which remains is love. It
    is not something we have to acquire; it is always present, and needs only to be un-
    covered. This is our real nature, not merely to love one person here, another there, but to be love itself.
    Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) Indian spiritual teacher, author, translator, interpreter of spiritual literature, teacher of Passage Meditation, Gandhi the Man. How one man changed himself to change the world, S. 53, Nilgiri Press, 4th edition 11. April 2011

 

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Ahimsa: practice of nonviolence

  • A teacher of meditation in ancient India, Patanjali, says that in the presence of a man in whom all hostility has died, because he does not challenge anyone, others cannot be hostile. In the presence of a man in whom all fear has died, because he does not threaten anyone, no one can be afraid.
    Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) Indian spiritual teacher, author, translator, interpreter of spiritual literature, teacher of Passage Meditation, Gandhi the Man. How one man changed himself to change the world, S. 137, Nilgiri Press, 4th edition 11. April 2011

 

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Women

  • Gandhiji struggled very hard to understand a woman's physical and mental pain. From a young age he introduced his wife and children to social sacrifice and service. Lecture by Jyotsna Kamat, Gandhi and Status of Women on Gandhi's efforts to involve women in all phases of development, including the struggle for India's freedom, December 1998, last update 7. October 2009

 

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Gandhi advocating gender equality – touching chapter in Gandhi's autobiography (pg. ~24):

Gandhi often confirmed that the paternal society is the root of inequality. When he ordered his wife Kasturba to clean a public toilet it resulting in a severe spousal conflict. He felt ashamed about his behavior. From then on he took care not to humiliate her anymore for the rest of his life.

  • Gandhi: "Intellectually, mentally, and spiritually, woman is equivalent to a male and she can participate in every activity."
    Lecture by Jyotsna Kamat, Gandhi and Status of Women on Gandhi's efforts to involve women in all phases of development, including the struggle for India's freedom, December 1998, last update 11. May 2008

 

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Gandhi criticized Indian's passion for male progeny.

  • Womanhood is not restricted to the kitchen. Only when the woman is liberated from the slavery of the kitchen, that her true spirit may be discovered.
    Lecture by Jyotsna Kamat, Gandhi and Status of Women on Gandhi's efforts to involve women in all phases of development, including the struggle for India's freedom, December 1998, last update 11. May 2008

 

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Gandhi’s chief antagonist, 30 years later

  • It was my fate to be an antagonist of a man [Gandhi] for whom even then I had the highest respect. [...] He never forgot the human background of the situation, never lost his temper or succumbed to hate, and preserved his gentle humor even in the most trying situations. His manner and spirit even then, as well as later, contrasted markedly with the ruthless and brutal forcefulness which is the vogue in our day. [...] His method was deliberately to break the law, and to organize
    his followers into a mass movement [...] large numbers of Indians had to be imprisoned for lawless behavior.
    General Jan Smuts (1870-1950) South African figurehead, philosopher, Gandhi’s chief antagonist

 

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Gandhi’s chief antagonist, 25 years after the conclusion of the Satyagraha campaign, 1939

  • Gandhi himself received what no doubt he desired a short period of rest and quiet in goal [when put to jail]. For him everything went according to plan. For me the defender of law and order – there was the usual trying situation, the odium of carrying out a law which had no strong public support, and finally the discomfiture when the law had to be repealed. For him it was a successful coup.
    General Jan Smuts (1870-1950) South African figurehead, philosopher, Gandhi’s chief antagonist, cited in: B. R. Nanda, GANDHI a pictorial biography, S. 23, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, Patiala House, New Delhi, first published January 1972

 

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A third of the population are introverts.

Following their calling allows them to step out.

  • Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi – all these people described them-
    selves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy. And they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not to.
    Video presentation by Susan Cain (*1968) US American former corporate lawyer, negotiations consultant, self-described introvert, lecturer, author of Quiet, The power of introverts [Die Macht der Introvertierten], transcript, presented by TED Talks 2012, minute 6:54, 19:04 minutes duration,
    filmed February 2012, posted March 2012

Juxtaposing Gandhi ⇔ Luther King Jr.

