The slideshow features Martin Luther King Jr.-inspired lyrics by U2: “(Pride) In the Name of Love” and “MLK,” and Mahatma Gandhi-inspired lyrics by 7 Seconds: “Satyagraha” (Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance movement) and “Middleground.”

Photos are from the books “In the Spirit of Martin” and “Gandhi: The Man, His People and the Empire.”

While many are very much aware of their public lives, Terry McGilloway said their spiritual lives are well-documented, but far less known. For McGilloway, those inner lives became an inspiration.

Further, as he began to study Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, McGilloway added he began to see more and more of a strong relationship between them.

Mostly the result of McGilloway’s research, the Ananda Meditation Temple in Bothell will offer a special one-hour program exploring the lives — both public and spiritual — of King and Gandhi at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 18 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) at the meditation temple, 23305 Bothell-Everett Highway.

The temple’s spiritual director and lead meditation teacher, McGilloway said the tribute to King and Gandhi is in its eighth year, begun at the East-West Bookshop in Seattle.

While the presentation at the Roosevelt Way store will continue, McGilloway said the popularity of the event led organizers to look for a larger venue. The program mixes film footage, recordings, readings from speeches and writings along with music to paint a picture of two leaders McGilloway said were most importantly linked by the idea of non-violent resistance.

They used that idea, McGilloway noted, to bring about social changes on a huge scale, Gandhi leading the way to the political freedom of India from the colonial rule of Great Britain, while King, of course, helped launch the American Civil Rights movement.

“What they lived and eventually died for was very much influenced by their spirituality,” McGilloway said, contending both held beliefs that are very universal and that those beliefs obviously helped guide their public struggles.

“(The program) sheds light on where their power came from,” McGilloway continued.

McGilloway said King still was in theology school when he first became interested in Gandhi’s ideas regarding non-violence or ahimsa. According to McGilloway, King looked to Gandhi’s story for insights into both the spiritual and practical aspects of non-violence.

In 1959, as he continued to rise to prominence here, King went to India with his wife and several advisers.

“In this country we don’t realize it, but the reception he received there was amazing,” McGilloway said. “He was quite taken by what he experienced there.”

McGilloway said in researching King’s life, two things particularly impressed and inspired him. Not surprisingly, one was King’s spirituality.

“Many people see his public persona, but they miss his intelligence,” McGilloway added.

King and Gandhi never met, of course, the latter having been assassinated in 1949. McGilloway added Gandhi was not a yoga practitioner as many might assume. He did practice meditation, however, and clearly was dedicated to the idea of ahimsa, or total non-violence. According to McGilloway, inner peace and harmony with life also were key to Gandhi’s teachings and his approach to living.

“Their struggles (King and Gandhi’s) were as much as inner as outer and thus, we can learn from their examples,” McGilloway said.

For more information, visit www.AnandaSeattle.org or call (425) 806-3700.