At an energetic level, Gandhi’s words also had the impact that comes when one lives what one speaks. Yet he took on first giving up sugar himself, and then spoke from this position of understanding and integrity.

Gandhi could have used his position to command the boy, and the boy would have listened. I love this story! It speaks to me about being honest with yourself, and not telling others to do what you’re not doing yourself. “Why couldn’t you have told him this 2 weeks ago?” To which he replied, “Madam, two weeks ago I was still eating sugar”. He looked at the boy and said “stop eating sugar”. Two weeks later the woman and her child sat in front of Gandhi. “Please tell him to stop.” Gandhi listened to her, and then asked her to come back in two weeks. “My son won’t stop eating sugar”, she told Gandhi. She complained about her child’s addiction to sugar. A woman and her young son had come to the ashram to speak to Gandhi. It was from them that I heard one of my now favourite Gandhi stories. There I spoke to a lot of old Gandhians who were part of the liberation movement in the 1940’s. I was staying nearby at Gujarat Vidyapith, a university dedicated to non violence founded in 1920 by Gandhi. Gandhi’s message of peace made more sense to me than ever. I was working in India at the time, and I felt drawn to the ashram to make sense of what was happening. War had not yet been declared – it was a moment between breaths as the world scrambled for answers and responses to that horrific attack.

US naval ships were steaming toward the Indian Gulf. In September 2001 I visited Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram in Gujurat India.

I love sugar story