Mahatma Gandhi

Another portrait... These are all part of the Influential People series which started with Daniel Quinn a few months ago. I first learned about this extraordinary man in the 1982 film "Ghandi". I was 20 years old, and having grown up in a very strong Methodist and Southern Baptist environment, I was just beginning to open myself up to understanding other religions and new ways of thinking.

Although Gandhi grew up Hindu, he drew inspiration from many religions including Buddhism, Theosophy, and Christianity. Ghandi dedicated his life to discovering Truth. He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting experiments on himself. He called his autobiography "The Story of My Experiments with Truth". Gandhi summarized his beliefs first when he said "God is Truth". He would later change this statement to "Truth is God". 


For me, Ghandi opened up a door into a new world. I left behind the dogma of Christianity that I had held onto and began to look for the Truth.