[Hong Wu]

Religion Without Sacrifice
Without sacrifice we may become active in a church but remain inactive in its gospel. In other words, we go for the social facade of religion and the piety of religious practices. There is no real walking with people or going the second mile or trying to deal with our social problems that may eventually undo our economic system. It takes sacrifice to serve the needs of other people - the sacrifice of our own pride and prejudice, among other things.

If a church or religion is seen as just another hierarchical system, its members won't have a sense of service or inner workship. Instead they will be into outward observances and all the visible accoutrements of religion. But they are neither God-centered nor principle-centered.

The principles of three of the Seven Habits pertain to how we deal with other people, how we serve them, how we sacrifice for them, how we contribute. Habits 4, 5 and 6 - win-win interdependency, empathy, and synergy - require tremendous sacrifice. I've come to believe that they require a broken heart and a contrite spirit - and that, for some, is the ultimate sacrifice. For example, I once observed a marriage where there were frequent arguments. One thought came to me : "These two people must have a broken heart and a contrite spirit toward each other or this union will never last." You can't have a oneness, a unity, without humility. Pride and selfishness will destroy the union between man and god, between man and woman, between man and man, between self and self.

The great servant leaders have that humility, the hallmark of inner religion. I know a few CEOs who are humble servant leaders - who sacrifice their pride and share their power - and I can say that their influence both inside and outside their companies is multiplied because of it. Sadly, many people want "religion," or at least the appearance of it, without any sacrifice. They want more spirituality but would never miss a meal in meaningful fasting or do one act of anonymous service to achieve it.

I was thinking about this earlier and a thought occurred to me. Many people have never even tried to transform themselves through religion or spirituality. That makes me kind of sad. It is also possible for someone to take part in a religion superficially but not do anything sacrificial (and therefore difficult) in order to improve themselves. I think this is what Gandhi meant by being active in a church but not its gospel. There's a wide and interesting world of religious faith out there if people would take the plunge and try it out but it can't really be done if you aren't willing to risk or sacrifice anything.

[Potemkin]

Without sacrifice we may become active in a church but remain inactive in its gospel. In other words, we go for the social facade of religion and the piety of religious practices. There is no real walking with people or going the second mile or trying to deal with our social problems that may eventually undo our economic system. It takes sacrifice to serve the needs of other people - the sacrifice of our own pride and prejudice, among other things.

If a church or religion is seen as just another hierarchical system, its members won't have a sense of service or inner workship. Instead they will be into outward observances and all the visible accoutrements of religion. But they are neither God-centered nor principle-centered.

The principles of three of the Seven Habits pertain to how we deal with other people, how we serve them, how we sacrifice for them, how we contribute. Habits 4, 5 and 6 - win-win interdependency, empathy, and synergy - require tremendous sacrifice. I've come to believe that they require a broken heart and a contrite spirit - and that, for some, is the ultimate sacrifice. For example, I once observed a marriage where there were frequent arguments. One thought came to me : "These two people must have a broken heart and a contrite spirit toward each other or this union will never last." You can't have a oneness, a unity, without humility. Pride and selfishness will destroy the union between man and god, between man and woman, between man and man, between self and self.

The great servant leaders have that humility, the hallmark of inner religion. I know a few CEOs who are humble servant leaders - who sacrifice their pride and share their power - and I can say that their influence both inside and outside their companies is multiplied because of it. Sadly, many people want "religion," or at least the appearance of it, without any sacrifice. They want more spirituality but would never miss a meal in meaningful fasting or do one act of anonymous service to achieve it.

Gandhi wrote this?

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I noticed the obvious red flag markers as well, and did a little digging. All the sources appear self-referential or link to each other, as one would expect erroneously-attributed text to be, but Gandhi did indeed author a short list of "seven social sins" but not the above text.

[fuser]

Why the Skepticism? What are the red flags here? Its quit famous and part of his official collected works as published by Government of India. And I will totally believe it to be something that Gandhi could write.

As a matter of fact, Gandhi was a prolific writer and wrote many things, I remember Perry Anderson commenting that total work (Quality is irrelevant) of Gandhi far outweighed any other historical persons' be it Marx or anyone.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Out of curiosity do you have a link somewhere credible? I literally found nothing but blog posts and random websites concerning that text. I did find his list of seven sins, but not a speech. Red flag as in it sounds like it was written for a more contemporary audience. I can't really put my finger on it.

[pugsville]

CEOs seems to me to be a modern term not in usage in Gandhi's time, is the one the just leaps out for me.

I've seen a Gandhi quote containing some of the words but quite different.

[Potemkin]

The author talks about "going the second mile" and about "a church or religion", and references "CEOs". He's clearly an American of the late 20th or early 21st century. Last time I checked, Gandhi was not American and he died before 1950. He did not write this text.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Everyone knows Gandhi was a church-going American who hung out with CEOs regularly, Potemkin. I read it on some guy's blog.

[Rich]

Gandhi has certainly been an inspiring example and role model for me. I particularly like his dedication to naked massage with pretty young women, although unlike Gandhi I try to stick to the modern western legal and socially recognised age limit.

[mikema63]

From what I read Gandhi was an enema obsessed racist.

[fuser]

You people are more skeptic today than normal. This is 100% authentic Gandhian work. Bulaba, the wiki article on this Gandhian work has its prime source, "Gandhi collected works" with ISBN code. This is a case of bad translation nothing more, every work of Gandhi was translated and published as collected works in 60s, I am not surprised that they picked up some post 50s words and the translation itself was tailored for an American audience.

Its quite famous of his works, believe me, I have been force-fed Gandhian shit since kindergarten as you can see with devastatingly good effect. The original version I remember has the word "Maalik" in it which should be more correctly translated as "owner" rather than CEO although "Maalik" itself is closer to English word "Master".

And as per him knowing CEOs or Maaliks, Congress being a Bourgeoisie party was not just communist propaganda but actual fact. Most of big Indian Corporate families have pre independence origins, Gandhi's friendship with Ghanshyam Das Birla (Birla group is quite a conglomerate these days) is quite famous.

Its also quite hilarious as I have seen phony Gandhian quotes being circulated everywhere including PoFo as authentic but you guys are doubting the actual authentic work. The example that I have in my mind is this :

Q. What do you think of Western Civilization, Mr. Gandhi?

A. It will be a good idea.

Yup he never said this, its completely fake although the punch line is too awesome to be a made up quote.

[Rich]

Q. What do you think of Western Civilization, Mr. Gandhi?

A. It will be a good idea.

Yup he never said this, its completely fake although the punch line is too awesome to be a made up quote.

I don't get it. What is uncivilised about western civilisation? I'm struggling to think of any criteria, that one might reasonably use as a measure of civilisation, in which western civilisation wasn't the most civilised civilisation ever?

[fuser]

Take your case to whoever made that shit up and attributed it to Gandhi, good luck.

[Hong Wu]

Yeah, I have no idea if this was written by Gandhi or was a bad translation or what but the underlying idea, that religion should have sacrifice, is a pretty interesting one. There are lots of people who want to use religion for some purpose or another but I think that "real religion" is more about what it superficially does not do for you and less about how you're going to organize people towards whatever you want to accomplish.