To me and perhaps to most people Gandhi is an icon of something beautiful; aestethic and wise. Of course this can be the case when a person has been put on a pedestal for a won cause of the past. Where the cause has become two dimensional and flat, and the person only a symbol for the cause.
In Gandhi’s case most of us know precisely two dimensions to the man. Nameley civil resistance and India’s indpendence. At least that was the case with me. He was an old and frail man in my image of him, who was the unifying sombol for India’s fight for independence from the British empire.
We all know this but we still know nothing about him, and for good reason for his ideas and the way he presented them are dangerous even today.
Particularly are they dangerous for the modern system of politics and economy. Therefore it has been on the agenda for the ruling powers of the entire world to try their best to eradicate the man from our minds and persecute if at all possible those who assume his cause.
“The means are as important as the end.” ~M. Gandhi
This statement might at first seem utter nonesense to you and on superficial level it is. Gandhi is a famous name, those who know or understand his cause think highly of him and even revere him, and it is impossible to unfame him, or so it seems.
At least most people today have heard his name, seen his photo, and even the film about his life. Most grown ups even know what he stood for: Namely non-violent civil resistance!
But do we really know what it means? Does the media or the education system teach us anything worthwhile about him and his cause or his philosophy? Does it matter at all? Why was he so important to Nelson Mandela? Why was he so important to Martin Luther King Jr? What is so important about Mahatma Gandhi that now and again he rises to importance within a person?
Why was he to me just what I described before; a famous frail man who unified India in non-violent civil disobedience, and nothing more? Why have I changed my mind? What is it with this man that even now that I object to some of his methods, views and ways, that I hold him in the highest esteem?
“If you have a goal and you use corrupt means to achieve it, you contaminate the goal that you seek.” ~M. Gandhi
There are so many questions and so little time to explore them and my skills with english are meager. How can I tell you about an inner journey towards something great within you or awakening to an awareness of what Satyagraha really means or what it can accomplish?
Especially since I know from my own experience that these questions are best answered in solitude, and enforced in a forge you can only find deep within your soulmountain. Perhaps because I know that an inner journey is more fruitful if you have vague maps.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfHUvW7L5-k
I strongly encourage you to spend an evening to educate yourself about Gandhi’s Satyagraha, to find out what drove him and why. If you find your forge you’ll know what it means.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha9MPLGo2YI
