Image from beyondallreligion.net
First posted in 2013. Sinaite JF, who resides in Hongkong posted this on her Facebook Page; we found it worth sharing with our website visitors with our commentary.
Surely such wisdom, you might conclude is Torah-sourced and yet if you see the image of the man who spoke those words, better known as Mahatma Gandhi, a Gentile, Hindu by religion, whose life is a testimony to the best of humanity, you could swear he was, like David, “a man after God’s own heart”. . . which just proves that even without exposure to Torah, goodness and righteousness are potentials in every human heart if one yields to such virtues, to what we refer to as the “I” in the Image of God instead of the “I” in Idolatry (self, me, my wants, over and above all).
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SEVEN DANGERS TO HUMAN VIRTUE
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Business without ethics
5. Science without humanity
6. Religion without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
Except for # 6 on the list, a point we will explain in a sequel to this post, we agree. We dug up more from brainyquote.com:
- “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
- “Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.”
- “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
- “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
- “A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.”
- “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
- “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty the ocean does not become dirty.”
- “Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.”
- “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
- “When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.”
- “An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.”
- “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
- “Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.”
- “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”
- “There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.”
- “I do not want to forsee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”
- “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
- “Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
- “My life is my message.”
Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), non-violence activist.
A synopsis from biography.com:
Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India,
Mahatma Gandhi studied law
and came to advocate for the rights of Indians,
both at home and in South Africa.
Gandhi became a leader of India’s independence movement,
organizing boycotts against British institutions
in peaceful forms of civil disobedience.
He was killed by a fanatic in 1948.
Isn’t it a tragedy that such great men would meet their end at the hands of fanatics? At least Gandhi lived long enough to age 79 while our Philippine national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal was executed by a colonial occupier world power in the prime of his life, at age 35; what if he could have lived as long as Gandhi? Unfortunately we will never know. [Revisit: Guess who wrote this?]
Truly, the likes of Gandhi and Rizal were men for all times and seasons, for all cultures and nations, for all to remember as prime examples among the best of humanity who have ever walked this earth, men who lived their words in their lives.
Indeed, “My life is my message.” And in the end, doesn’t that ring true for each one of us?