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A genuinely emancipatory revolution is rare.

  • Gandhi pointed out that what he considered a genuine revolution and betterment of society rarely happens because what happens is the oppressed rise up and then oppress the oppressors in the name of how terrible oppression is. Who is in the roles changes but the game remains the same. Once in an interview when Martin Luther King Jr. was asked why he cared so much about improving the lot of the negro in Montgomery he replied that he didn't actually care about that (as reported in the book The Seven Life Lessons of Chaos). This greatly shocked the reporter who wanted to know why he was doing everything he was doing if it wasn't to improve the lot of the negro in Montgomery. he replied that he was doing it "to improve the whole of Montgomery."

Quotes by David R. Hawkins

⚠ Caveat See Power vs. Truth, January 2013

  • Not only did Gandhi bring the British Empire to its knees, he effectively brought the curtain down on the centuries-old drama of colonialism, and he did it by simply standing for a principle: the intrinsic dignity of man, and his right to free-
    dom
    , sovereignty and self-determination. […] Gandhi believed that human rights aren’t granted by any earthly power, but are ingrained in the nature of man himself because they are inherent in his creation. Dr. David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force. The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, chapter 10 "Power in Politics", S. 152, Hay House, February 2002

 

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The spiritual non-violent approach

  • Violence is force, but since Gandhi was aligned with power instead of force, he forbade all use of violence in his cause. And because he expressed universal principles (which calibrate at 700) he was able to unite. When the will of the people is so united by and aligned with universal principle, it’s virtually unconquerable. Colonialism (calibrated at 175) is founded in the self-interest of the ruling country, Gandhi demonstrated, for the world to witness, the power of self-
    lessness versus the force of self-interest. Dr. David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force. The Hidden Determinants of Human
    Behavior
    , chapter 10 "Power in Politics", S. 152, Hay House, February 2002

 

  • With enormous power Gandhi stood there and faced of the (prideful) British Empire. Without firing one shot he de-
    feated the British Empire and took it apart and brought the end of colonialism. Selfrule [of nation states] became
    the dominant political system in the world today.

    Audio series containing seminar snippets with David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. (1927-2012) US American physician, psychiatrist, consciousness researcher, teacher of the path of enlightenment, author, The Highest Level of Enlightenment, 6 CD set, Nightin-
    gale-Conant
    , United Kingdom, January 2003, 2004

Englische Texte – English section on Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi's top ten fundamentals for changing the world

Ten recommendations for a better world
༺༻BehaviorExplanationRemark
1. Change yourself. "You must be the change you want to see in the world." If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think, then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change.
2. You can recontextualize, view it differently. "Nobody can hurt me without my permission." What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions.
3. Forgive and let it go. "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Fighting evil with evil won't help anyone. Forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service.
4. Action takes the lead. "An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching." Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard. And so you may resort to preaching, or reading and studying end-
lessly. But you have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.
5. Care·for·this·moment. "I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following." Stay in the present as much as possible, and be accepting. When you are in the present moment you don't worry about the next moment. And the resi-
stance to action comes from imagining negative future consequences or reflecting on past failures.
6. Everyone is human. "It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be re-
minded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."
When you start to make myths out of people, you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. Keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.
7. Persist. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Be persistent. In time the opposition around you
will fade and fall away.
8. See the good in people and support them. "I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others." If you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.
9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self. "Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well." When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. People tend to really listen to what you're saying. You are communicating without incongruence, mixed messages or phoniness.
10. Continue to grow and evolve. "Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself
into a false position."
You can pretty much always improve your skills and habits, or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.
Source: ► Blog entry by Henrik Edberg, 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World, presented by Positivity Blog, 9. May 2008

The essence of beingness

             Mahatma Gandhi's insight conveyed in his last interview             

 

