Maobadi, Nice one. One from me...Great Soul Gandhi Born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India, Gandhi is one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of India. Indians call him ?Mahatma? which means great soul. He was an obstinate idealist, audacious fighter, a deep thinker, and a great leader. He was able to unite India like none other; he helped free the Indian people from the British rule through nonviolent resistance. He was the one who proved that it is possible to fight successfully without violence. Reminding his readers of the importance of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. writes, ?Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk.? Even though Gandhi was born in India, He had two citizenships. He was a citizen of both India and South Africa. He started his earlier career as a sophisticated and westernized lawyer in South Africa. Both the countries have contributed a lot in the making of one of the greatest leader of the 20th century. Nelson Mandela, the great South African leader writes, ?Gandhi dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self,? (Nelson Mandel; ?People of the Century? Time Magazine, January 3, 2000). While replacing ?self-interest? with ?group interest? one has to sacrifice a lot. Gandhi did the same. He sacrificed his bright career as a lawyer and started a nonviolent resistance against the mighty British rule in India. He assembled the nonviolence strikes and then started a peaceful non-cooperation campaign against the British. He gave up the sophisticated life style, which he had adopted in South Africa, and urged people to denounce anything that was not Indian for example foreign clothes, goods, books and even the language. He believed that we can only be dominated if we cooperate with our dominators. If British rulers were not given the chance to exploit Indian, India would no longer be useful to British colony. They would have to leave India, and India would ultimately be an independent nation. Gandhi was victorious; the British were forced to leave India due to Gandhi?s non-cooperation movement. It was Mahatma Gandhi?s principle that brought independence to India. Mahatma Gandhi?s principle did not only bring independence to India but also gave birth to other great leaders who followed Gandhi?s principle of nonviolence and non-cooperation. Among many leaders influenced by Gandhi, who later influenced the world, is Martin Luther King, Jr. King was influenced by Gandhi's belief in nonviolence. King studied both Gandhi and his teaching. Gandhi inspired him with a new way of looking at things. Gandhi?s search for truth influenced King. Gandhi believed he could find truth through tolerance and concern for others. After King talked to some of Gandhi's followers, he was convinced that nonviolence was the strongest way to help people to freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr. was influenced by the man whose life is an example of one who lived the principle of holding on to truth, and bringing about peace in a world of unrest. Gandhi has not only influenced a single people or nation, but he has also inspired countless other people to struggle for peace, justice and freedom. Gandhi?s principle and his success has informed and influenced a lot of nonviolent resistance movements and peace movements against several discriminations. Nelson Mandela also followed the principle of Gandhi. Nelson Mandela himself suffered the colonial oppression. Like Gandhi, Mandela also mobilized his people against the violent that violated their freedom. Mandela, however, adopted some form of violence in his movement. He justifies his adoption as learning from Gandhi. He quotes Gandhi?s saying ?Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..." Gandhi sure was full of teachings. He surely was a great soul. There is no doubt about Gandhi?s soul being a great soul, but people do have myths about how he looked. People generally have a stereotype of Gandhi as a very skinny man. He was not as skinny as he looks in the pictures. He did have very skinny legs but had a very broad chest. We don?t get to see his broad chest in the pictures because he was bowed and always wrapped himself with a piece of white cloth which he made himself by spinning cotton yarn on a compact spinning wheel. Gandhi was a preacher of nonviolence; people tend to believe that he was a very soft person, but he had a deep, dynamic voice to match his personality as a lawyer. People are also confused about who Gandhi really is. Some people call Gandhi "a saint trying to be a politician," and others call him ?a politician trying to be a saint.? Gandhi preferred the latter one, and I prefer the same. Gandhi was not born as a leader or a saint. He was as ordinary as any of us. It was the situation and his willingness to fight against it that turned Gandhi into Mahatma Gandhi. We all can become mahatma what we need is to do is hold to the right principle and fight against wrong. You never know who might be the next ?mahatma? in making. Gandhi?s life story is a dream come true to the ordinary people like me who dream of being an extra-ordinary. He is an inspiration to many. Many have learnt a lot from him. One can learn lot of things from Gandhi?s life and his teachings. The one that inspires me the most is his teaching on violence and its cure. Unless we know what is wrong, we will never recognize what is right. Gandhi encouraged people to recognize what harm a violent nature could do to him or another person. If I harm someone today, the chances are, tomorrow he might come back and return my favor with ?interest.? The tendency is that I might go back to and harm him more greatly than before. This would never end. It is the act of violence that gives birth to the evils such as hate, revenge, prejudice, and its siblings. He believed that once a human realized the risk of his violent nature, he would let go violence and takes a path of nonviolence. Gandhi also said that the root cause of violence is anger. The most important thing that I learned from Gandhi is to recognize anger and deal with it. Gandhi, when he became the victim of racial discrimination, became as angry as anyone would be; however, unlike any of us, he did not allow his anger to shape into violence. He managed his anger; he channeled it to a different direction. He made his anger as resolution to fight against the discrimination that he experienced. As a result of his properly managed anger, India revolted for its independence in a nonviolent and effective manner. We should also learn to manage our anger. When we get angry, we should not let it to shape into violence. Instead, what I do when I get angry is write down my anger on paper. I just pour my anger in papers and later read them. Sometimes I laugh at the fact that I could get angry over such a small thing. Writing helps me to remember and realize why I got angry. I try my best to mobilize my anger for betterment than any sort of violence like Gandhi did. I was not born in the time when Gandhi led his crusades against colonial oppression. I did not get to chance to see how he revolted. I have read about him in several books. I respect what he did. I value his whole idea of nonviolence. I am mesmerized by his idea of non-cooperation. Gandhi, to me, is an explanation of a living soul, and weather dead or alive, represents a vital image and a hero who helped me to look at my different aspects of life such as anger and nonviolence. I salute Gandhi for who he was and what he did.