Chapter 38: Humbler Than the Dust

The Words: Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1925

In November 1925, Mohandas K. Gandhi wrote the introduction to his autobiography, which he called The Story of My Experiments with Truth. He wrote it in Gujarati, his mother tongue, and it first appeared in parts, week by week. In the introduction, he explains that he does not want to tell the story of his public work. He wants to share his experiments with truth in daily life. He ends with a striking picture. In my own words: the one who seeks truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker should become so humble that even the dust could crush him. Only then, he says, can such a person catch a glimpse of truth.

In the same introduction, he says that if anything he writes seems proud, the reader should take it as a sign that something is wrong with his search. He also admits that the great title people had given him, Mahatma, which means "great soul", had often caused him pain. These are the words of someone who wanted to be judged as a seeker, not praised as a hero.

The Life Behind the Words

Gandhi was born in 1869 in South Asia. As a young man, he went to Europe to study law, and he later worked as a lawyer. Over the years, he chose a simpler and simpler way of life. He ate plain food, wore simple clothes, often made from cloth he had spun himself, and lived in small communities where everyone shared the work. He believed deeply in non-violence, not only as a way of acting but as a way of being.

He called his life a series of experiments, because he tried his ideas in practice and was ready to admit his mistakes. He wrote openly about his weaknesses and failures, which is rare in an autobiography. He died in 1948, and people of many faiths and many lands mourned him. His words about dust came from a long life of trying to make himself smaller, so that truth could become larger.

What the Words Ask of Us

The words ask us to be humble, but not in a false or gloomy way. Gandhi does not ask us to think badly of ourselves. He asks us to stop thinking that we already know everything, and to stop placing ourselves above others. A proud mind is full, and nothing new can enter it. A humble mind has room. It can listen, learn and change. That is why Gandhi links humility so closely with truth. We can only find what is true if we are willing to be taught.

Think of Agnes, a nurse with twenty years of experience. A new student nurse joins her ward, and one day the student asks a simple question that Agnes has never thought about. Agnes could brush it aside. Instead, she says that she does not know, and they look for the answer together. Agnes learns something new that day. The student learns something too: that even an experienced person can still be a learner. In that small moment, Agnes is a little closer to the humble seeker Gandhi describes.

Similar Words From Around the World

In Plato's Apology, written in Greek about two thousand four hundred years ago, the philosopher Socrates explains why people called him wise. In my own words, he says: I seem to be wiser than this man in one small way. I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates and Gandhi lived in very different worlds, but they agree on one point. The start of wisdom is to see the limits of our own knowledge. Both men turned that humble starting point into a lifelong search.

An old text of North Africa, The Instruction of Ptahhotep, was written nearly four thousand years ago and presents itself as the teaching of an old official to a younger man. Its first maxim says, in my own words: do not be proud of your knowledge. Ask the unlearned as well as the learned. Good speech is rarer than precious green stone, yet it can be found among the women grinding grain. This ancient echo adds something beautiful. Humility means not only lowering ourselves, but also seeing the wisdom in people whom the world often overlooks.

Living It Today

These words can help anyone in any place. A manager can ask a new employee for ideas. A teacher can learn from a pupil. A parent can admit a mistake to a child. An older person can learn a new skill from a grandchild, and a young person can listen to the stories of an old neighbour. Humility does not make us weaker. It makes us able to grow at every age.

Here is something to try this week. When you feel sure you are right about something, pause and ask yourself: what might I be missing? Then ask one person, perhaps someone you would not usually ask, what they think. Listen fully before you answer. Each time we make a little room for truth, our lives become larger and our world becomes wiser.

Chapter 39: All Different, and All Good

The Words: Kaneko Misuzu, 1920s

In the 1920s, a young woman named Kaneko Misuzu wrote a poem for children called "Me, a Little Bird and a Bell". In my own words, it goes like this. Even if I spread out both my arms, I cannot fly into the sky at all. But the little bird that can fly cannot run as fast as I can on the ground. Even if I shake my body, no pretty sound comes out. But the bell that rings so clearly does not know as many songs as I do. Then come the last lines: the bell, the little bird and I, we are all different, and we are all good.

The poem is very short, and its words are simple enough for a small child. Yet it says something that many adults spend their whole lives trying to learn. Each one of us has something we cannot do, and something only we can do. That is not a reason for shame. It is part of the beauty of the world.

The Life Behind the Words

Kaneko Misuzu was born in 1903 in a small fishing town by the sea and wrote in Japanese. As a young woman, she worked in a bookshop and began sending her poems to magazines for children. They were soon printed, and an older poet praised her highly. Her poems often look at the world from the side of small things: a fish, a flower, a grain of snow. In one of them, people on the shore celebrate a great catch of fish, while the poem imagines the fish in the sea holding a funeral for their own.

Kaneko Misuzu died very young, in 1930. For many years afterwards, her name was almost forgotten. Then, in the 1980s, a researcher who had loved one of her poems searched for a long time and finally found her notebooks, filled with hundreds of poems in her own hand. They were printed at last, more than fifty years after her death, and today her poems are read in schools and loved by readers of every age. Her short life left a gift that waited patiently to be found.

What the Words Ask of Us

The poem asks us to stop comparing ourselves in only one direction. When we compare, we usually look at what others can do and we cannot. We forget to look the other way, at what we can do and they cannot. The bird does not look down on the child for being unable to fly, and the child does not need to envy the bird. Each is good as it is. The poem invites us to see ourselves and others with this kind of fairness and warmth.

Think of Sofia, a mother of twins who are very different. One is quick at sports and always running. The other is slow to run but loves to draw and can sit quietly for hours. Relatives often compare them, and both children have started to feel that they are not good enough. One evening, Sofia reads Kaneko Misuzu's poem to them. They laugh at the idea of a child trying to fly. Then the quiet twin says that the bird cannot draw either. Both children go to bed a little lighter.

Similar Words From Around the World

Confucius, a teacher in East Asia about two thousand five hundred years ago, said, in my own words: when three people walk together, one of them can be my teacher. I follow their good points, and when I see their faults, I correct them in myself. This echo adds something to the poem. Our differences are not only acceptable. They are useful. Because each person is different, each person can teach us something we could not learn alone.

An old text in Sanskrit, the Maha Upanishad, from South Asia, says, in my own words: to those with a generous heart, the whole world is one family. In a good family, no one expects every member to be the same. A grandmother, a baby, a teenager and an uncle all have their own gifts and their own weaknesses, and the family is richer for it. Kaneko Misuzu's bell, bird and child would fit well in such a family. The echo widens her small poem to include everyone.

Living It Today

These words can help anyone who feels less than others. A student with low marks in one subject may shine in another. A worker who is slow with numbers may be wonderful with people. An older person who can no longer run may have a patience that younger people lack. The poem does not deny our weaknesses. It simply refuses to let them be the whole story. We are all different, and that difference is good.

Here is something to try this week. Write down one thing you cannot do well, and next to it, one thing you can do that someone else might find hard. Then do the same for a person you sometimes compare yourself with, or someone you find difficult. Look at the two lists side by side. Like the bell, the little bird and the child, each of us has a place in the world, and each place is a good one.