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205 Comments
- SeaweedWater, on 05/14/2008, -4/+140Glad to see Gandhi's finally blogging.
- anand78, on 05/14/2008, -3/+55Reporter: What do you think of western civilization?
Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. - lilbugleboy09, on 05/14/2008, -2/+37“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Imagine the world if people would think about this. - ishay, on 05/14/2008, -4/+40Very inspiring... I bookmarked this article. Thanks for sharing...
- aaabatteries, on 05/14/2008, -2/+36This man was too good a man to walk this earth.
- kjames00, on 05/14/2008, -2/+27Awesome quotes, I wouldn't mind if there were more Gandhi articles on digg...
- sfacets, on 05/14/2008, -2/+28The man puts Chuck Norris to shame.
- ortucis, on 05/14/2008, -0/+23“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
I suspect that Gandhiji will not be a hit among most diggers after this considering their whoring of quate like "I've lost all faith in humanity." line in every damn thread about some guy killing or raping or locking up another person. But then, most diggers ARE hunting for high digg count, so posting that overused melodramatic line everywhere is the best way to win that theoretical moolah. - Deodrus, on 05/14/2008, -3/+26If you haven't read Gandhi's autobiography, you should. One of the best books ever written. I'm not one for autobiographies, but this one is a masterpiece. He writes how arrogant and superficial he was as a youngster, spending an hour in front of a mirror admiring his own visage... and his time in prison etc. I highly recommend it.
Amazon Link:
http://www.amazon.com/Gandhi-Autobiography-Story-E ... - Deodrus, on 05/14/2008, -9/+32_“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
_“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”
_“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”
Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.
So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.
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1. Change yourself.
_“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
_“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.”
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. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.
And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.
And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.
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2. You are in control.
_“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.
You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.
And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.
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3. Forgive and let it go.
_“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
_“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.
You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.
If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.
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4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.
_“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 difficult. There can be much inner resistance.
And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.
So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.
You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.
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5. Take care of 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.”
The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.
Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences - or reflecting on past failures - of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.
Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit - a sort of muscle - that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.
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6. Everyone is human.
_“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
_“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.
And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.
It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.
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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. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.
Find what you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going. You can also find a lot of useful tips on how keep your motivation up in How to Get Out of a Motivational Slump and 25 Simple Ways to Motivate Yourself.
One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.
Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days. You can read more about this in One Big Mistake a Whole Lot of People Make.
Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.
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8. See the good in people and help 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.”
_“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”
_“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”
There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And 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.
And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.
By strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and make this upward spiral even stronger. A few articles that may provide you with useful advice in that department are Do You Make These 10 Mistakes in a Conversation? and Dale Carnegie’s Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Social Skills. Or you can just move on to the next tip.
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9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.
_“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
_“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.
When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.
With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.
Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.
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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, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.
Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take. - Deodrus, on 05/14/2008, -1/+24Not to defend Hitler, but Germany at the time had hyper-inflation (because the Alliance wanted Germany to pay for the first world war). If America were in the same situation, you would elect Satan himself and love him for reversing the tables on those "oppressors". Look at what happened to you guys (WTC)... two buildings destroyed and your government waged war on two countries and murdered thousands.
Not blaming America or defending Hitler. Everything in context makes more sense.
And no, I don't love Hitler. Gandhi might be great enough to see good in people, but I am no Jesus Christ.
Besides, everyone loves dogs. Except for bitchy girlfriends. My ex was just as evil as Hitler. She murdered all the pixies in my house. They don't visit me anymore. - eclipticevader, on 05/14/2008, -0/+20I wish I could digg this more than once. Truly inspiring.
- lazybat, on 05/14/2008, -0/+19Gandhi’s Top 10 ... according to the author. Gandhi did not have specific list items for changing the world.
- bearythebear, on 05/14/2008, -0/+17last time i checked, he was heavily opposed to that.
- tushyd, on 05/14/2008, -2/+18Great article, thanks!
I found this interesting interview with Gandhiji from about 1930 on Fox "movietone" News:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1srSjPJIQk - vatd112, on 05/14/2008, -1/+17"The Mahatma"
hes the reason im here today - inactive, on 05/14/2008, -2/+16awesome blog, very inspirational, one of the best digg stories i've read
- iizh, on 05/14/2008, -0/+14Well, you already seem to have the "spewing *****" part down.
- inactive, on 05/14/2008, -6/+21gandhi is the great
- badger500, on 05/14/2008, -1/+13Please learn more about Buddhism, Hinduism, Gandhi, human physiology, and spelling.
- autonomic, on 05/14/2008, -3/+15sure, that sounds like a good idea. that would be ever so productive. while you're at it, take a couple swings at martin luther king and the dali lama.
- anand78, on 05/14/2008, -1/+12Me too
- ortucis, on 05/14/2008, -0/+11Welcome to my block list.
- warrior007, on 05/14/2008, -3/+15Mahatma you are King of Peace
- schnikies79, on 05/14/2008, -1/+12Nothing as big as world politics just fixes itself, it requires you and I doing something other than blaming the so called "elites."
Your idea of how to fix things is why we are in the mess we are in. Just blame someone else instead of doing anything to fix it. - JulyZerg, on 05/14/2008, -0/+10So do you. And you eat children. And throw puppies off of cliffs.