Shortly before he was assassinated Mahatma Gandhi
gave his last interview in January 1948.
A young reporter sent by The Times of India (TOI) asked Gandhi:Gandhi responded:
"How did you force the British to leave India?
The British have been in India for more than
350 years.
You had no army, you had no money, you had no official position, you had no government sanction.
How did you force the British to leave India?"
"Well, I will tell you what I told the National Congress Party. They didn't understand it, but maybe you will.
It was not what we said that mattered, although that was important.
It was not what we did that mattered, although that too was impor-
tant.
What mattered was the 'nature of our beingness'. The essence of who we were, that is what made the British choose to leave India."
Sources featuring Stephan A. Schwartz, Ph.D., US American futurologist, senior fellow for Brain, Mind and Healing, Samueli Institute, cognitive sciences research associate, Laboratories for Fundamental Research, author
Deleted article Gandhi on why the British chose to leave India, published by Gandhitopia.org, 6. February 2009
Video interview Non-Violence With Stephan A. Schwartz, presented by the US American New Thinking Allowed TV, host Jeffrey
     Mishlove, Ph.D.
(*1946) US American clinical psychologist, director of the Intuition Network, radio and television interviewer, author,
     recorded on 5. February 2017, YouTube film, 28:00 minutes duration, posted 6. August 2017
See also:Charisma and ► Essence and ► The essence of the fence
Siehe auch:Das Wesen des Seins – Essenz

 

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards. They try to have more things or more money in order to do more
of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse.
You must first
be who you really are
then do what you need to do in order
to have what you want.

Margaret Young (1891-1969) US American singer, comedienne, cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

 

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Keeping one's own counsel

Spiritual views are not very popular in society in general. It is not necessary to im-
pose one's views on others. Proselytizing is best done by example rather than by coercion and lapel grabbing. We influence others by what we are rather than by what we say or have. To express views that are contrary to public opinion may be sociologically praiseworthy, but to
do so leads to conflict and enmeshment in the arguments and discord in the world. The pursuit of 'causes' is the
role of the social and political reformer
, which is an activity different from that of the seeker of enlightenment. […] Embroilment in the issues of society is a luxury which the seeker of spiritual enlightenment needs to forego. […] We change the world not by what we say or do but as a consequence of what we have become. Thus, every spiritual aspirant serves the world.
Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012) US American psychiatrist, physician, spiritual teacher, cult
leader, author, The Eye of the I. From Which Nothing Is Hidden, S. 68-69, 2001

Transmissions of the nonviolence meme

Chain of nonviolent social reformers
༺༻ Historical group / Change agent Procession
1.Quakers
Represented among others by William Penn (1644-1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
The Quakers found and held the concept of nonviolence originally.
As pacifists most Quakers did not fight in wars. They held/hold non-violent, non-exploitative, and non-hierarchical values, and adhere/d to religiously founded equality between the sexes.
They believe in the Golden rule, simplicity, equality, and peace.
2.Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
US American historian of French-Scottish-Quaker-Puritan heritage, philosopher, leading transcendentalist, naturalist, abolitionist, surveyor, tax resister, development critic, poet, author
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
US American philosopher, Unitarian, appreciative of Quakers, lecturer, poet, essayist
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
US American Quaker, journalist, poet, essayist
The transcendentalists Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman learned the nonviolent approach from Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) Swedish scientist, inventor, philosopher, Christian mystic, theologian, visionary writer as to reform Christianity and the Quakers.
3.Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Indian Hindu sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter
Gandhi learned the practical side of the nonviolent approach from Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman.
4.Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
US American Baptist clergyman, activist, leader of the African American civil rights movement
MLK travelled to India to inquire about the Gandhi's nonviolent approach from his successors.
See also: ► Eight statistically confirmed laws of social change as exemplified by the Quakers

 

The chain of essential social reformers was inspired by the Quakers.

