Nonviolence is a lifestyle that one has to adopt, which means allowing all the love, understanding, respect, compassion, acceptance, and appreciation to emerge and dominate one’s attitude.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Nonviolence is a Lifestyle

Topic: Global Peace & Development

This philosophy is not like a jacket that you wear when necessary and discard when not. Nonviolence is a lifestyle that one has to adopt, which means allowing all the love, understanding, respect, compassion, acceptance, and appreciation to emerge and dominate one’s attitude. Then we will be able to build good relationships not only within the family but outside of the family. We will no longer be selfish and greedy but magnanimous and giving.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known universally as Mahatma Gandhi, was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a small town on the western coast of India. He hailed from a Hindu merchant caste family and his father served as the chief minister of Porbandar state. Gandhi's youth was shaped by deeply spiritual influences that stemmed from his mother's devout Jainism, which instilled in him beliefs in non-violence, fasting, meditation, and vegetarianism. As a young man, Gandhi travelled to London to study law, an experience that further broadened his perspective and exposed him to Western ideas of justice and equity.

Returning to India after completing his studies, Gandhi found himself dissatisfied with the legal profession and soon moved to South Africa to work on a legal case. It was in South Africa, faced with rampant racial discrimination, that Gandhi began to refine the philosophy of non-violent resistance, or Satyagraha, a principle deeply rooted in his religious beliefs. For nearly 21 years, Gandhi strove for the civil rights of Indians in South Africa, successfully employing methods of civil disobedience and passive resistance.

In 1915, Gandhi returned to India, bringing with him his deeply entrenched ideas of Satyagraha. He assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress and led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, ending untouchability, and achieving Swaraj, or self-rule. His role in the Indian independence movement was monumental, with his leadership and doctrines of non-violent resistance culminating in India's independence from British rule in 1947. However, his life was tragically cut short when he was assassinated on January 30, 1948. His legacy, nonetheless, continues to inspire peace movements globally, securing his place as one of the most significant figures of the 20th century.

(1869-1948) Hinduism

Gandhi, Arun. “The Relevance of Gandhi Today.” Arun Gandhi - 5th Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi: Legacy of Love, 4 June 2013, arungandhi.net/the-relevance-of-gandhi-today/.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Theme: Peace

About This Mohandas K. Gandhi Quotation [Commentary]

Mohandas K. Gandhi taught that nonviolence is “not like a jacket that you wear when necessary and discard when not,” but “a lifestyle that one has to adopt.” This way of living means “allowing all the love, understanding, respect, compassion, acceptance, and appreciation to emerge and dominate one’s attitude.” Gandhi’s words place the emphasis on active qualities of heart that shape how one relates to others. When such qualities guide thought and action, “we will be able to build good relationships not only within the family but outside of the family,” creating conditions for harmony and trust.

For Gandhi, letting love and compassion “dominate one’s attitude” required the discipline of self-purification. Without this inner work, he warned, the observance of nonviolence “must remain an empty dream.” Self-purification meant becoming “absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action,” rising above “love and hatred, attachment and repulsion.” This path demanded humility, the willingness to “put oneself last among fellow creatures,” and the courage to face “the dormant passions lying hidden” within. Only by overcoming selfishness and greed could a person become “magnanimous and giving,” living in alignment with nonviolence.

Gandhi’s vision linked nonviolence to peace, not as the absence of conflict but as the outcome of transformed attitudes and relationships. When love, respect, and acceptance guide action, divisions give way to generosity and understanding. This, he believed, applies equally “within the family” and in the broader social and political sphere. For Gandhi, religion, politics, and daily life were inseparable, each shaped by the same commitment to truth and nonviolence. To live in this way is to let the qualities of the heart direct every field of life, building a peace that begins within and extends outward.

Mohandas K. Gandhi on Nonviolence

Mohandas K. Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence is like the iceberg—what is visible is only a fraction of what is hidden. Scholars have analyzed over and over the part that deals with political conflicts and independence of nations because they insist that nonviolence is simply a strategy of convenience.

Gandhi said: “This philosophy is not like a jacket that you wear when necessary and discard when not. Nonviolence is a lifestyle that one has to adopt which means allowing all the love, understanding, respect, compassion, acceptance, and appreciation to emerge and dominate one’s attitude. Then we will be able to build good relationships not only within the family but outside of the family. We will no longer be selfish and greedy but magnanimous and giving.”

It is no longer a secret that official India had abandoned Gandhi’s philosophy [known as Satyagraha] upon gaining independence. However, there are many at the grassroots level, young and old, who are still inspired by his philosophy and have put it into action to bring about a qualitative change in Indian society. Many have started projects to bring solace to the poor of whom there are more than 500 million in India.

—Gandhi, Arun. “The Relevance of Gandhi Today.” Arun Gandhi – 5th Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi: Legacy of Love, 4 June 2013, arungandhi.net/the-relevance-of-gandhi-today/.

[For more of Arun Gandhi’s Commentary About His Grandfather’s Philosophy see the link in Resources.]

Additional Arun Gandhi Quotes

“The basis of Gandhi’s nonviolence is to appeal to the good in others and evoke sympathy to one’s cause through self-suffering.”

—Arun Gandhi [Legacy of Love: My Education in the Path of Nonviolence].

“Nonviolence is not just a state of being where violence is absent or invisible. It is a conscious, active effort not to harm anyone morally, spiritually, physically, mentally, economically, socially, or in any other way.”

—Arun Gandhi [Legacy of Love: My Education in the Path of Nonviolence].

Additional Mohandas K. Gandhi Quotes

“I wanted to know the best of the life of one (Muhammad) who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind. I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.”

—Young India [Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (23 September 1924) , vol.29, “My Jail experiences”] p. 133.

“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.
Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one’s surroundings.
But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world’s praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be far harder than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experiences of the dormant passions lying hidden within me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.”

—Mohandas K. Gandhi [Farewell] p. 454.

Nonviolence is a Lifestyle

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