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I’ve been perusing through the highlighted sections (of which there are many) in order to start with a quote, but there are so many fantastic one’s that I’m finding it hard to choose. The short one below sums up the book, so seems like a good choice.

Move the world through love, not fear

This short book (153 pages) was written by Arun Gandhi, Gandhi’s grandson. Each chapter is a lesson, for example lesson one: use anger for good. These lessons were learnt at a time when Arun was a child and was living with Gandhi.

Gandhi taught Arun (and the world) numerous lessons about how we should all be treated as equal. He lived a very sparse life as he refused to have more comforts that the poorest Indian. The lessons sometimes frustrated the young Arun, for example when he threw a pencil stub away and Gandhi made him find it, to learn how waste is violence on the world. Essentially, though, these lessons were prophetic in the larger scope. Arun ties all the lessons in with current events so we see how they can still be utilised today.

The guiding principle which underscored all the others was that of non-violence. Gandhi believed that anger is useful when it’s utilised correctly and can be a force for good. All too often in today’s world we are told to stuff our anger, that it has no use, but that’s not what Gandhi believed. For example, the anger he felt at the British, for prohibiting Indians from gathering salt and imposing taxes on that which they sold, was used to fuel a peaceful protest where Gandhi and many others went down to the sea and took their salt from the water there.

I have learnt so much from this book, not just how to be a better person, but how to use my anger as a source for change. I’ll go back to it often.