I have just finished the Beacon Press imprint of Gandhi an Autobiography: The story of my experiments with truth (1957). Although I found M.K. Gandhi’s writing style a little irksome I am intrigued by his experiments and I wonder what, if anything, they have to do with sufficiency?

What are my truths?

What could my experiments be?

What does his life, his truth, his teachings say about sufficiency?

Can I eat “junk food” and be sufficient?

Can I drink distilled spirits and profess I am enough?

Can I take more than my share of the planet’s resources and be living within a context based on sufficiency?

Can I send my children to an independent school and still live a life of sufficiency?

Is sufficiency more than a declaration?

 

Is sufficiency a way of life?

Is there a level of self discipline that I am afraid to engage in?

Do I have to follow the extreme self discipline of Gandhi to be sufficient?

Am I afraid (or even able) to live like Gandhi did?

Am I taking the easy road to igniting a global movement?

 

Do I want the road to sufficiency to be easy so that others will easily join in?

If there were some sort of requirement, “truth” or steps to attaining sufficiency they could provide a method of discernment, a way for folks to seriously consider what a life of sufficiency is?

Can one truly be the source of their own sufficiency without orthodoxy, guidelines or commitments?

What are the “right” practices for sufficiency?

Maybe the path to sufficiency lies in the commitment to practice, experiment or test and nothing more.

Gandhi himself says, “. . . in the light of which every one may carry on this own experiments according to his own inclinations and capacity.” (p.xv)

 

What are your truths about sufficiency?

What experiments will you carry out today?