A wonderful way of making the connection with Mahatma Gandhi was to light the Asian Flame from the eternal flame at Gandhi’s memorial in Raj Ghat, Delhi. This flame was burning since 1948, kindled from the actual flames that engulfed the funeral pyre carrying Gandhi’s body.

Gandhi’s life is an example for many people. At the start of his career he was seen as a failure, an ineffective, anxiety-ridden young man hardly able to even argue a law case, let alone liberate a nation. Nevertheless, over a period of twenty to thirty years he transformed himself into such a beacon of strength that he brought freedom to India and inspiration to the whole world. Day by day during this period he systematically discovered the hidden strengths we all have within. ‘I have not a shadow of a doubt’, he wrote towards the end of his life, ‘that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.’ ‘What is your message to the world?’ a reporter once asked Gandhi. ‘My life is my message,’ was his simple yet powerful reply.

The Indian flame flew on 25 July 1999 with Sri Lankan Airlines to the UK and arrived on the 28 July at London’s Heathrow Airport. . From there it was taken to London’s largest Indian temple where it was given a royal welcome by a crowd of over a thousand people. They had gathered to celebrate the day that in the Indian tradition honours the spiritual teacher. In Sanskrit, the word for a spiritual guide is ‘guru’, which literally means ‘remover of darkness’. What more appropriate day could there have been for the arrival of the Indian Flame?

From: ‘The Flame that Transforms’