See? Random nonsense means nothing. - kitsua, on 05/14/2008, -0/+10When reading this sort of Digg, I always wonder how (some of) the people here are going to manage to miss the point magnificently and I'm never less than impressed.
Jesus Himself could return unto the world, start a blog, tell us all exactly what the sodding ***** is going on around here and that everything's gonna be alright and there are fluffy duvets in the afterlife and a large swathe of people would undoubtably pipe up with their utterly gobsmacking, neurotically contradictory opinions and tell us how lame/wrong/fascist/liberal he was.
I guess it's not just Digg, it seems to plague any large comment-based community on the internets - YouTube responses are almost psychotically retarded.
Regardless - anyone who reads Gandhi's quotes above and doesn't see wisdom is fundamentally lacking any of their own. - whitesaint, on 05/14/2008, -1/+11Agreed, truly a man of peace. Love the forgiveness one. The world would be a much better place if everyone followed his words instead of being filled with hatred, jealousy, anger and all the other pitfalls of man...
- phraud, on 05/14/2008, -0/+9He's trying to show you that you're just as good.
- epu2, on 05/14/2008, -0/+9well, will you leave us hanging? or will you at least provide some clarification?
- srikanthp, on 05/14/2008, -0/+9If I am not wrong, that book is open domain now.
http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=my+experime ... - inactive, on 05/14/2008, -2/+11Very moving.
Saw some comments above that really shows how weak people are that they just cannot have the capacity to understand and listen to what Gandhi has to say. - Deodrus, on 05/14/2008, -3/+15Gandhi wouldn't even harm an insect. And that is actually true.
He used to practice "Ahimsa", which means non-violence towards all beings. He used to gently sweep insects out of his way as he walked. That's a fact.
He also used to only eat fruits - not even a vegetarian but a fruitarian (something like that). - Uddhav, on 05/14/2008, -1/+11That song, which is now the national anthem of India, was written by Sir Rabindranath Tagore to welcome the British King to India! Now that's irony.
- Mootabolife, on 05/14/2008, -0/+8He knew about the "atomic age" back then. I'm sure he would know about the "electronic age" now.
- avinds, on 05/14/2008, -1/+10you said it but you didn't practice it
- iizh, on 05/14/2008, -0/+8"You'll find it very hard to even piece together sentences in your head."
Yes, we can see. That rant was utterly incoherent. - ortucis, on 05/14/2008, -2/+10That was tha Jinnahhhhwasdjdhakshd retard. Plus, now that I see it, India is best left divided from that pathetic excuse of a nation called Pakistan.
- colasrtney, on 05/14/2008, -0/+7*needs citation*
- chickentonight, on 05/14/2008, -1/+9Dugg for pixies.
- inactive, on 05/14/2008, -0/+7His would surely ask you to punch one more time.
- ArielMT, on 05/14/2008, -0/+6There's a subtle difference between harm and hurt. What you say you can do causes harm, there can be no doubt of that, but it's impossible for that harm to be hurt unless the one harmed decides to take it as hurt.
- Stettenbauer, on 05/14/2008, -1/+7Id love to see him kick your ass.
- dopplerdog, on 05/14/2008, -3/+10That may be, but that doesn't preclude him from being racist. And racist he was, regardless of diggs down. He was, however, a product of his culture and times. In the spirit of his own philosophy, he was only human, so perhaps he should be forgiven for it in light of the good he did.
- rewinn, on 05/14/2008, -1/+8Let it suffice to point out that "Non-violence has been preached for all of history and it has NEVER had any discernible effect on the course of the world" can be spoken only in ignorance of the liberation and creation of the largest democracy in the history of the world (...which quite incidentally is also the nation with the most English-speaking people on our planet ... and in case you haven't guessed, it borders the Indian Ocean.)
- bboy1977, on 05/14/2008, -1/+8That is blatantly false you idiot. He was AGAINST partition. If you knew anything about history you would have realized Pakistan and India divided once Gandhi died. Plus Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist who WANTED the divide.
- Deodrus, on 05/14/2008, -0/+6Was Gandhi a racist ? (article link)
http://www.trinicenter.com/oops/gandhi.html
So he did make some comments in his younger years that could be construed as racist.
However, this is at the same time of his life when he was an arrogant youngster who admired himself in the mirror for an hour at a time. He changed from all that.
The article mentions he said of his time in African jail, "Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves."
This would imply to me that he meant that their personalities are like primitive savages - quick to get into a fight about small things.
Note that he also said "Many of the native prisoners" and not "THESE native prisoners". He was referring to "most", not all.
Second mention goes: "He was quoted at a meeting in Bombay in 1896 saying that Europeans sought to degrade Indians to the level of the "raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness"."
Yes, this sounds blatantly racist. But I think he meant to emphasize that the Europeans were trying to hinder Indian growth and formation of civilized behaviour. That they were trying to push indians down and keep them at the level of farmers (and he likened it to the african population).
However, even if he was a racist prick.... he changed later, and he himself became a half-naked man passing his life in spreading morality. People change.
Well, at least "some" people do. - TheRedSp4de, on 05/14/2008, -0/+5True that.
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