Be Intentional

I recently had the privilege of spending three days with Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's fifth born grandson. My Mother was hosting a fundraiser for the Sunanda Gandhi Memorial Home and School; a school that Arun started and is still building in the poorest rural area in India. Getting to visit with him during his trip was insightful and inspiring for me.

After a lecture I was reflecting with one of my friends who wasn't as impressed with his speech and wished Arun would have been more in-depth and not as "quotable." However, I disagree. Arun Gandhi is like his Grandfather in that he doesn't lay everything out neatly, and give the answers away. He's not commercialized. I, too, believe that the power of finding the meaning of something by myself is more powerful than someone else pointing it out to me. This way of teaching breeds understanding and critical thinking.

Something that I took away from his visit was to be aware of "passive violence" because violence isn't just physical. He described passive violence through a story. The story was that as a boy he threw away a pencil that had gotten too tiny to write with, at about three inches, assuming his Grandfather would give him a new one when he got home. However, his Grandfather didn't give him a new one. Instead, he questioned him, "Why did you throw it away? What was wrong with it? Where did you throw it away?" and so on. In the end, much to Arun's dismay, Gandhi made him go outside with a flashlight to find the pencil. When he got back his Grandfather implored him to think about the resources that went into making the pencil, that by throwing it away he was depriving someone else of resources, and that because we have such easy access to things we overconsume and overproduce. So, consequently, his Grandfather told him that by throwing away the pencil he was being violent towards the Earth and others who could have used those resources. It's not just about the pencil or that wasting is indirect violence. It's about being intentional with our actions and words.

I realize that Gandhi and his Grandson are about small changes and not about greatness on a grand scale. "Be the change you wish to see in the world," means that you know, realistically, not everyone is going to be well-known or "important" but that just by being intentional with yourself, you are creating change.