  1. The nonviolence approach started with Quaker William Penn (1644-1718).
  2. Thomas Paine (1737-1809), coming from a Quaker background, was a Founding Father of the United States in 1776. He also partook in the French Revolution 1789.
  3. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) deepened the nonviolent concepts, continued by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Walt Whitman (1819-1892).
  4. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) learned the practical side of the nonviolent approach from their writings, mainly from Thoreau's.
  5. In 1948 Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) attended a lecture by Dr. Mordecai Johnson on the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi and caught fire.

 

The Indian Hindu sage and spiritual activist leader Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi brought together

  1. the Jainist teachings on nonviolence,
  2. Henry David Thoreau's idea of civil disobedience, and
  3. the call to "do your duty and fight for the just cause" issued by the Bhagavad Gita.

The resulting fusion of all three elements changed the face of the twentieth century.

 

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The Quakers contribution to social change

Following the Eight statistically confirmed laws of social change the Society of Friends was successfully involved in six US reformation movements.

  • Quakers were relatively strict Christians in the seventeenth century. They refused to bow or take off their hats to social superiors, believing all men equal under God, a belief antithetical to an absolute monarchy which believed the monarch divinely appointed by God. Therefore, Quakers were treated as heretics because of their principles and their failure to pay tithes. They also refused to swear oaths of loyalty to the King. Quakers followed the command of Jesus not to swear, reported in the Gospel of Matthew, 5, 34 (NT).
    en.Wikipedia entry: William Penn

 

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Anecdote on Gandhi's refusal to have his feet touched:

The dignity approach: At the occasion of the Indian independance day, 15. August 1947, cheering people tried to touch Ghandi's feet in respect. He, however, never allowed such gestures of reverence.
Gandhi had learned the maxime "Don't bow before another person" from the Quaker William Penn.

 

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Anecdote on Gandhi and Einstein:

Albert Einstein was inspired by Mohandas Gandhi. Newsreel after newsreel he watched of Gandhi's doings in India. Having seen Gandhi greet people in the street with his hands placed together, as if in prayer, and with a bow, he wondered what Gandhi was saying.

  • Einstein in a letter to Gandhi: "What are you saying?"
    Gandhi replied: "Namaste."
    Einstein's follow-up letter to Gandhi: What is the meaning of this Hindu word "Namaste"
    Gandhi replied: "I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides. I honor the place in you of light, love, truth, peace and wisdom. I honor the place in you where, when you are in that place, and I am in that place, there is only one of us."
    Malaheart blog article I honor the place in you, May 2005

⚡ Gandhi's sexual 'experiments' – abuse of minors

[Celibacy was one] of Gandhi's favoured ideologies […] propounded with much zeal as an integral aspect of his social and political preaching […]. [He] regarded sex as an "impure" practice for all people, including married couples. Sexual curiosity among [the un-
married youth in his ashram] would displease Gandhi. He was known to ask women [among his followers] to take on a lifelong vow of celibacy as a guru-dakshina [a teacher's fee] to him. He [even] advised married couples [in his ashram to] […] avoid sharing not just a bed but also a room, unless they intended to have a child […]. Despite his denouncement of the [caste based] practice of 'un-
touchability' […] he rarely placed Adivasis or tribals in responsible positions in his ashram […] because he disapproved of their sexually liberal traditions […]. His vision for celibacy was that some day it would be embraced by "the whole world."

 

Gandhi’s wrangling with his libido played out in a lifelong ordeal as he obsessively experimented with all sorts of strategies to sub-
due [what he called] "the insidious enemy." He admitted to being a person of intense "sexual passion" […] and spoke of needing constant "courage" and "vigilance" in his "war" against this "enemy." He tried to achieve control through food, exhaustively cate-
gorizing food into those that fed the libido and those that killed it.
[The kind of sexual repression Gandhi exhibited] according to [Swiss psychologist] Jung [is] often expressed either in sexually perverse behavior or in Puritanism, both of which Gandhi exhibited amply. [For ironically,] as fixated as he was on eliminating
[sexual] sensory stimulation through food, he did not apply this theory to [his proximity with women.]

