“If teleported to be with an American schoolboy, what would Gandhi do?” This was the rhetorical question Dr. Jones posed to her students at an event celebrating the Mahatma.
What would Gandhi say if somehow, he was present today, and it’s post-pandemic and here is a world filled with chaos and confusion and discord and social media. I want to bring it a little differently to connect to you and let’s see how this goes.
How many of you have seen Harry Potter? Most of you, okay. How many of you remember Dobby? Who? Dobby? Anybody? That little, weird looking animal, the House Elf.
The House Elf can teleport, right? And then what else? With Harry Potter, there was a theme about time travel, right? Hermione? Hermione was able to go back in time to change an outcome, right? Gandhi lived over 100 years ago; he died over 70 years ago. What if he were to come back today, time travel or teleport and showed up in your bedroom and when you opened your eyes, you saw this tumbled man with his attire and he said to you that he is going to follow you for 24 hours.
You wake up and you like, wait, what is going on? And Gandhi says, “I’m here to follow you, to see what your environment is and for us to reflect on your decisions for the day.” It would be an out-of-body experience for you, but let’s keep this going.
You will run to the bathroom to take a shower. But before that the first thing you’re going to do is what? You are probably going to check your phone before you probably even get out of bed. Or as you’re walking to the bathroom, stumbling, trying to get your bearings, and Gandhi is there with you. I’m taking liberty, based on what I have read, to imagine what he would say. First, he probably would say, “What is this contraption? And why is it that before you can even be thankful to be alive, before you can even gather your bearings, why is this phone the first thing you look at?” And you may say, “Well, I need to know what’s going on. I need to respond.” And he’d respond, “Probably, that’s probably going to give you a lot of anxiety before you even start your day. But okay.”
And off you go to school, and as you’re on the bus or driving, you’re checking messages on your phone and you notice that a friend that goes to the same school as you has been a target of cyberbullying. Now the question is, what do we do about it? It could be a friend. Do you turn away and say nothing? Because if you say something, it will be on you. What do you do? Gandhi is going to ask you that question. Because if it were Gandhi, what he chooses to do may not be the popular thing, but would be the right thing for sure. So, Gandhi may ask you, “Do you know that person? Do you support what they are doing on social media? Why don’t you say, ‘that is not cool’. Why don’t you reach out to that child and say, ‘I didn’t like what that was?’” I think some of us would talk about this and would like to bring change and not be a contributor to the problem.
I think if Gandhi followed you on the bus, he would force you to reflect for a minute and say, “Are you just rushing and doing things and tapping the ‘Like’ button? Doing things, just going through the motions.” You see, one thing we talked about, no matter what your religion is, the practice of yoga or something like that is to keep you disciplined, to keep you focused, to keep you reflective so that you’re not just reacting and spinning like we are on a Gerbil wheel with no purpose.
And then I think if you were in the lunchroom, which is a common place where a lot of drama occurs, and somebody at your table starts being the butt of the joke. Maybe for some of you, it was you. Maybe it was somebody you know. Maybe it was a little sister. For me, it was one of my daughters. She was very smart, very geeky. When she changed school, she was the butt of the joke. Why? Because she was good in class and the other guys had been in a cohort.
It can happen at any time of your life and in our time on social media. It can happen any minute and in milliseconds the whole narrative can shift from one person to another. So, you teleported with Gandhi to the cafeteria and they start to lace into a particular young girl whose clothes are disheveled. She’s not looking all that great. She’s quiet. They start lacing in and attacking the way she looks. And then they follow her and find out that she’s homeless and is from a single parent family. And they find out that this girl had lot of insecurities. But you also notice that they maybe going along with the bullying, but have no idea what the real story is and how badly your words could hurt that child. Are you going to just stay neutral and kind of giggle and do nothing. Or be strong to say, “That’s not cool, why do you do that?” It takes some of us to stand up to injustices in order to bring about change. I believe that Gandhi’s principles and his core values are all about doing the right thing, not the popular thing.
So, as we come back to reality, I challenge you to think about it. And if this was your reflection point and you had this opportunity to walk with Gandhi for a day and then reflect at the end and ask him, “How could you be so strong? Why are all the flashy things not important to you?” What does it really come down to? The intangible things in life like peace, joy, hard work, perseverance, and purpose. What really defines true character, moral compass? What is your purpose in life? What is it that you are here in this world to do? We talked about climate and environment, and my take on it was our environment, our daily environment, our social media presence — that’s an environment — what is your environment and how does it influence you?
Many people don’t realize that all the talk on social media creates movements. And the movements are not always positive. And so, you have to define for yourself what is okay. You have to define whether your contributions to social media or to your daily environment are bringing what is positive. You are the future. As we celebrate Gandhi and the principles that embody his life, what are you doing to contribute to that powerful but simplistic world that he believes we should all be living in coexistence? The future is yours to change.
One more thing I draw your attention to is a Gandhi quote, “My life is my message.” You don’t always have to say a lot of words for somebody to see who you are. How you carry yourself, what you say, the way you respond becomes your living message. That is the epitome of what your core values are without you even saying them aloud. If somebody says that you’re a liar, you’re a cheater, you’re this, you’re that, you don’t have to be in the room to protect yourself because the character of who you are is represented wherever you are not.
Mahatma Gandhi’s message and his character spoke for him, and still do today because of that. So, I encourage you to reflect on your purpose and your contribution to creating an environment of peace. I encourage you to think about what he stood for, Google it, watch a little video and see all that he was up against and yet he stood steadfast. And ironically, a man that stood for peace was assassinated and it makes us realize that even though he was assassinated, yet all these years later, the movement that he created, the change that he created lives on beyond his life. And I want to believe that your purpose will live on beyond your years here on the earth because you are contributing to the change in the world.
