Mahatma Gandhi needs no introduction. Everyone knows about the man and his legacy. Here is some advice he gave worth noting:
1. Change yourself
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think, then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change.
2. You are in control
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions.
(bijendra/iStock)3. Forgive and let it go
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. Forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service.
4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard. And so you may resort to preaching, or reading and studying endlessly. But you have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.
5. Take care of this 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.”
Stay in the present as much as possible, and be accepting. When you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment. And the resistance to action comes from imagining negative future consequences or reflecting on past failures.
6. Everyone is human
“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.”
When you start to make myths out of people, you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. Keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.
Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi acknowledges the crowd who welcomed him at Bombay Station, India, May 2, 1929. (AP Photo)7. Persist
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away.
8. See the good in people and help them
“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”
If you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.
9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. People tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruence, mixed messages or phoniness.
10. Continue to grow and evolve
“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.”
You can pretty much always improve your skills and habits, or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.
A lotus flower blooms on Dal Lake in Srinagar on September 1, 2014. (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images)
Gandhi is one of my personal heroes. His inspiring message of non-violent action (the third alternative) and his courage to stand by his convictions despite virtually impossible circumstances is quite an example to follow.
Many forget that Gandhi held no formal authority — no position of power. And yet, because he had moral authority, he had influence. Gandhi changed the lives of over 300 million people using nothing but his personal convictions and moral authority.
If I had to select a favorite from his pearls of wisdom above, it would be:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
I see this all the time, especially in the arenas of healthcare and science. It’s also virtually identical to another often quoted statement by Schopenhauer, who pointed out that each newly discovered truth has to pass through three stages:
I keep this in mind each and every day as I move forward in my own mission: to catalyze a transformation in the way health care alternatives are provided to the population.
It’s impossible to predict who or what group will be ultimately responsible for this inevitable change, but to me that’s a moot issue. The central challenge is to facilitate the change, and it’s clear to me that this will occur through the collaborative efforts of like-minded individuals merging forces to effectively address the multinational drug giants.
I believe we are well on our way. You see, it only takes 10 percent of the public to become conscious of the truth before it tends to spread like wildfire through the population. Once that percentage of people has accepted the truth, change is inevitable and unstoppable.
As Gandhi said, “In a gentle way you can shake the world.”
And that’s exactly what is happening as millions of people around the world make the decision to take control of their health.