What Things Make Mahatma A Gandhi By Sadhguru.
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Mahatma Gandhi |
Sadhguru: What you can do and what you cannot do,
nobody else can decide for you,
nor can you decide,
because when we say ‘what you can’
we’re talking about a capability.
Capabilities are never stagnant;
capabilities can be constantly enhanced, isn’t it?
So,
there’s really no limit as to
what one can do,
because capabilities can be constantly enhanced.
It’s better to look at it in terms of
‘am I holding myself back
for concerns other than what I want?’
Many human beings,
you have seen people whom you,
who are historically known as great beings;
this is all that happened to them.
They were living with a limited identification.
Suddenly for some reason,
some event broke their identities
and suddenly they identified with a larger
process that was happening around
and they did things that they themselves could not imagine.
For example Mahatma Gandhi,
a very limited man,
He could not make a living.
He got qualified as a lawyer.
Might be you like it !!!
I remember what he wrote when he
when he went out to fight his first case in the court in India
he says, ‘I stood up to argue my case
and my heart sank into my boots.’
This… was his expression,
and of course he lost the case.
Then he decided this law is not for him.
He must seek some other profession because
he doesn’t have the courage to stand up and speak in a court room.
Does that sound like Mahatma Gandhi?
The man just moved millions of people.
Just one incident,
suddenly his old identities broke.
He went to South Africa to make a living
and he was doing okay as a lawyer.
And one day he bought a first class ticket in a train
and got in
and he traveled some distance.
In the next station somewhere,
another…a white South African got in.
And he didn’t like a brown skin man sitting in a first class,
so he called the ticket collector.
Ticket collector said, ‘Get out!’
Mahatma Gandhi said,
‘I have a first class ticket.’
He said, ‘It doesn’t matter, just get out.’
He said, ‘No, I have a first class ticket.
Why should I get out?’
So they threw him out of the train.
His luggage and everything they just threw him out
and he fell on the platform
and he just sat there for hours.
‘Why did this happen to me?
I bought a first class ticket.
Why am I thrown out of a train?’
Suddenly he identified himself with a larger predicament of the people.
Till then his survival, his law, his making money was all important.
Suddenly he identified with a much larger problem that existed
and he became a colossus
just broke that little identification
and moved into a much larger identity.
Probably there is never been another man on this planet
who moved as many people as Mahatma Gandhi moved,
with such simple ways.
I don’t call him a spiritual person,
but socially, politically absolutely relevant for that day.
Never before another conquering force on the planet has been
made to vacate the land
where they had taken roots,
without firing bullets at them
or killing them or anything like this.
Never before such a thing has happened.
People who have conquered the land,
have conquered at a certain price,
they won’t go easy.
They won’t go easy,
but it was made to look as if they went easy.
It didn’t happen easy,
but without fighting,
without bloodshed,
because the man could move people into that kind of action
but a kind of passive action.
See, shooting at the soldiers who’re carrying guns is one thing.
Throwing bombs at them is another thing,
but just going there,
standing on the street
and willing to be beaten down on the heads;
with cracked skulls you fall down.
One line of people fall down,
the next line of people come and give their skulls to be broken again,
is a completely different kind of strength.
It’s not easy.
It takes a very deep inner strength for a person to do that.
Dying in fighting is different.
You are also fighting;
somebody else also is fighting with you.
You get killed;
that’s a different thing.
Without fighting just going and getting killed is a very different thing;
and that’s what he managed to do.
And all that happened to him was
from his small identity of himself and his family
and wanting to make a living,
his identity just exploded,
identifying with a larger problem of the people
that was there at that time.
So,
don’t put a limit on yourself as to what you can do
and what you cannot do.
You do everything that you can do,
what does not happen is what you could not do, isn’t it?
What did not happen is what you could not do, isn’t it?
But you did everything possible,
everything that you can imagine,
still some things didn’t happen.
Those are things you cannot do.
Mahatma Gandhi's Poverty Is Very Costly
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Mahatma Gandhi's Pooverty |
...I will give you the example of Mahatma Gandhi.
