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
Tag Archives: gandhi
“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
“Mutual respect, mutual security”–Daily Metta
May 30: “No propaganda can be allowed which reviles other religions.” –Gandhi (Young India, May 29, 1924, p. 180) My spiritual teacher liked to tell a joke about two men from different religions sitting next to one another. One of them looks at the other and says, “You know, we both worship the same… read more
“One-Pointed Attention”–Daily Metta
May 29: “I am content with doing the task in front of me.” –Gandhi (Harijan, September 7, 1935, p. 234) We’ve all seen it: families and friends filling a room, and everyone is looking down at their devices. What would happen if we gave our attention instead to what–or who–is really in front of… read more
“The Power Behind the Khadi”–Daily Metta
May 28: “The only real and reliable guarantee for khadi would be honesty, truthfulness and sincerity of khadi workers.” –Gandhi (Mahatma, vol. 7, p. 20) The khadi–or home-spun cloth–campaign was a key constructive program for the Free India movement. It meant that if you were part of the struggle, you would not only wear the… read more
“The greatest force at our disposal”–Daily Metta
May 27: “Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of humankind.” –Gandhi (Harijan, July 20 1931) Whenever anyone tries to tell me that violence works better than nonviolence, I like to tell them the story of Antoinette Tuff. Working as bookkeeper in a public school in Decatur, Georgia, Tuff had no special training in… read more
“Science of Nonviolence”–Daily Metta
May 26: “I am a humble explorer of the science of nonviolence.” –Gandhi (Young India, November 20, 1924) Nonviolence: it’s a strategy for some, a moral imperative for others, a way of life for some more, but mainly for Gandhi, it was a science. Understanding that the fundamental basis of science is the spirit of… read more
“As long as thou canst”–Daily Metta
May 25: “It is not possible to make a person or a society nonviolent by compulsion.” –Gandhi (Young India, September 13, 1928) Freedom–an opposite of compulsion– and nonviolence go hand in hand. Yet any society like ours that has dedicated itself through and through to the force of violence, aka compulsion, to resolve its problems… read more
