Gandhiji's Teachings

Gandhiji's Teachings

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential persons of the 20th century. He was not just a political leader, but a social reformer and a spiritual teacher, too.

Incidents from the Mahatma's life and his well-documented experiments with truth serve as a great way of inculcating values in children. He stressed that one should always live one's philosophies, beliefs and faith, and he was a prime example of that.

Honesty is the best policy

In primary school, once during a school inspection, Gandhiji had spelt the word, 'kettle' wrong. When his teacher urged him to copy from others and correct the spelling, he refused as he was convinced that it was not the right thing to do. Honesty and truthfulness were qualities he came to embody throughout his lifetime.

In the modern world, we strive to make excel in academics, sports and the ways of life, but we must also pay great attention to these character-building attributes, which may seem a little old-fashioned.

Clothes do not a man make

Gandhiji realized that character, and not clothes, made a man.

Much later, his thoughts about dressing took him further in quite the opposite direction and he started dressing in loincloth to empathise with the poorest of the poor.

Teenagers today spend unnecessary time and money on the latest fashion and fads to the detriment of other things. They should be discouraged from such wasteful expenditure and preoccupation.

Ahimsa and Satyagraha

Gandhiji built his life's mission on the two pillars of non-violence and truth. He said: "I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills."  

In a society that is getting more strife-torn and ghettoized, we cannot underscore enough these age-old qualities and must seek to inculcate the same in our children.

Religious co-existence

He said: "Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, there is one religion - human religion-...