Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, spoke to a crowded Georgia Hall Thursday night about his experiences with the late Indian pacifist and the lessons his grandfather taught.

“Anger is the spark that generates much of the violence in our lives,” Gandhi said. “We become angry, and we say and do things that end up becoming violent situations. Anger is not bad, but we need to understand it and use this energy positively.”

Gandhi recounted tales of life with his grandfather, after living with him for 18 months when he was 12.

Gandhi said he remembered interrupting his grandfather’s meetings with political officials to get his autograph, which he said his grandfather sold to fund programs for independence.

“I slipped my own book in (hoping to get it for free), but he told me ‘I don’t make exceptions, even for grandsons.’ But he never made me get out of the room. That’s when I realized if he was able to get such control of his anger, and if we could control only 50 percent of that, then we could get rid of violence in our society.”

Gandhi said people must individually cut off the “fuel supply” of violence within them.

“That change will multiply and bring about change in the world,” he said. “We don’t do anything at all because we think we have to change the world all at once. We need to proactively avoid conflict rather than work on resolving it after it has already occurred. Non-violence teaches us to do that.”

Gandhi said respect, understanding, acceptance and appreciation were keys to solving the problem of terrorism.

“We identify people by labels, and every time we put a label on a person, we are building a wall, and this breeds conflict,” he said. “We can’t isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. We have to see why these people have become terrorists. There is a reason behind it, and we have to connect these reasons with the rest of the world.”

Damian Hinman, a University alumnus from Carollton, said he enjoyed the personal side of the senior Gandhi.

“I thought it was very entertaining, very amusing to see the other side of Gandhi,” he said.

Judy Kuhn, a sophomore from Birmingham, Ala., said she was awed by the experience.

“I listened to (the lecture) in the most humble state I’ve ever been in,” she said.