lbert Einstein said of Mohandas Gandhi, "Generations to come will
scarce believe that such a one as this ever. walked upon this earth."
It is high praise from one of the most belief-shaking scientists
the world has ever known. This Indian man, this mahatma (literally,
"great soul"), who freed millions of people, and in his lifetime
helped shape the spirit and principal tenets of leaders who came
after him, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela,
was uncommon and unrelenting in his mission to advance the cause
of human freedom and civilization.
In his biographical portrait of the man, Mohandas Gandhi and His
Disciples, the Indian author Ved Mehta describes how unlikely this
leader's rise to influence was: "Gandhi was not endowed with any
unusual artistic, scholarly, or scientific talents. He never. received
any special academic honors. He was never a candidate in an election
or a holder of public office. Yet when he died in 1948, at the age
of seventy-eight, practically the whole world would mourn him."
Why? Who was this humble man with those now-famous wire-rimmed spectacles
who etched his thoughts onto a simple tablet, and spun thread quietly
at his spinning wheel? Like Albert Einstein, Mohandas Gandhi was
one of the great experimenters of his age. He titled his autobiography
The Story of My Experiments in Truth, because for him, the energies
of a human life were malleable and meant to be shaped and molded
through experimentation and experience to support a high purpose
and the betterment of all human life....