In India,
railway trains have
four classes
the air-conditioned,
the first class,
the second class and the third class.
And the country is so poor
that even to afford a third-class ticket
is difficult for almost half of the people of the land.
Gandhi started
traveling in third class.
I used to have discussions with his son, Ramdas,
and I told him, "This is simply crowding the third class,
it is already too crowded.
This is not helping the poor."
And you will be surprised;
because Gandhi was traveling in the third class,
the whole compartment was booked for him.
In a sixty-foot compartment,
where at least eighty to ninety persons would have traveled,
he alone is traveling.
And his biographers will write,
"He was so kind
to the poor."
He used to
drink
goat's milk
because that is the cheapest,
and the poorest of people can afford it.
Naturally,
everybody
who is conditioned with the idea
immediately appreciates what a great man he is.
But you don't know about his goat!
I am a little crazy,
because I don't care about Mahatma Gandhi much,
but I care certainly about the goat.
I inquired everything about the goat,
and I found
that his goat
was being
bathed every day
with Lux toilet soap.
The food of the goat cost in those days ten rupees
ten rupees was
the salary of a schoolteacher
for one month.
But nobody will look into these matters.
Only one woman,
a very intelligent woman
in Mahatma Gandhi's circle, Sarojini Naidu
later on she became the governor
of North India
joked once
that to keep Mahatma Gandhi poor,
we have to destroy treasures.
His poverty is very costly.
But it worked.
As a politician
he became the greatest politician
because the poor people thought,
"This is the man who is our real representative
because he lives like a poor man in a cottage,
he drinks goats' milk, he travels in third class."
But they don't know
the background
that to maintain his poverty
was very costly.
The idea he got
was from the Christians.
He was born a Hindu,
but he was born
in Gujarat
which, although
it is a majority Hindu state,
is mostly influenced by Jainism;
the people are not all Jainas,
but Jainism has been a subtle spiritual influence all over Gujarat.
Then he went to the West to study,
and there he came in contact
with Christian missionaries.
And many times he
was on the verge
of being converted into Christianity.
If you divide his life,
he is ninety percent Christian,
nine percent Jaina,
one percent Hindu.
But this country
has a majority of Hindus.
To influence these Hindus
he used
a totally new kind of strategy,
and that was
to live like a poor man.
His clothes,
his house,
his food
everything will give you
an appearance of a very poor man.
But if you look
into everything minutely,
with an impartial eye,
you will be surprised
that everything is more costly
than even the richest man
living in a palace
that will be cheaper.
But he succeeded in deceiving people.
This is one of the curses that Christianity
has brought to humanity.
Other religions have helped,
but Christianity is at the top.
Khalil Gibran, himself a Christian,
is not befooled by that idea.
But you who are strong and swift,
see
that you do not limp before the lame,
deeming it kindness.
What are all your saints doing,
living like poor people?
It does not help the poor people in any way,
it simply burdens them.
In India there are millions of monks
Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas.
They all live the life of the poor.
The poor cannot manage
their own lives
and all these millions
of monks,
who are not doing anything productive,
anything creative,
are sitting on the chest of the poor people of India
sucking their blood
and with great authority, because they are living like poor men;
you have to worship them,
you have to feed them,
you have to clothe them.
I once said to Ramdas, Mahatma Gandhi's son,
that if it is sympathy
and kindness and compassion
to live like a poor man amongst the poor,
then what about other things?
If there are a few blind people,
should I live
with a blindfold?
Or if there are
unintelligent people
and there are,
the whole world is full of the unintelligent
should I also live
like the retarded,
the stupid, just out of sympathy?
No, this cannot be the criterion
of being good,
of being virtuous, of being religious.
If somebody is sick,
that does not mean
that the doctor should come and lie down on another bed,
so as to help the sick.
Everybody can see the nonsense in it.
The doctor has to remain healthy
so that he can help those who are sick.
If he himself becomes sick out of sympathy,
then who is going to help?
The same is true
in the inner growth of man.