Gandhi's Message to Us
Shy, tongue-tied, twenty-three-year-old Mohandas Gandhi left India for South Africa as an attorney. With little knowledge of South African law, he found himself in over his head with a particularly difficult case involving accusations of bookkeeping impropriety. He chose to immerse himself in the case and learn bookkeeping. Then he made a life-changing decision to help both parties work through their intense emotions to find reasonable solutions that would satisfy all. Regarding this event, he wrote in 1927: "I had learnt the true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men's hearts. I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundred of cases. I lost nothing thereby--not even money, certainly not my soul" (Eknath Easwa...