Today in Digg, I came across a blog that listed Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World.
I wish then to reproduce these gems here in my blog :
1. Change
“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.”
2. Control.
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
3. Forgiveness
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
4. Action.
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
5. The present 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.”
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.”
7. Persist.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
8. Goodness.
“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.”
9. Truth
“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.”
10. Development.
“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.”
Hi,
When it comes to Gandhi (in India, we call him Gandhiji; which is more respectful), one has to acknowledge how amazing this man was. For those who know little about him, he was a man who fought against the entire British empire, without having any hatred whatsoever against any British!
How amazing. How inspiring.
Most people do not know about one of his spiritual Guru, who was Shrimad Rajchandra. Shrimad lived an unique life of about 34 years. He got enlightenment (nirvan) as the age of 19 years.
Interestingly, Shrimad inspired Gandhi to adopt “Non-violence” which later became the very root of Gandhian philosophy. Also, without Shrimad, Gandhi would have probably turned Christian, as noted by Gandhi in his biography.
Love.
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
The fact we have to forgive, is in the discover that a war as a quarrel, means we have to fight for a change.
Thanks all for your enlightened moments.
Hello everybody,
thanks to Paulo for giving us this opportunity to have these quotes and discuss and get more informed and to all of you who had commented it with a great sense of sense.
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
This is so true. But what if someone hurts, it means I’m letting him do so…but i trully do want him to hurt me. I believe it happens to many of us, when we are couple, married or just dating, it doesn’t matter. The fact of permitting hurting each other matters. Or these are wrong relations then? I’m trying to understand and hope you’ll help me out with it. Being in a relation when you can be hurt,means you permit it, at the same time it is dificult to leave it up as the fact of forgiveness still exists. You forgive once and then you keep forgiving forever.
Hope I didn’t confuse you…
regards,
Noza
so much wisdom ! down the ages, not only from gandhi but from many others too; and yet the vast multitude of humanity, us, continues to grope in darkness, why ? it’s easy to put the blame on us ! the ignorant masses, but ain’t that unfair, why haven’t the enligthend once been able to do more than preach ? some verbally and some like gandhi, zesus, buddha with their actions, with their life, but just a preaching anyway.
when a scientist understands something, say how to communicate over long distances, he creates a device say a telephone; when these enlightned masters ( no doubt they were elevated human beings, their very presence, very personna has been testimony enough )become enlightned, all they do is talk about it either in words or with their life; maybe we would have to wait for a scientist to become enlightend, maybe then he can create a device, which can help people on the path. irony is that people with scientific bent of mind, don’t get into releigion, early enough; some like einstein when they do, they remain so awstruck, almost paralysed out of action. the device has to very very simple, very easy to use, no more than press of a button; and it would be subtle, this field is such !!
the way world population, world problems are increasing, a crictcal mass needs to be acheived fast, where more people live by these concepts, than those who don’t; otherwise…
love
aditya
great wisdom from the great man. lucky for us who can learn a great knowledge from this simple but very great (Maha = great; Atma = soul) person. Thanks for quoting Gandhi today.. GBU
Lessons are tools, since they have to cross our heart’s will, to be agreed efficiently. When they become dogmas, they seem to draw aside from their initial birth. And so, derived pedagogies could not put all of us, in one single equal room.
Being critical leads not actually to say “no”. As it is the act of knowing, if a word could couple with our inner-part. Nevertheless, when the critic turns his answer in avenging sentences, he quits with his own harmony. Even if he could have believed rebellion was the key.
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
I smiled reading this. I can understand now. That’s true. It helps my present life.
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Not answering a provocation should let a taste of a disadvantage, That’s why we return. So, wars of all kind are enduring.
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
That’s not for nothing, we could see act and price in practice.
“God has given me no control over the moment following.”
So wise! This is magically now, a great freedom of being. By Itself, a tremendous gift.
Bless you Gandhi.
Yes I like these ,I guess thats why he was Gandhi ..clever man , as he knows dont look forward and worry ,dont look back and be sorry ,just look up and have faith .Love and Light Tania
Many of these gems are similar to those of Castaneda given for the warrior…esp.the second one is the one i like more , that nobody can hurt you if you dont want to.. Castaneda had said “It is no use being sad, complaining, feeling unjustly treated, and believing someone is doing something negative. No one is doing anything, and certainly not to a warrior.”
Moreover, action is pointed out too..Castaneda had said “Because of this, a warrior seeks to act, and not waste time in useless conversation. Through action, he discovers the meaning of that which occurs in his day-to-day life, and takes creative and original decisions.”
I believe that most of these gems are qualities almost forgiven in this world..if only everyone of us cared for this world…and LIVED..
