Life of Gandhi-

I once came across a quote that read “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Fellow toastmasters and guests, have you come alive?... or are you merely existing?

The day I read about the Life of Gandhi was the day I came alive.

The year was 1888 when Gandhi left Bombay and set sail for England to attend law school. Gandhi was 21 years of age that year and every passing day seemed to reaffirm his loss of bearing in life.

Gandhi’s three-year stay in England was disillusioning, eventful and insightful. It comprised of self discovery through a consistency in failure. While in England, Gandhi took up dancing lessons but soon gave it up as he had no sense of rhythm. He tried playing violin but failed. He was even too shy to make friends.

In spite of all these futile attempts at being an English man, Gandhi managed to pass his final exams and that was a great way of bidding farewell to England.

He returned to Bombay and his best friend failure followed him all the way. Gandhi opened up a Law practice in Bombay and failed to attract clients because he was too shy to speak up in court.

Put yourself  in Gandhi’s shoes … being looked at as a bad egg because everything you did turned out to be a wild-goose chase. I have been there. There was a time in my life when failure was loyal to me more than my shadow… because it followed me even in the dark…. to the extent that I would fail to sleep in the night.

We have all been there … disenchanted by life’s uncertainty. I believe the life of Gandhi teaches us three principles for overcoming failure in order to come alive.

The first principle is: being fearless.

When Gandhi’s Law Firm in Bombay failed, he took on an opportunity to work as a lawyer in South Africa. On his way to Pietermaritzburg, in South Africa, he was thrown off a train because even though he had a first class train ticket, Indians were not allowed to ride in first class. This unfair and unacceptable treatment on the train was Gandhi’s baptism of fire. It was through this pivotal encounter with racial segregation that Gandhi found his voice. He decided to face his fear and spend his next twenty years in South Africa using his words to unite Indian community in the fight against injustice. He won the fight and I attribute his victory to this principle of being fearless.

The second principle that we can learn from the life of Gandhi is: service above self.

When Gandhi returned to his native land, he started to fight for Indian Independence over British Rule. Through hard work, relentless self-sacrifice and prayer, Gandhi was able to orchestrate an agreement with the British  for an independent India in 1947. This brought him a lot of popularity, fame and admiration. He was given the name Mahatma which means ‘Great soul’.

Although he had secured freedom for India, he didn’t want to be carried off his feet. He wanted no role in the new government, no special treatment and no special reward. He preferred that  his image remains iconic of a man of straw; a man in an ordinary rob with a walking stick, a man whose only desire was to share his selfless love. Service above self was his creed. Service above self acknowledges that the fight for justice, human rights and unity need not be in exchange for extra ordinary recognition because it’s a duty we all owe to our human race.

Britain granted India its Independence on condition that the country was split into two dominions: India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Moslems.

Gandhi strongly opposed this partition. Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together. Unfortunately, this effort to commune and communicate with Muslims angered the Hindu fanatic who shot and killed Gandhi during a prayer session. This sad incident explains the third and last principle… when your creed becomes your deed, when your doctrine becomes your doing and when your principle becomes your practice…  you should be ready to die for what you believe.

For it was Martin Luther King who said that if you haven’t found something worth dying for then you are not fit to live.  

CC4 SPEECH BY PAUL KAVUMA