 

He was constantly surrounded by young women who tended to his [bodily] needs […] including full body naked massages [and baths]. He used women as [body] props for support […] and walked, draping his arms around their shoulders, when a walking
cane, or a couple of young men would have served just as well. [His so-called "experiments with Truth" involved] sleeping with
naked young women to test the resolve of his celibacy – one of these girls being his own great-niece.

 

It is difficult to imagine the psychological state [of these young women, many of who were teenagers]. It was well known that wo-
men in his entourage constantly vied for physical proximity to him […] competing for [his] touch […] and women who shared his
bed […] were known to get "hysterical" exhibiting [jealousy and] rejection anxiety if he turned them away […]. The upheaval in the
minds [and lives] of some of these women is revealed in [what is recorded as a 'dream' narrative in the personal diary] of Prema Kantak. [She writes that] she was a small girl in Gandhi's lap, drinking milk that spurted from his breast into her mouth. She re-
calls the intense alarm she felt in the dream when the milk did not stop streaming out, even when she was satiated and her clo-
thes and her body was drenched, while Gandhi kept coaxing her to drink more. Even though Gandhi brightly assured her that it
meant she felt safe with him, the symbolism of semen as milk, and the pent-up sexual content [and implications of sexual abuse
in this] relationship are unmistakable elements of Prema's [ subconscious narrative].

 

Source: ► Rita Banerji, Indian philosopher, photographer, gender activist, feminist author, Sex and Power.
Defining History, Shaping Societies
, S. 265-281, Penguin Books India, 2008, Penguin Global, 15. April 2009
Reference: ► Article Thrill of the chaste: The truth about Gandhi's sex life, presented by the
centre-left British online newspaper The Independent, 2. January 2012

 

When he was assassinated in January 1948, it was with Manu and Abha by his side. Despite her having been his constant com-
panion in his last years, family members, tellingly, removed Manu from the scene. Gandhi had written to his son: "I have asked
her to write about her sharing the bed with me," but the protectors of his image were eager to eliminate this element of the great
leader's life. Devdas, Gandhi's son, accompanied Manu to Delhi station where he took the opportunity of instructing her to keep quiet.

 

Questioned in the 1970s, Sushila revealingly placed the elevation of this lifestyle to a brahmacharya experiment was a response
to criticism of this behaviour. "Later on, when people started asking questions about his physical contact with women – with Manu, with Abha, with me – the idea of brahmacharya experiments was developed […] in the early days, there was no question of cal-
ling this a brahmacharya experiment." It seems that Gandhi lived as he wished, and only when challenged did he turn his own preferences into a cosmic system of rewards and benefits. Like many great men, Gandhi made up the rules as he went along.
Source: ► Article An odd kind of piety: The truth about Gandhi's sex life, presented by the
centre-left British online newspaper The Independent, 2. January 2012
"Gandhi was sex-mad," Jad Adams, Gandhi’s biographer
"Gandhi is a most dangerous, semi-repressed sex maniac," pre-independence prime minister of the Indian state of Travancore

 

Links zum Thema Mahatma Gandhi

Literatur

  • Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Un-
    abhängigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanis-
    tischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, Fritz Werle, Herausgeber, Ursula von Mangoldt, Herausgeber, So spricht Gandhi, Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag, München, 1. Januar 1954
  • Richard Attenborough (1923-2014) britischer Regisseur, Schauspieler, mehrfacher Oscar- und Golden-Globe-Preisträger, Unternehmer, Politiker, Präsident der Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) und der British Academy of Film and Television
    Arts (BAFTA), Herausgeber, Mahatma Gandhi – Ausgewählte Texte, Goldmann, München, 1. Januar 1983
  • Louis Fischer (1896-1970) US-amerikanischer Journalist, Gandhi. Prophet der Gewaltlosigkeit, Heyne Verlag, München,
    1. Auflage 1989, 6. Auflage Juli 1995
  • Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, Wer den Weg der Wahrheit geht, stolpert nicht. Worte an
    einen Freund
    , Neue Stadt, Januar 2007, 15. Auflage 2011
  • Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) indischer hinduistischer Weiser, spiritueller Führer der indischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Menschenrechtsanwalt, gewaltloser Widerstandskämpfer zur Durchsetzung politischer Ziele, humanistischer Weiser, asketischer Morallehrer, Pazifist, Publizist, Franziska Rosen, Herausgeberin, Es gibt keinen Weg
    zum Frieden, denn Frieden ist der Weg
    , Kösel, München, 24. Juni 2019

