While not always barefoot, he was a beacon of simplicity... so much so that Churchill publicly called him a "half-naked fakir". And if you remember from my post "Barefootism NOT Barefooting", "being barefoot is not a requirement for being a Barefootist. Nor does wearing shoes negate the truth that Barefootism teaches." Best known for his Non-Violent resistance to British Colonialism and the coining of the term "Satyagraha". The term originated in a competition in the news-sheet Indian Opinion in South Africa in 1906. It was an adaptation by Gandhi of one of the entries in that competition. "Satyagraha" is a Tatpuruṣa compound of the Sanskrit words satya (meaning "truth") and Agraha ("insistence", or "holding firmly to"). For Gandhi, satyagraha went far beyond mere "passive resistance" and became strength in practising non-violent methods. In his words:
Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase “passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word “satyagraha” itself or some other equivalent English phrase.While Gandhi was born a Hindu, he grew up in an eclectic religious atmosphere and throughout his life searched for insights from many religious traditions. He was exposed to Jain ideas through his mother who was a devout Jain and was in contact with Jain leaders. Themes from Jainism that Gandhi absorbed included asceticism; compassion for all forms of life; the importance of vows for self discipline; vegetarianism; fasting for self-purification; mutual tolerance among people of different creeds; and "syadvad," the idea that all views of truth are partial, a doctrine that lies at the root of Satyagraha.
The Catholic Church is filled with so many wonderful Barefootists, but how about a nun who helped create a religious order specifically named after being barefoot? Oh yeah.... I'm talking about the Discalced Carmelites (Ordo Carmelitarum Discalceatorum). If you are not aware, Discalced means Barefoot.
As a mystic, God gave her spiritual delights: the prayer of quiet where God's presence overwhelmed her senses, raptures where God overcame her with glorious foolishness, prayer of union where she felt the sun of God melt her soul away. Sometimes her whole body was raised from the ground. If she felt God was going to levitate her body, she stretched out on the floor and called the nuns to sit on her and hold her down.
At the age of 43, she became determined to found a new convent that went back to the basics of a contemplative order: a simple life of poverty devoted to prayer. And with the help of St. John of the Cross (I'll profile him later) the Discalced Carmelites were born.
One thing that I love about Teresa was her zeal for God. To her, life was more than just the humdrum of the daily religious life, secluded within the walls of the convent... instead she would encourage finding God in nature. "May God protect me from gloomy saints," she would say, and that's how she ran her convent. To her, spiritual life was an attitude of love, not a rule. Although she proclaimed poverty, she believed in work, not in begging. She believed in obedience to God more than penance. If you do something wrong, don't punish yourself; change. When someone felt depressed, her advice was that she go some place where she could see the sky and take a walk. Teresa also believed that the most powerful and acceptable prayer was that which leads to action. Good effects were better than pious sensations that only make the person praying feel good.
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To Be Continued...
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Mohandas Ghandi : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi
Satyagraha : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha
St. Teresa of Avila : http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=208
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