Gandhi
“Mohandas Gandhi was the hero of the Indian independence movement. Others had embraced nonviolence as a personal or religious code. But, it was Gandhi who demonstrated that the same spirit of nonviolence he embraced as a principle of life could be harnessed as a principle of political struggle.”
“He was a Hindu who politely rejected the dogmatic claims of Christianity while embracing the ethical claims of Christ. Indeed, if left with the Sermon on the Mount and his own interpretation of it, he said he would gladly call himself a Christian. Jesus, as Gandhi observed, called human beings not to a new religion but a new life.”
All Saints, by Robert Ellsberg
“I came definitely to the conclusion that, if I had to serve the people in whose midst my life was cast and of whose difficulties I was a witness from day to day, I must discard all wealth, all possession….”
“I cannot tell you with truth that, when this belief came to me, I discarded everything immediately. I must confess to you that progress at first was slow. And now, as I recall those days of struggle, I remember that it was also painful in the beginning. But, as days went by, I saw that I had to throw overboard many other things which I used to consider as mine, and a time came when it became a matter of positive joy to give up those things. And one after another, then, by almost geometric progression, the things slipped away from me.”
“And, as I am describing my experiences, I can say a great burden fell off my shoulders, and I felt that I could now walk with ease and do my work also in the service of my fellow-men with great comfort and still greater joy. The possession of anything then became a troublesome thing and a burden.”
Gandhi
Ultimately, Gandhi also became a source of inspiration to Martin Luther King. Jr. and his nonviolent civil rights movement.
