The Story of My Experiments with Truth

重要なポイント

• 苦しい時も小さな誓いを守り抜くことが、大きな意志力を育てる
• 過ちを潔く速やかに認めることが、傷を癒やし相手をも変える
• サティヤーグラハは、不正が暴かれるまで報復せず苦難を受け入れる
• 身軽さは自由。手放した快適さの分だけ、縛るものは減る
• 自らの人生を、真理を試す実験場とする

このbitの内容

1. 実験としての人生

   Most autobiographies polish the hero. Gandhi's does the opposite.

2. 小さな誓いが大きな人格を築く

   Before Gandhi left for London, his mother made him promise to avoid meat, wine and women. He kept the vow through loneliness, mockery and hunger, and he later felt that keeping it taught him more than any lecture.

3. 告白は強さの源

   As a teenager Gandhi took a bit of gold from his brother's armlet to clear a debt. He could not bear the guilt, so he wrote a confession and handed it to his sick father, expecting anger.

4. 南アフリカで生まれたサティヤーグラハ

   A young lawyer with a first-class ticket is thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg because of his skin. Gandhi spends a freezing night in the waiting room deciding whether to go home or stay and fight.

5. 生き方としてのシンプルさ

   Gandhi kept stripping his life down. He cut his own hair, washed his own clothes, cleaned latrines and moved his family into shared communities like Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm, where everyone worked with their hands.

6. 実践に移す

   Make one small vow this week that you would normally break, such as no phone at dinner, and keep it for 7 days no matter what. Notice how much easier the second week feels.