Literature (engl.)


Critical literature

Externe Weblinks


External web links (engl.)


On Gandhi's efforts to involve women in all phases of development, including the struggle for India's freedom

⚡ Critical external web links (engl.)

With religious chastity under scrutiny, a new book throws light on Gandhi's practice of sleeping next to naked girls. In fact, he was sex-mad,
writes biographer Jad Adams.
"Gandhi was sex-mad," Jad Adams, Gandhi's biographer
"Gandhi is a most dangerous, semi-repressed sex maniac," pre-independence prime minister of the Indian state of Travancore

While having the girls and women sleep naked with him was in and of itself a form of sexual abuse – a privilege Gandhi exercised because of his position and stature, what actually took place in his bed remains hidden, because the women were sworn to secrecy.

"Gandhi had met Blavatsky and Besant in 1889. And when Gandhi set up his office in Johannesburg, among the pictures he hung on his walls were those of Tolstoy, Jesus Christ and Annie Besant, and in a letter he wrote to her in 1905 he expressed his "reverence" of her. Besant bestowed on him the title by which he became famous, "Mahatma,” a Hindu term for "Great Soul,” and the same name by which Theosophy called its own masters. Besant's distinctive influence on Gandhi was through her contribution to theory was the "Law of Sacrifice," which was set out most fully in Esoteric Christianity. The Law of Sacrifice was derived from a Fabian reading of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna's selfless activity brought the world into existence and continues to sustain it. Action performed in this "sacrificial" spirit, says Krishna, is free from Karma. From this Besant developed the notion of the Law of Sacrifice, a form of "spiritual alchemy," through disinterested action, "cast upon the altar of duty."

Audio and video links (engl.)

Gandhi doesn't refer to pacifism. His approach towards a regime of colonialism is non-violent non-cooperation.


Critical media offerings

Audio and video links (engl.) – David R. Hawkins

Film- und Dokumentationslinks

Movie and documentary links (engl.)

Trailer to the biopic of one of the most powerful people in the world starring Ben Kingsley as Gandhi: Through his ultimate trial Gandhi was the conscience for all mankind.

  • Gandhi – His Triumph changed the World Forever, excerpted from the movie Gandhi, produced by Richard Attenborough (1923-2014) British filmmaker, 1982, YouTube film, 4:58 minutes duration, posted 12. October 2006
    "Some men change their times. One man changed the world for all time."
    Gandhi at the trial: "In this cause I too am prepared to die. There is no cause for which I am prepared to kill."
    "I want to document coldly, rationally what is being done here. You must make the injustice visible."
    "The function of a civil resister is to provoke response."
    Fan to Gandhi: "I am just an admirer."
    Gandhi's reply: "Nothing is more dangerous."

 

Interne Links

Englisch Wiki

Hawkins

 

 

Anhand der Skala des Bewusstseins (Gradeinteilung von 1-1000), erarbeitet von Dr. David R. Hawkins, hat Mahatma Gandhi einen Bewusstseinswert von 760.
Innerhalb von Hawkins' System rangiert der Lehrer Mahatma Gandhi als erleuchteter Weiser im Bereich der nichtdualen Schöpfungsebene.
Quelle: Transcending the Levels of Consciousness. The Stairway to Enlightenment, S. 293, 2006

 

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11.10.2023 um 17:02 Uhr

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