Wednesday, August 20, 2008

महात्मा


"Be the change that you want to see in the world."

"I am a Hindu, I am a Moslem, I am a Jew, I am a Christian, I am a Buddhist."

- Mohandas Gandhi [1869-1948] was the pioneer of Satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence.

In 1930, Winston Churchill took a hard line against Gandhi:

"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor."

Gandhi was celibate for forty years to in his mind heighten his purity, but he continually tested himself through experiments such as sleeping naked with his 17 year old grand niece.