Are Great Minds Born Great ?

Mohandas Gandhi as a young boy
Original Artist unknown. Picture digitally enhanced

While in school, the student Gandhi got into bad company and took to meat-eating, smoking and even stealing. Then his conscience deeply  troubled him and he wrote a confession to his father. In Gandhi's own words:


I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed to him myself. In this note, not only did I confess my guilt, but I asked adequate punishment for it, and closed with a request to him not to punish himself for my offence.

I was trembling as I handed the confession to my father. He was ill with fistula and was confined to bed. I sat beside him.

He read it through, and pearl-drops trickled down his cheek, wetting the paper. For a moment he closed his eyes in thought  and then tore up the note. He had sat up to read it. He again lay down. I also cried. I could see my father's agony. I still vividly remember the entire scene today.

Those pearl-drops of love cleansed my heart, and washed my sin away. Only he who has experienced such love can know what it is. This was for me an object lesson in Ahimsa. When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing, it transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power.

This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought that he would be angry, say harsh words and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful, and this was due to my clean confession. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance. I know that my confession made my father feel absolutely safe about me, and increased his affection for me beyond measure.

Excerpted from Gandhi's autobiography.

See also: 

• Gandhi on Ahimsa or non-violence