June 9 “There are moments in your life when you must act, even though you cannot carry your best friends with you.” –Gandhi (The Monthly Review, Calcutta, October, 1941) One of Gandhi’s favorite songs was Ekla Chalo Re, a Bengali hymn translated as “Walk Alone.” Written by the famous Rabindranath Tagore, the lyrics are as… read more
Posts by Stephanie Van Hook
“Silent Mondays”–Daily Metta
June 8: “It has often occurred to me that a seeker after truth has to be silent.” –Gandhi (Young India, August 6, 1925) In the language of pop psychology, some might say that Gandhi was an introvert as a child and a young man. He experienced a high level of social anxiety and was generally… read more
“Hungry for Nonviolence”–Daily Metta
June 7: “My love for nonviolence is superior to every other thing mundane or supramundane.” –Gandhi (Young India, February 20, 1930) Gandhi loved nonviolence more than anything else, including food. That’s right, foodies, we do not have any photos taken by him of, say, his neem chutney or simple rice and dhal. His… read more
“Nonviolence is not easy”–Daily Metta
June 6: “Nonviolence is not an easy thing to understand, still less to practice.” –Gandhi (Young India, February 7, 1929) If you are practicing nonviolence and finding it difficult, congratulations, you are doing something right! Nonviolence is challenging because it requires so much more of us than passivity or violence. When you have a gun… read more
“Who’s afraid of Gandhi?”–Daily Metta
June 5: “It is not so much the British guns that are responsible for our subjugation as our voluntary co-operation.” –Gandhi (Young India, February 9, 1921) There comes a point when our common understanding of conflict is insufficient and we need to reach deeper. And this is not always easy, for we just may… read more
“A reminder”–Daily Metta
June 4: “We do not exaggerate when we say that life is a mere bubble.” –Gandhi (Young India, October 16, 1930) It is quite a paradox that human life is as fragile as it is powerful. Weak as we are, small as we are, our capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion, and nonviolence has no limit.… read more
“When nonviolence doesn’t ‘work'”–Daily Metta
June 3: “Every good movement passes through five stages: indifference, ridicule, abuse, repression and respect.” –Gandhi (Young India, March 9, 1921) Many of us take for granted that a nonviolent movement will be immediately respected, but its most important — and lasting — effects are in the way our collective consciousness is awakened when… read more
“Forgiveness in nonviolent action”–Daily Metta
June 2: “One cannot forgive too much.” –Gandhi (Young India, April 2, 1931) When Gandhi returned to South Africa for his second stay in 1897, he was not a welcomed guest. The South African port and police kept his ship quarantined for close to twenty days just off the Durban shore as a tactic to… read more
“Trusting and Leadership”–Daily Metta
June 1: “Trusting one another, however, can never mean trusting with the lips and mistrusting with the heart.” –Gandhi (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XXV, p. 279) The violent approach to security states that trusting is naive, that you cannot really trust anyone, so you may as well not even try. One part of… read more
“Staying Firm”–Daily Metta
May 31: “Worship or prayer is not to be performed with the lips but with the heart.” –Gandhi (The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 78) Worship, Gandhi might add, is not to be performed by the heart if it is not followed by the hands and feet, even if it means staying firm, being unmoved.… read more
