Gandhi, Self-Improvement, and Mutual Support

The lack of commitment to self-improvement among progressive political organizations in the United States mystifies me. Not even Gandhian advocates of non-violence reflect the personal-growth principles articulated by Gandhi, which has been summarized as: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

The “Principles, Practices and Beliefs” section of the wikipedia entry on Gandhi begins:

Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth, or Satya. 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 stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities.

In his words, Gandhi stated:

Prolonged training of the individual soul is an absolute necessity

The greater the spirit of passive resistance in us, the better men we will become.

One of the reasons for my departure to India is still further to realize as I already do in part, my own imperfection as a passive resister and then to try to perfect myself….

This requires a detached state of mind, and it is a state very difficult to reach.

God helps when one feels oneself humbler than the very dust under one’s feet….

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.

The broad range of these comments indicates a critical, key characteristic of self-improvement – namely, it is open-ended, involves the whole self, and can engage any aspect of the self. The self is freewheeling, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and boundless. The goal of self-improvement is to become a better person, whatever that might mean for each individual, not merely develop pre-defined skills.

If the aim is narrower, like to become a better activist, then restricting oneself to a specific curriculum makes sense. But if the aim is to become a better person, then one must be open and responsive to whatever emerges. Any kind of change may be prompted.

Another key characteristic of self-improvement indicated by Gandhi’s life and teachings is that the honest acknowledgement of mistakes, failures, and shortcomings is essential. As the Dalai Lama said:

There are two things important to keep in mind: self-examination and self-correction. We should constantly check our attitude toward others, examining ourselves carefully, and we should correct ourselves immediately when we find we are in the wrong.

This willingness to be vulnerable is best not left to chance. Without commitment, intentionality, and accountability, one can easily avoid the disciplined effort needed to evolve.

A third lesson we can learn from Gandhi is that personal growth is a social affair. As one who rejected Western hyper-individualism, Gandhi recognized that what one can achieve alone is limited. So he established communal ashrams, or modest residential communities, as places to foster ongoing self-development. Concerning the Sabarmati ashram, he said, "This is the right place for our activities to carry on the search for truth and develop fearlessness.” With a particular emphasis on developing self-discipline, these residential centers nurtured “better men” who practiced nonviolence in all situations.

In Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World, Tina Rosenberg documents the power of peer learning and mutual support. As summarized by the publisher:

She identifies a brewing social revolution that is changing the way people live, based on harnessing the positive force of peer pressure. Her stories of peer power in action show how it has reduced teen smoking in the United States, made villages in India healthier and more prosperous, helped minority students get top grades in college calculus, and even led to the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. She tells how creative social entrepreneurs are starting to use peer pressure to accomplish goals as personal as losing weight and as global as fighting terrorism. Inspiring and engrossing, Join the Club explains how we can better our world through humanity's most powerful and abundant resource: our connections with one another.

A book just released by Berrett-Kohler, True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development, pursues the same theme. The publisher offers this summary of the content:

All too often, we find ourselves forced to confront life’s challenges on our own. What we need is an intimate group with whom we can examine our beliefs and share our lives. For the past thirty-five years, Bill George and Doug Baker have found the answer in True North Groups—small groups that gather regularly to explore members’ greatest challenges. These groups provide opportunities for the honest conversations essential to develop the self-awareness, compassion, emotional intelligence, and authenticity required to be inspired human beings and inspiring leaders.

Gandhi, Rosenberg, George, and Baker all suggest that it is important for peers to honestly face one’s mistakes and provide mutual support to avoid them in the future.

Yet I still know of no progressive political organization that is clearly dedicated to helping its members support one another in their efforts to become better persons (which would also enable them to be more effective activists).

The largest current nonviolent action project is the October2011 Movement, which will be convening in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC on October 6 to demand the creation of a just and sustainable world. Its website lists “fifteen core issues the country must face.” None of these issues refer to the need for mutual support to foster self-improvement. And the site’s definition of “nonviolent resistance” says nothing about ongoing self-improvement.

The only resource the October2011 site lists under “Nonviolence Resources” is the downloads page of the Metta Center for Nonviolence. The wallet card highlighted there does include a quote from Gandhi that advocates “a change in human nature.” But the principles and strategies included on that card do not affirm open-ended self-improvement. The card only includes, “Do not yield to threats…. Renounce that and you are free.”

Neither does the Metta Center website, with its valuable, extensive collection of resources, affirm the cultivation of inner peace. It does advocate “the conversion of a negative drive, such as anger or fear, into constructive action [which] can be cultivated systematically.” But that emphasis is on channeling negative energies into action, rather than developing a peaceful state of being, which precedes action and is the heart of nonviolence.

Moreover, the site says nothing explicitly about the need for critical self-examination and it offers no concrete methods for providing mutual support for such introspection. Rather the site emphasizes intellectual study.

In the section “What can I do to learn about nonviolence?” the site does recommend forming small supportive groups to engage in study, provide constructive social service, and build alternative institutions. Though a great starting point, this strategy fails to include the need for an explicit commitment to self-improvement and mutual support with regard to that effort.

Perhaps one reason for the general reluctance to fostering self-development is the risk of oppressive authoritarianism. It’s far too easy for charismatic individuals with a vision of a new world to build cults to actualize their vision. But despite those perversions, the impulse to advance human evolution remains valid.

One way to proceed constructively is to insist that each individual define his or her own self-improvement goals, as is the case with the draft format for personal-political support circles. My conversations with my taxi passengers indicate that most people are already aware of how they would like to evolve. And they have sensible notions. But most of us could use more mutual support in our efforts, if only to remind us to stay focused and to hold us accountable.

Regardless, one way or the other, the need to clearly, consciously facilitate both self-improvement and mutual support seems compelling. The dehumanizing forces of modernization are extremely powerful. Countering those forces effectively calls for conscious, disciplined, skillful effort.