Annie
Annie
I simply loooooooooooooooooove Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of life! :-)
Thank you so much, dear Sir, for reminding them to us… :-)
I love his philosophy especially because he was a very disciplined person, and what expectations he had from others, first of all, he put them in practice. He himself was an example for all of us!
The concepts of non-violence, of constant persistence in the path of goodness, of being the change in the world, of complete harmony are simply fantastic!
His body was not at all impressive, but still he proved that the strength of the Spirit is much more important and ever lasting than all physical powers in the world which can fade away so easily…
Gandhi was a realized soul, who enlightened our paths too and if we are at least for a limited time what he “preached” for, we win, because this limited time of enlightment will become more and more expanded till perfection. I strongly believe in the truth of his words, which in fact came from the universal common sense.
One of his great “disciples” is Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the founder of Sahaja Yoga who confessed that their dicussions at Ghandhi’s Ashram were so fresh, so enlightning! I simply love these beautiful principles of life and I try to apply them more and more every single day. I try not to meditate, but to be in meditation, not only to see the light, but to become identified with the light of the Spirit. Hope is so comforting and thanks to all great masters who helped and still help us, representing God’s incredible wisdom in fact, everything becomes easier, when we know that the path has already been lit for us to see everything, all obstacles and all rewards in our way to complete freedom and love!
May God bless the whole world with honesty, kindness, courage and determination now and forever!
Many hugs and my endless appreciation,
Carmen Larisa
Mahatma Gandhi would have quite a lot of competion if he were here today. No one has inspired me as much since he….as you. You are truly one of the few, one of the blessed. Thank God that “you are”. Love, Paul
Excellent…today I learnt that I can Control myself with the help of GOD and that “Nobody can hurt me without my permission” – this is a fantastic philosophy of life…if we live this philosophy then the world is Heaven on Earth…Fantastic dream that can be reality if we have the will and power to control ourselves.
Thank you
Thank you for those gems; He was trully an amazing person; we should try to follow his example.
Change
start from yourself; whatever it is, remembering that what you do and how you do it affect everything around you;
also.. “be careful with your thoughts they become your deeds..”;
thinking, feeling, remembering about others around you can make such a difference; it is so easy to hurt someone, even those close to you when you’re preoccupied with yourself, your own emotions, etc.., and they definitely don’t deserve it;
Control..hmm..nobody can hurt you.. without your permission..
not really..unless you’re very strong..and you don’t have feelings;
if not then even the person very close to you can hurt you.
Forgiveness…yes…without forgiving there’s no light, no peace, no love.
Action…
experience;
you cannot tell how it feels to be burned, unless you burn yourself; you cannot tell what is love, unless you love; you cannot tell if life is beautiful, unless you live it; you cannot tell how tears taste, unless you cry; you cannot tell how great is the person next to you, unless you almost lose him/her; you cannot tell how amazing is the sunrise, unless you get up in the morning and…see it;
The present moment
is the moment of our life..we should cherish it or it’ll be lost.
Everyone is human..yes..
when we look at our own faults, mistakes, how we can hurt others, only then we can see that everything that happen to us, we deserve it;
And yes we’re never wise enough, good enough, strong enough; there are always will be moments in our life when we’ll feel bad, weak, and stupid for what we’ve done, what we’ve said, what we should do or say and we didn’t;
Persist
when we have this light inside, this love..and will to change, to go on, to survive..we always can, it’s always up to us.
Goodness
believing in someone’s goodness..
in everyone there’s this beautiful place hidden in the heart and guided by the soul..where the sun shines..butterflies fly..and children laugh…where dreams fill the silence with the rainbow painted by the hand of God..
Truth
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony” – beautiful quote.
When we’re true to ourselves, to others, to the world..only then we can fill our heart with harmony and peace.
Development
Everything and everyone changes, but it’s up to us how we want to change, how we want to evolve; to become better, wiser, kinder..
When we accept that change is good, we can look at the world around us with more positive, open point of view.
love to all of you
Agnieszka
Hi Paulo !
and so said gandhi ! as indedd he practiced it also. but just look at the situation; one who practices what Gandhi precxahed becomes legend 1 one in a billion. world won’t change by such ‘prophets’ alone; had that been possible Zesus has said similar things long ago, buddha even earlier. As Gandhi himslef says mere precahing is not enough, something more concrete needs to be attempted. The strife, the agony in the world goes on incerasing; even when we ‘hear’ what gandhis have to say. something more than an inteceltual sermon, possibly a practicle tool with universal applicability needs to be made available, for common people to be able to change themselves, first step towards changing the world.
love
aditya