Remembering Mahatma Gandhi 

On Mahatma Gandhi’s 155th birth anniversary, we remember his life and wisdom.

We continue to live in times of high uncertainty, violence and wars threatening to spread. As much as everyone likes to focus on their own world/environment, we live in a more interconnected world, and the impact of good and bad outcomes will be felt wider.

Is it becoming increasingly difficult to wish for a world of peace and harmony?
Are we speeding up our Doomsday clock/own extinction?
How could we get out of a vicious cycle of violence?
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* Blessed is the man who can perceive the law of ahimsa (nonviolence) in the midst of the raging fire of himsa (violence) all around him. We bow in reverence to such a man by his example.
* Gandhi objects to violence because it perpetuates hatred. When it appears to do ‘good’, the good is only temporary and cannot do any good in the long run.
* Gandhi feels that violence is not a natural tendency of humans. It is a learned experience.

Satyagraha, the Centre of Gandhi’s Contribution to the Philosophy of Nonviolence
Satyagraha is the quintessence of Gandhism. Through it, Gandhi introduced a new spirit to the world.

What is Satyagraha?
Satyagraha (pronounced sat-YAH-graha) is a compound of two Sanskrit nouns satya, meaning truth (from ‘sat’- ‘being’ with a suffix ‘ya’), and agraha, meaning, “firm grasping”. Thus Satyagraha literally means devotion to truth, remaining firm on the truth and resisting untruth actively but nonviolently. Since the only way for Gandhi getting to the truth is by nonviolence (love), it follows that Satyagraha implies an unwavering search for the truth using nonviolence. Satyagraha according to Michael Nagler literally means ‘clinging to truth,’ and that was exactly how Gandhi understood it: “clinging to the truth that we are all one under the skin, that there is no such thing as a ‘win/lose’ confrontation because all our important interests are really the same, that consciously or not every single person wants unity and peace with every other”.  Put succinctly, Satyagraha means ‘truth force’, ‘soul force’ or as Martin Luther Jr would call it ‘love in action.’

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”

Source: https://www.mkgandhi.org/africaneedsgandhi/gandhis_philosophy_of_nonviolence.php