The Musings of Mahatma Gandhi - Answers for Our Times

I received from a former classmate (Tang Tuck Hoong) a forwarded slideshow entitled "The Musings of Mahatma Gandhi - Answers for Our Times" on July 24. The sayings are copied as follows:

1. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

2. God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.

3. When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.

4. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

5. 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.

6. I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.

7. There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.

8. It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

9. It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

10. In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

11. There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

12. To give service to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

13. 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.

14. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

After reading it, I promptly forwarded this to many friends and alike to share with them this inspirational piece of information on the same day. To my surprise, I received the following reply this morning from Dr. Lim Ju Boo whom I haven't met personally but we have exchanged emails once in a while:

Dear Ir. T O Lau,

Thanks for the life example of Mahatma Gandhi. After reading it, I immediately saw two contrasting visions together.

In this world, I saw two types of spirits entering into a human body. The first are the angelic beings who enter into the chosen ones who did not pray 1,000 times a day, but let love-in-action infused into their lives everyday. They instantly saw angels in Heaven.

The other are the satanic beings and demons who came in disguise as ‘godly’ messengers to posses a human body, and told the possessed they saw ‘heaven’. It was actually Hell and Darkness they have entered by their works. These satanic beings cunningly and permanently blinded them like what the Serpent did to Eve in the Garden of Eden. They effectively blocked others from outside from taking out their blindfolds and blinkers so that they can see light. They are permanently possessed, and they will bomb you if you try to remove their blinkers off their eyes.

Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa belong to the first group. They are truly great souls the world admires and greatly missed, and generations to come will continue to recognize and remember them as long as civilization exists. These two people are what we all call, The Children of God. Everyone, whatever their religion can instantly see that by their works. Both were from India.

The other extreme group is the Taliban and the Jihad (Jahad) people from Pakistan and those in the surrounding Afghan desert regions. They belong to the car and suicide bombers, whose only worship in life on Earth is bomb and kill innocent people everywhere, including them. The only place they can hide after that, are inside the hot and dusty mountain holes of Afghanistan and Pakistan or somewhere inside Indonesia. They are the children and followers of Satan. Everyone, whatever their religion can also see that.

But when life ends for both groups, the first group will enter Heaven for Eternal Life of Joy and Peace. But for the second group, it will be an eternal tit-for-tat world of fire and bombs. Since they chosen this path while in this world, and they will also be paid with the same wages in the next world and it shall be like this throughout all eternity.

So make your choice which path you wish to follow – the Path of Peace of Mahatma Gandhi, and the Path of Love-in-Action, and Charity-in-Action of Mother Theresa, or the Path of Darkness of Osama bin Laden and his Jihad followers to kill and bomb everywhere, and live a life in squalor, unkempt and dusty places, street fighting all the time, and inside their mountain holes.

What a disgrace when all the other countries of the world are all living in continuous economic prosperity by leaps and bounds year after year. Don’t these people there ever go and earn a decent living to take care of themselves and their families, improve themselves economically and socially instead of making car bombs, and fighting in their unkempt and dusty countries and streets day in, day out? We can see all these scenes on television everyday.

The difference is so very obvious. Even the most imbecile and idiotic can clearly see these angelic and satanic differences.

Thanks once again for the picture of Mahatma Gandhi and his sayings – the Man of Peace the world will always acknowledge and admire.

But in the opposite contrast, the Jihad people have a Nobel Anti-Peace and Terrorism Prize for their ‘god’ Osama bin Laden?

.

JB Lim

This prompted me to reply as follows:

.
Dear Dr J B Lim,

Thanks a million for your elaborate and thoughtful comments in response to my forwarded power-point presentation on the “The Musings of Mahatma Gandhi”, which I didn’t expect but am only completely overwhelmed to have received.

I hope you wouldn’t mind my forwarding this great dissertation of yours to my friends and children as well as posting it in my “Food for Thought” blog so that more readers can have the opportunity to read and ponder over your insight. I am truly amazed at the fact that you are not only a well known Medical Researcher and Nutrition Scientist (trained from University of London / University of Cambridge / Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the like) but also a Philosopher!

I am particularly impressed by the last saying of the “Great Soul” in the said slideshow, i.e. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. This reminds me of a similar quotation by the Japanese Buddhist philosopher and Soka Gakkai International (SGI) president Daisaku Ikeda that goes: “A great inner revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of an entire society and, further, will cause a change in the destiny of humankind.”

I wonder if you have read about the inscription on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abby (1100 A.D.) as follows：

“When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world.

“As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

“But it, too, seemed immovable.

“As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

“And now, as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.

“From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country, and who knows, I may have even changed the world.”

Incidentally, the recently deceased “King of Pop” Michael Jackson had a song “Man in the Mirror” that also calls for CHANGE with the following lyrics:

“I'm Gonna Make A Change / For Once In My Life / It's Gonna Feel Real Good / Gonna Make A Difference / Gonna Make It Right . . .

“As I, Turn Up The Collar On My Favourite Winter Coat / This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind / I See The Kids In The Street / With Not Enough To Eat / Who Am I, To Be Blind? / Pretending Not To See Their Needs / A Summer's Disregard / A Broken Bottle Top / And A One Man's Soul / They Follow Each Other On / The Wind Ya' Know / 'Cause They Got Nowhere To Go / That's Why I Want You To Know /

“I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror / I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways / And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer / If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Na)”

Let’s spread and circulate the word of CHANGE among our friends, acquaintances and even strangers in the cyberspace. I strongly believe a small step of CHANGE taken by each and every one of us would eventually lead to a great leap of HUMANITY to “heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me, and the entire human race” (borrowing the words from MJ again).

Thank you.

T.O. Lau

July 26, 2009