Thursday, October 2, 2014

Experiments With Truth

There seems to be this prevailing belief that Mahatma Gandhi was this perfect person. The truth is far from it, as Gandhi tells himself in his autobiography, Experiments with Truth.

If I read it correctly (the wording is sufficiently vague such that it is difficult to say with certain), he used to beat his wife. He was also a medical quack (his own words, and backed up by the data he provided) among other disturbing things.

But one thing that can never be questioned is his mental discipline and resolve. The man is an inspiration. I've already found that my own willpower has increased having read this book, as his discipline is contagious.

For example, because he didn't like the way breeding animals were treated, he avoided all meats, milk and eggs. As you can imagine, this caused him a lot of physical suffering, especially when sick, as his diet consisted of mostly fruit and nuts once you subtract all the items he had a problem with.

But it is this fierce discipline that allowed him to accomplish so much. He helped lead India to independence, increased equality among those of different religions and castes, and mediated a great deal of disputes. The amazing part is that he managed all this without any violence. He was attacked, jailed and humiliated, but learned to turn the other cheek, which enabled him to accomplish what he did.

Recommended to anyone wishing to be inspired, but the movie starring Ben Kingsley is even better, though lacking detail.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this article. I've been a reader of your blog for a few years now and love it.

I am also India, vegetarian and have read this same book! Being vegetarian is easy once you realize how meat is produced and watch any one of the many YouTube videos showing you where your food is actually coming from.

The human mind is more powerful than any sense - the sense of taste (or any other sense) shouldn't control us. We should control them.