THE LEGACY of MAHATMA GANDHI

Gandhi has been very popular in the West - at least up until the late 1980s, but what a lot of people don't know, is that he got a lot of his ideas from the great "Christian Anarchist" (is how he described himself) Lev Tolstoy.

Tolstoy gave his landed estates over to his peasants by forming a commune with them. They were self-sufficient, they abolished money overnight.

Tolstoy realised the best he could contribute to the commune was as a teacher. He used still the most revolutionary teaching method ever seen:
When enough children had gathered near him (outside if
sunny), he would ask those assembled: 'What do you want
to know?'
Of course, he was plied with questions all day long. A child, nay anyone, will remember an answer to a question THEY have thought of most.

Tolstoy's commune had strict equality and rotation on the arduous domestic jobs, like cleaning the toilet. Tolstoy's commune was also internationally famous at the time (just prior to W.W.I) and many famous people visited it.

Gandhi was so impressed, he went to South Africa (not yet apartheid) after visiting Tolstoy's commune and tried to start his own. It was alien to Hinduism though, as his High Caste wife would not take her turn cleaning the toilet.

But to his credit, Gandhi persevered with his passive disobedience which gave the British Raj little excuse for punitive actions.

Tolstoyan communes were copied widely in Russia (even though Tolstoy was not advocating it), but the Bolsheviks marched them off at gun point because those proto-Stalinists insisted on everything being Centralised.

True to their 'resist-not-evil' principles, the 'Tolstoyans' gave in to the Reds' brute force.

Even better was when the Spanish anarchists rose up in the 1930s.
They did defend themselves, but carried collectivism just too far when the soldiers in the Anarchist army would hold meetings to discuss and vote on every order!

But everything else ran totally smoothly - even the cinemas and a greyhound track! Just goes to show that we don't need the parasites at the top. Read "Homage To Catalonia" by George Orwell
(Orwell was pro-Soviet until he went to Spain. It was seeing the Stalinists stab the Spanish revolution in the back that led him to write "Animal Farm" and "1984".)

Of course, like every true people's revolution, it was mercilessly crushed by brute force and behind-the-scenes support for Franco, Mussolini & Hitler from 'our' Western Rulers.

Why is there always this Predatory Minority (my term) that usurps every revolution, every new, progressive spiritual movt.?

Most people I meet are good. Makes you think maybe crazy old Hubbard was right about reptilian aliens running this planet behind the scenes.

Or maybe it's our collective egos manifesting problems to justify their fear-based existence. If that's so, why do our Higher Selves find it so hard to stay in the Now?

What hope for humanity?

In Britain, Ghandi is well known and I'd even go as far as to say that he is legendary.

Having said that, I don't know that many people know much about his life. Most people's awareness comes from Ben Kingsley's depiction of him.

History in most British schools revolves around war, battles and cruel kings, which quite frankly, sends most kids to sleep.

With so many great men and women who fought for peace and humanity, I find this a travesty great enough to make me weep.

Jac xxx

mahatma my friend is well known here and tell u the truth ,for me ,he is one of my idols.of couse the moovie helped for more younger people to find out his legend.i think inthe whole globe he has to be in the first ten -twenty most famous histoically speaking pesons.