The Gandhi Effect

“The Gandhi effect” by Rahul Singh (KT, April 4, 2013) caused a deep resonance in my mind. His association with the crew of the great film “Gandhi” by Richard Attenborough brought out some of the unknown anecdotes, which were inspiring. Gandhi always lived by setting examples for others. He would often say, “In order to transform others, you have first to transform yourself.” His life was an unending series of experimentation. No wonder his autobiography is titled, “My Experiments with Truth.” Evil, injustice, hatred, Gandhi argued, exist only insofar as we support them; they have no existence of their own. Without our cooperation, unintentional or intentional, injustice cannot continue.

I wish to share an incident from Gandhi’s life that I once read:

A skeptical crowd of Pathans with their guns slung over their shoulders gathered to watch the little figure in his loincloth get up before them in the North-west Frontier Province of India, among the rugged mountains near the Khyber Pass.

“Are you afraid?” he asked them gently. “Why else would you be carrying guns?” They just stared at him, stunned. No one had ever dared to speak to them like this before. “I have no fear,” Gandhi went on; “that is why I am unarmed. This is what Ahimsa means.” Abdul Ghaffar Khan (later came to be known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’) threw away his gun, and the Pathans, following his leadership, became some of the most courageous followers of Gandhi’s way of love.

Living by Experiences or Beliefs?

Do we live by our own experiences or beliefs? We seem to be carrying all sorts of beliefs throughout our lives. Perhaps, it is required to carry certain beliefs about certain things, which we don’t know for sure. But should they be allowed to influence our living?

Beliefs are what we hear from others and read from books and accept them as truths merely based on the authenticity of the source. Many troubles in our personal lives and in the world are created due to such beliefs. What we hear from others and read from books may have been others’ experiences. But to accept them as truths is turning them into mere superstitions, which we follow out of fear or reverence, not an inner conviction. Living by such beliefs is like riding a paper boat, which can sink at any time. We never get a totality view of the truth and hence are prone to falter in our actions. There is no inner growth following such beliefs. Even worse, following such beliefs may turn us into hypocrites.

Experiences, on the other hand, are what we get by living those moments. The knowledge and insight gained through experiences provide inner conviction and certainty about the fact. We never doubt what we know through our experiences. We can say that we ‘know’, not merely ‘believe’. This brings confidence and clarity in our thoughts and actions. If life is a river, experiences are its streams helping us to grow internally. We can realize our full potential in life only through experiences.

This does not mean we should stop believing in what we hear or read, especially from authentic sources, e.g. scriptures, famous writers, self-made successful personalities, etc. However, we should take them as hypotheses at first and then test in our own lives. What we get through testing these hypotheses would be our own truths, not borrowed ones. This is how we really benefit from others’ experiences. Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Once a truth is internalized, it shapes our thoughts and actions effortlessly forever. Since truth is the same for all, it can never bring harm to any. May the living by our own experiences be the only way forward.