Mahatma's indelible words

The one book that is always with me is Mahatma Gandhi' s autobiography, My Experiments with Truth. It’s my Bhagwat Gita. Gandhi has conveyed so many prophetic and inspirational ideas and notions. Several quotes of his seem pertinent for today’s times. For all the flaws in me I go to Gandhi for redemption. Whenever I am in the hold of anger, greed, guilt, and cowardice I go to him and he prescribes the medicine:

Guilt: Be courageous to confess your guilt.

"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." 

Cowardice: “Fear has its use but cowardice has none.”

“Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women.”

Gandhi was courageous enough to confess his guilt to his father when he was young. He was courageous enough to refuse to take off his turban when the judge of the court in South Africa ordered him to do so. He was courageous enough to refuse to move from his first class seat. He wanted to know the conditions of poor peasantry. He went to them and the people crowded around him by hundreds. The police ordered him to leave but he refused and when he was taken to court he explained why he disobeyed the police then courageously and very wisely asked the judge to punish him. The court did not know what to do with him so they released him.           

Anger:
"I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world." 

Greed:  Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not any man’s greed.