Pain as awakening
When Gandhi's father dies, that precipitates a new time in his life, one where the pain of his loss is coupled with new experiences and studies. His pain becomes an awakening, because it gives a depth to his new experience of marriage and his study of law. He sees the moral intensity of life, because he is confronted with death, and he understands that if he wants his life to matter, he must not be averse to suffering or pain.
Suffering and fate
Suffering is a fundamental part of one's fate, he realizes. Although Western conceptions of fate tend to focus on destiny in a good sense, being destined for greatness, so to speak, in the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, fate (under the name "dharma") is shown to be inherently sacrificial. Gandhi becomes challenged to accept his suffering as an essential aspect of the human experience. Fate is to endure life's hardships in a productive way through sacrifice.
Life as an opportunity to serve
Although life's fundamental experience is to serve one's self (our bodies seek nourishment, acclaim, money, power, etc), Gandhi's political teaching shows that life is a limited opportunity to fix injustice, to speak truth to power, and to lay one's life down for justice. This higher power comes from service. For this, Gandhi cites the teachings of Jesus, showing that his life was clearly a gift to his community, because Jesus didn't pursue wealth or material advantage.
Action and non-action
Gandhi invokes the irony of action and non-action from Bhagavad Gita. In that work, Krishna, a supreme God and a manifestation of Vishnu, teaches a young man about fate and duty. Arjuna, the young prophet, is puzzled by this teaching, because the right action is not always the most obvious one. For instance, the right action for Arjuna was to do battle, but ironically, Gandhi takes an opposite reading from the text, showing that if one's goal is to accomplish change, the right action will not be violent, because violent movements tend to defeat themselves. The correct action is to pursue justice in a non-violent manner, but the practice is complex and morally difficult.
Persecution as a mark of success
The mark of success is not an award and a pat on the back; Gandhi appeals to Jesus's story to show the essential irony of sacrifice. It is as if the universe views sacrificial suffering as the highest honor possible. He suggests that by giving one's life to the pursuit of truth, one will be asked to sacrifice for their community, and the mark of success will be persecution and pain. Again, suffering is involved in this irony in an essential way.
