For Children

“If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have the struggle, we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering.” M.K. Gandhi

STORYTIME

“The Little Boy and Sugar”

One day a mother came to Gandhi with her little boy for help. She asked Gandhi, “Please, Bapu, will you tell my little boy to stop eating sugar. He simply eats too much sugar and will not stop.” Gandhi told the mother to leave and come back with the boy in three days.

The mother returned with her son and said to Gandhi, “We have come back as you asked.” Gandhi turned to the boy and said, “Young boy, stop eating sweets. They are not good for you.”

The mother then asked Gandhi, “Bapu, why didn’t you tell my son that when we first came to see you? Why did you ask us to leave and come back in three days? I don’t understand.”

Gandhi said to the woman, “I asked you to return with the boy in three days, because three days ago, I, too, was eating sweets. I could not ask him to stop eating sweets so long as I had not stopped eating sweets.”

“Childhood with Gandhi” (Ashram Memories)

At Sabarmati Ashram children wrote weekly letters to Bapu (Gandhi). Usually the letters included a question and Gandhi’s replies would come handwritten all on a small piece of paper. The children would eagerly wait for answers. There was almost a competition as to who would ask the most intelligent question and receive the best reply. One day Narayan Desai worte and sent the following question: “Bapuji, so many of us children send you so many questions and you reply on such a small piece of paper. In the Bhagavad Gita, that we all recite, Arjuna asks only a tiny question, and in reply Lord Krishna recites a full chapter. Why then do you give such a short answer?”

The Bhagavad Gita describes the discourses given by Lord Krishna (incarnation of God) in response to the questions of his disciple Arjuna. Narayan’s question was much admired by others in the ashram and Bapu’s reply was eagerly awaited. Narayan remembered the message Bapu wrote and it said, “Your question is a good one. But remember, Krishna had but one Arjuna, and I have so many Arjunas such as you.” -Selected from Bliss Was It to be Young with Gandhi by Narayan Desai