Satyagraha means ‘holding to the truth in every situation’. This is ahimsa (nonviolence), which is more than just the absence of violence; it is intense love.
(Gandhi the Man p. 53)
I don't know about you, but it sure seems hard to hold to the truth in every situation. It seems my monkey mind wants to blame what his happening around me on the banana peel that "someone else carelessly left lying around." Let's say I did slip on that peel and landed on my back side. I get up cursing slobs, litterbugs, and perhaps even myself for not seeing that very clear and obvious yellow object in my path. Once I'm up, and have dusted myself off (after looking around to make sure no one saw me take the fall), I might then began to wonder about that peel as I peel away the layers of what could have happened. Maybe a family unit of gorillas, escaped from the zoo and on their way back to their mountains in Rwanda passed this way giggling and laughing at their new found freedom. Maybe the peel fell from the skies, caught up in a water spout hundreds of miles away, only to land near me so that I could wonder at weather patterns and the miracles of wind and water. Perhaps a person finished eating a banana and meant to put the peel in their back pack, but were so preoccupied with a recent diagnosis of cancer, they just missed the opening completely. As I put myself in the paws and feet of others, I bend over to pick up the peel, smiling, loving gorilla, genocide torn Rwanda, storms, my fellow human, and myself as I do one small thing to heal myself and the world.
What is one small thing you can do today to nourish your spirit, to heal the world?
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