What Makes Gandhi A Mahatma?

Sadhguru looks at Mahatma Gandhi's life, and explains how a normal human being was transformed into something superhuman. This happened because his limited identities broke and instead, he identified with the larger process that was happening around him.
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Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times.

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Sadhguru: What you can do and what you cannot do,

nobody else can decide for you,

nor can you decide,

because when we say what you can

were talking about a capability.

Capabilities are never stagnant;

capabilities can be constantly enhanced, isnt it?

So,

theres really no limit as to

what one can do,

because capabilities can be constantly enhanced.

Its better to look at it in terms of

am I holding myself back

for concerns other than what I want?

Many human beings,

you have seen people whom you,

who are historically known as great beings;

this is all that happened to them.

They were living with a limited identification.

Suddenly for some reason,

some event broke their identities

and suddenly they identified with a larger

process that was happening around

and they did things that they themselves could not imagine.

For example Mahatma Gandhi,

a very limited man,

He could not make a living.

He got qualified as a lawyer.

I remember what he wrote when he

when he went out to fight his first case in the court in India

he says, I stood up to argue my case

and my heart sank into my boots.

This… was his expression,

and of course he lost the case.

Then he decided this law is not for him.

He must seek some other profession because

he doesnt have the courage to stand up and speak in a court room.

Does that sound like Mahatma Gandhi?

The man just moved millions of people.

Just one incident,

suddenly his old identities broke.

He went to South Africa to make a living

and he was doing okay as a lawyer.

And one day he bought a first class ticket in a train

and got in

and he traveled some distance.

In the next station somewhere,

another…a white South African got in.

And he didnt like a brown skin man sitting in a first class,

so he called the ticket collector.

Ticket collector said, Get out!

Mahatma Gandhi said,

I have a first class ticket.

He said, It doesnt matter, just get out.

He said, No, I have a first class ticket.

Why should I get out?

So they threw him out of the train.

His luggage and everything they just threw him out

and he fell on the platform

and he just sat there for hours.

Why did this happen to me?

I bought a first class ticket.

Why am I thrown out of a train?

Suddenly he identified himself with a larger predicament of the people.

Till then his survival, his law, his making money was all important.

Suddenly he identified with a much larger problem that existed

and he became a colossus

just broke that little identification

and moved into a much larger identity.

Probably there is never been another man on this planet

who moved as many people as Mahatma Gandhi moved,

with such simple ways.

I dont call him a spiritual person,

but socially, politically absolutely relevant for that day.

Never before another conquering force on the planet has been

made to vacate the land

where they had taken roots,

without firing bullets at them

or killing them or anything like this.

Never before such a thing has happened.

People who have conquered the land,

have conquered at a certain price,

they wont go easy.

They wont go easy,

but it was made to look as if they went easy.

It didnt happen easy,

but without fighting,

without bloodshed,

because the man could move people into that kind of action

but a kind of passive action.

See, shooting at the soldiers whore carrying guns is one thing.

Throwing bombs at them is another thing,

but just going there,

standing on the street

and willing to be beaten down on the heads;

with cracked skulls you fall down.

One line of people fall down,

the next line of people come and give their skulls to be broken again,

is a completely different kind of strength.

Its not easy.

It takes a very deep inner strength for a person to do that.

Dying in fighting is different.

You are also fighting;

somebody else also is fighting with you.

You get killed;

thats a different thing.

Without fighting just going and getting killed is a very different thing;

and thats what he managed to do.

And all that happened to him was

from his small identity of himself and his family

and wanting to make a living,

his identity just exploded,

identifying with a larger problem of the people

that was there at that time.

So,

dont put a limit on yourself as to what you can do

and what you cannot do.

You do everything that you can do,

what does not happen is what you could not do, isnt it?

What did not happen is what you could not do, isnt it?

But you did everything possible,

everything that you can imagine,

still some things didnt happen.

Those are things you cannot do.