The Art of Letting Go: A Gandhi Story
“In everything you do, think once how it will affect you, think twice how it will affects others.”
That was the last thing that my guru, Dr. Bali would say at the end of each lesson. I was training to become a Certified Yoga Instructor, but little did I know, I’d learn more about the meaning of life and about myself in those 10 months than I would over the course of nearly three decades. Dr. Bali was a very fascinating man; wiser and older than anyone I’d ever known, always wearing white, from head to toe, and measuring no more than 4ft6’. There was always such a sense of calm and serenity to be in his presence. And the stories he told, were arguably the most memorable part of the entire experience.
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It was like every other hot and humid day, as the young Gandhi patiently waited for his train at the railway station. More often than not, the train would only come to a full stop at stations where white passengers were waiting to get on, and in case there were none, the train would only slow down momentarily as Indians scrambled on and off, before zooming back into motion. And on that day, as the young Gandhi climbed onto the moving train, one shoe slipped off his foot. He bent down to try and grab it, but it slithered even further down onto the track as the train started to gain momentum. In a flash, Gandhi reached for his other shoe on his foot, and threw it down the tracks towards the other. A curious onlooker saw what happened, and asked Gandhi why he would do such a thing, and he smiled, saying: “At least when someone finds the shoes lying on the track, he will have a pair he can use for himself!”
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This is a story that resonates so profoundly with today’s habit of forming too much attachment to belongings, and too little attachment to the people around us. When we are free from physical attachments, we are able to see beyond the material and into the meaningful. This may be one of those times we need to truly unlearn, in order to relearn.
In parallel to Dr. Bali’s end-of-day saying, ‘to think once how it will affect you, and twice how it will affect others’ we learn that we are not in this world alone, and that true selflessness means that you don’t feel that you are losing something by giving. There is something very humbling and freeing to live a life unbound by things that only matter to us. This sense of shared responsibility and acts of selflessness don’t need to come in big packages, but rather in small, intentional, decisions. Being kind, being generous, being forgiving, being positive, being thoughtful.
Over the course of humanity, we have made it a habit to think more about what we don’t have, rather than being content for what we do have. This doesn’t mean that we need to renounce every material thing we own and become monks in the mountains order to practice non-attachment. We just simply need to see the beauty of letting go.
In letting go of things that don’t serve us — such as anger, revenge, past traumas, toxic relationships — we make room for the things that do. And in that space, which we once stuffed and crowded all the things that bring us down, we not only lift ourselves up, but we bring others up on the ride, too. And who knows, you may loose a shoe or two along the way, but I promise you’ll gain something even more meaningful and timeless instead.
