Dustin LindenSmith

From Issue 2443 of the Nondual Highlights, edited today by Gloria Lee. This entry smacks slightly of urban legend to my ears, but a Google search on Gandhi's Seven Blunders yielded this webpage signed by his grandson Arun, which corroborates the story and provides additional background on the Mahatma.

A few weeks before he was assassinated, Gandhi the Mahatma had a conversation with his grandson Arun. He handed Arun a talisman upon which were engraved "Seven Blunders," out of which, said Gandhi, grows the violence that plagues the world.

The blunders were:

Wealth without work.

Pleasure without conscience.

Knowledge without character.

Commerce without morality.

Science without humanity.

Worship without sacrifice.

Politics without principles.

To his grandfather's list of seven blunders Arun later added an eighth:

Rights without responsibilities.

Gandhi called these imbalances "passive violence," which fuels the active violence of crime, rebellion, and war. He said, "We could work 'til doomsday to achieve peace and would get nowhere as long as we ignore passive violence in our world."