Why Gandhi is relevant to your personal transformation today!

What I learnt from Gandhi, The Man

Gandhi taught us the power and value of living intelligently!

A friend’s Facebook post caught my attention yesterday and set me thinking! My friend announced that he would unfriend anyone who made racist or unqualified remarks about Gandhi. And sure enough he did what he promised – he promptly unfriended those who shared unfounded sentiments about the great man! I liked my friend’s in-the-face approach. Over the past couple of decades, I have been noticing a disturbing trend. People seem to revel in Mahatma-bashing. From calling him names to questioning his ideology to even doubting his relevance, it almost seems like it is fashionable to shred Gandhi.

I have obviously not met Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. But I have studied him – not the Mahatma, not the Father of the Nation, not the political master strategist, but Gandhi, The Man.

My study of Gandhi almost never happened. Way back in 2007, there used to be a bookstore called Connexions opposite my office in R A Puram, Chennai. This was basically a gift store, with a collection of books that the owner personally curated. One afternoon, while browsing through the store, I found Eknath Easwaran’s  Gandhi, The Man, staring at me. I liked the way the book defined its purpose – ‘to tell the story of how one man changed himself to change the world’. Around that time I was embracing mouna, the practice of observing silence for an hour daily. I had begun an inner journey, to understand my Self better even as I was asking several existential questions of me, of Life. While the book interested me, I did not pick it up. I had not heard of Eknath Easwaran then. And I didn’t think then that there was anything new a book could tell me about Gandhi, that I didn’t already know!

But just the next day, I read a newspaper interview in which Rajnikanth, yes – the Tamil film Super Star, named two books that changed his Life. One was Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama and the other was Eknath Easwaran’s Gandhi, The Man. I had known of Rajnikanth’s spiritual side, but didn’t quite imagine he would read books. Nor did I ever expect that he would name a rather unheard of book, that I had just stumbled upon the previous day. I rushed back to the bookstore and found Easwaran’s book still there. I bought it!

The book changed my Life.

I had for long been dealing with anger. People on my team called me chiefscreamer – punning on my title, chiefdreamer! That’s how lousy my reputation was. Reading Gandhi, The Man, helped me realize that anger was energy, which when channeled, could be deployed very constructively. I also learned from the book how beautifully Gandhi separated the issue from the people connected with it. He famously said, “I don’t hate the English, but I hate the way the English rule my country.” In a way, he practiced ahimsa, not just as non-violent action, as is popularly perceived, but as non-violent thought. But all of this, I realized, Gandhi ingrained in him thanks to his meditations of the Bhagavad Gita. The second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita ends with unveiling the highest state of consciousness a human being can attain. Krishna, replying to Arjuna, says (presenting here only the relevant extract that Easwaran too shares in Gandhi, The Man):

“…He lives in wisdom, who sees himself in all and all in him,

Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed

Every selfish desire and sense-craving

Tormenting the heart.

Not agitated by grief,

Nor hanker after pleasure,

He lives free from lust and fear and anger.

Fettered no more by selfish attachments

He is not elated by good fortune,

nor depressed by bad.

Such is the seer….”

Gandhi, according to Easwaran, meditated on this verse for 50 years every morning and night and devoted all his life to translating it into his daily action. This was the key to his self-transformation.

I have internalized the essence of this verse too. And I have seen myself transform from being stressed out, angry, worried and insecure, to being centered, anchored and at peace with myself and my Life. I am happy with what is. I work daily on continuing to remain unmoved and unfrustrated about all that which happens to me, around me. I owe this transformation in me to Gandhi for leading the way and to Easwaran for telling me, through his book, how Gandhi changed himself first before attempting to share his way of Life with the world. Just for this one reason alone, though there surely are several other reasons, I feel none of us must ever question Gandhi. We don’t have the right to do that unless we have achieved what he had in his lifetime – which is, to be the change that we wish to see around us!

 

Don’t Know? Then please don’t judge!

When you stop judging people and accept them for who they are – you will not only be peaceful, you will learn from them!

Kejriwal with Lali Picture Source: Internet

Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal was slapped two days ago by an autorickshaw driver named Lali in New Delhi. This was the second attack on him in four days and the third in under a fortnight. Kejriwal was left with a swollen left eye after Lali slapped him. Yesterday, Kejriwal visited Lali and sought to understand why he was attacked. He said later that he had forgiven Lali for what he did. This action of Kejriwal’s is being viewed by many as a publicity stunt. Some call it a great “photo-grabop” – which is, insinuating that Kejriwal grabbed the opportunity to get free, positive mileage from the attack. I am not a supporter of Kejriwal. So, I don’t write this to say he’s right in what he did or that he’s truly Gandhian in his outlook. I am, however, keen to understand how do we, the #hashtag opinion-makers, know he’s not truly Gandhian? How do we know, merely by watching TV, following social media updates and reading political commentaries, that Kejriwal really did not forgive Lali?

As much as there’s muck around us, there’s muck in our minds too. We often rush to judge people that we hardly know anything about. Why do we see every politician as someone who’s wily, self-obsessed and corrupt? If someone does any good to anyone, why must he or she be having a hidden agenda? If someone does not bereave someone’s death by beating her chest, why must she be “cold-blooded”? If two people are very close friends, why must they be having an affair? We go on and on pronouncing judgment on everyone around us. And we do this without even seeking to know, let alone understand, the facts of any matter or the truth. Now, curiously, those who judge others are the ones who miss the opportunity to see the beauty in humanity around them or learn from fellow human beings.

Rushing to judge people is a disease that makes you look at everyone around you with suspicion. Your entire system is consumed by the negative energy and doubt and suspicion generate. With so much negativity in you, where’s the opportunity for you to feel love and compassion? When you are filled with negativity, you are hurting yourself in more ways than you can even imagine. And definitely you are not learning from the people you judge. Kejriwal, for instance, sat for an hour at Raj Ghat after the attack. He then went and met Lali – and forgave him. What I learnt from Kejriwal is what I know about the power of meditation – it helps you overcome anger, insult and hurt. I also learnt, in a very reinforcing way, the value of forgiveness. Forgiving someone, especially a detractor, sets you free. Otherwise the hurt can keep simmering and continue to breed more negativity in you. But if we just want to brand Kejriwal as a politician and judge him as someone who is a master at drawing political mileage from every situation, we will miss the spiritual lessons his episode has to offer.

The simple rule of thumb to practise is – if you don’t know something about someone, or don’t know that someone well enough, hold your opinions, views and judgment about that someone. Avoid getting carried away by popular sentiment. Because while the sentiment may be popular, there’s no guarantee that it reflects the truth. When you don’t rush to judge someone, chances are you will see the goodness in them and perhaps learn from them too!