A man of peace.

Today is the birthday of one of the greatest peacemakers in the world! And his name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. as for those who do not know who Gandhi is, this man had a message and a power that many people do not possess he had patience, he had a voice, he had silence, and he made a difference!

Gandhi who was born October 2, 1869 was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader if India during the Indian independence movement. Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience while an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, during the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he faced many acts of discrimination against him and fellow Indian person who were opposed by the Europeans that is when he organized protests by peasants, farmers, and urban laborers concerning excessive land-tax and discrimination.

Gandhi employed non-cooperation, non-violence and peaceful resistance as his "weapons" in the struggle against the British. ( who forced high taxes on food crops causing extreme poverty.)

Gandhi had 6 principles in which he followed

1. Truth

He dedicated his whole life into the purpose of discovering the truth. He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting experiments on himself. Gandi made his belief was the "Truth is God"

2. Nonviolence

Although Mahatama Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of non-violence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a huge scale.
In his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth he stated:

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

Though this it showed that nonviolence can solve many problems other than resulting to war!

3. Vegetarianism

The idea of vegetarianism is deeply ingrained in Hindu and Jain traditions in India, and, in his native land of Gujarat, most Hindus were vegetarian and so are almost all Jains.

4.Brahmacharya

Brahmacharya is spiritual and practical purity largely associated with celibacy and asceticism. ( Asceticism is the doctrine that a person can attain a high spiritual and moral state by practicing self-denial, self-mortification, and the like.) Gandhi saw Brahmacharya as a means of becoming close with God and as a primary foundation for self realization.

5.Simplicity

He began by renouncing the western lifestyle he was leading in South Africa. He called it "reducing himself to zero," which entailed giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes.

6.Faith

He believed in keeping your faith, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith.

I'm not saying lets all go and be Gandhi but I'm showing you that one man made a difference by settling things in a peaceful and spiritual manner and he should be remembered just as Martin Luther King Jr is remembered.

Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

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