Gandhi's 10 Rules for Changing the World
“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.”
“The difference
between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most
of the world’s problem.”
“If I had no sense
of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”
Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows
about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in
1947.
So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from
Mahatma Gandhi.
1. Change yourself.
“You must be the
change you want to see in the world.”
“As human beings,
our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the
myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”
If you change yourself you will change your world. If you
change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you
take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now
viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also
because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t
have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought
patterns.
And the problem with changing your outer world without
changing yourself is thatyou will still be you when you reach that change you
have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity,
self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.
And so in this new situation you will still not find what
you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if
you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may
grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and
to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and
conflicts in your life and world.
2. You are in control.
“Nobody can hurt me
without my permission.”
What you feel and how you react to something is always up
to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things.
But that’s mostly just all it is.
You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions
to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react
in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk
reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.
And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can
actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into
your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow
stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.
3. Forgive and let
it go.
“The weak can never
forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“An eye for eye
only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in
the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can
incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can
react in a way that is more useful to you and others.
You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will
do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in
some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can
learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering
and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.
If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another
person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those
bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.
4. Without action
you aren’t going anywhere.
“An ounce of
practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
Without taking action very little will be done. However,
taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.
And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or
reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But
getting little or no practical results in real life.
So, to really get where you want to go and to really
understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just
bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into
results and understanding.
You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this
problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful
Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip
for taking more action that I have found so far.
5. Take care of
this moment.
“I do not want to
foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has
given me no control over the moment following.”
The best way that I have found to overcome the inner
resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as
much as possible and to be accepting.
Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t
worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance
to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or
reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it
becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and
perform better.
Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on
how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying
in the now is a mental habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it
becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.
6. Everyone is
human.
“I claim to be a
simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however,
that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
“It is unwise to be
too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest
might weaken and the wisest might err.”
When you start to make myths out of people – even though
they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming
disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve
similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s
important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they
are.
And I think it’s important to remember that we are all
human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will
only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.
It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into
the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have
made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you
can learn from your mistake. And then try again.
7. Persist.
“First they ignore
you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade
and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that
want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.
One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of
non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just
didn’t give up.
Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you
would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they
want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an
achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to
achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A
world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us
that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days. You can
read more about this in One Big Mistake a Whole Lot of People
Make.
Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is
to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It
can lighten things up at the toughest of times.
8. See the good in
people and help them.
“I look only to the
good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe
into the faults of others.”
“Man becomes great
exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”
“I suppose
leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with
people.”
There is pretty much always something good in people. And
things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And
if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice.
It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more
pleasant and positive.
And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to
motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other
people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time
you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined
to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive
change that grows and becomes stronger.
9. Be congruent, be
authentic, be your true self.
“Happiness is when
what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
“Always aim at
complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts
and everything will be well.”
I think that one of the best tips for improving your
social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an
authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is
much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are
aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.
When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows
through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and
body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in
alignment with your words.
With these channels in alignment people tend to really
listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed
messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.
Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re
communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And
other people’s belief in you too.
10. Continue to
grow and evolve.
”Constant
development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his
dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”
You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or
re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and
the world.
Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know
what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently
or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi
says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or
cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that
something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is
a happier and more useful path to take.
This
article is reprinted here with permission. Henrik Edberg is a writer who
lives on the east coast of Sweden. He is passionate about happiness and
personal development and writes about it every week onThe Positivity Blog and in his free newsletter.
