Truth

There's a proverb in Spanish, "Dime con quien andas y te diré quien eres," which means, "Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are."

My closest friends have always been books. My mother used to say they were my real mother.

Right now I am reading, Ganhdi, An Autobiography: The story of my experiments with truth and I am preferring the company of Gandhi in this book to most other company.

I started reading Gandhi because I want to learn more about his concept, satyagraha, which means: Truth and non-violent but forceful resistance.

• It rejects all recourse to violence and mere passivity.
• It is an active, forceful, even militant role.
• It is intended to bring about profound social and individual change.
• It is intended to replace methods of violence and to be a movement based entirely upon truth.

Here is an excerpt from my new friend:

"But I should certainly like to narrate my experiments in the spiritual field which are known only to myself, and from which I have derived such power as I possess for working in the political field (Gandhi, 1957, p. xxvi)."

Feminists have said, "the personal is political."
Gandhi said his religion and spirituality gave him political power.
One of my mentors, Robert Cordova - a retired principal and community organizer - taught me that power in the political arena is either lots of money or lots of people.
I believe our spirit has the power to inspire other people's spirits to take action about issues that personally affect them.

Other excerpts:

"What I want to achieve, - what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years, - is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha [freedom from birth and death]. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the political field, are directed to the same end. But as I have all along believed that what is possible for one is possible for all, my experiments have not been conducted in the closet, but in the open; and I do not think that this detracts from their spiritual value. There are some things which are known only to oneself and one's Maker. These are clearly incommunicable. The experiments I am about to relate are not such. But they are spiritual, or rather moral; for the essence of religion is morality (p. xxvi-xxvii)."

"This truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but also the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God...But as long as I have not realized the Absolute Truth, so long must I hold by the relative truth as I have conceived it. That relative truth must, meanwhile, be my beacon, my shield and buckler. Though this path is strait and narrow and sharp as the razor's edge, for me it has been the quickest and easiest...For the path has saved me from coming to grief, and I have gone forward according to my light. Often in my progress I have had faint glimpses of the Absolute Truth, God, and daily the conviction is growing upon me that He alone is real and all else is unreal (p. xxviii)."

"Lying to anyone was out of the question. It was this last thing that saved me from many a pitfall...I know that nothing is impossible for pure love...Numerous examples have convinced me that God ultimately saves him whose motive is pure (p.13)."

These passages resonate in my mind, body, spirit, and soul. All I can say can be represented in a long string of heart, dollar signs, and star emojis.

In the following excerpt, I see Gandhi offering a model of integrating both head and heart in decision-making for those that tend to lead with their head (Ts) and for those that tend to lead with their heart (Fs):

"As long as my acts satisfy my reason and my heart (p. xxvii)."

I think Gandhi's experiments with truth are brave considering the temperament he was born with:

"I used to be shy and avoided all company...
I could not bear to talk to anybody. I was even afraid lest anyone should poke fun at me...
I disliked being taken to task by my teacher as much as I disliked deceiving them. Therefore I would do the lessons, but often without my mind in them...My shyness was one of the reasons for this aloofness."

More hearts and stars for the following excerpt:

"This play - Harishchandra - captured my heart...'Why should not all be truthful like Harishchandra?'...To follow truth and to go through all the ordeals Harischandra went through was the one ideal it inspired in me."

I feel you, Gandhi! I love plays because the subtext is made explicit in the story. I love the dialogue in plays and wonder why we don't all walk around talking to each other as characters in a play, making the truth plain.

That is enough for today. More later.