Actress Jennifer Aniston has turned to the teachings of the Indian spiritual leader Gandhi, to help her get over the divorce from her ex-husband, actor Brad Pitt.

Aniston, 36, received a book from a close friend, containing the father of the Indian independence movement's words of wisdom and sources claim the actress, inspired by it, is trying to change her lifestyle.

An insider revealed to Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper: "Because of this book, she is re-evaluating her life. Brad and Jen were always into Buddhism, but she's undergone a major life-change so she's got the chance to experiment."

The actress is so committed to Gandhi that she's been spotted wearing a pair of trousers saying: "I have nothing new to teach the world, truth and non-violence are as old as the hills."

She even has a t-shirt with the slogan: "Defeat cannot dishearten me. It can only chasten me. I know that God will guide me. Truth is superior to man's wisdom."

Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869, to Hindu parents, in the state of Gujarat in Western India. He entered an arranged marriage with Kasturbai Makanji when both were 13 years old. His family later sent him to London to study law, and in 1891 he was admitted to the Inner Temple, and called to the bar.

In Southern Africa, he worked ceaselessly to improve the rights of the immigrant Indians. It was there that he developed his creed of passive resistance against injustice, satyagraha, meaning truth force, and was frequently jailed as a result of the protests that he led.

Before he returned to India with his wife and children in 1915, he had radically changed the lives of Indians living in Southern Africa.

Back in India, it was not long before he was taking the lead in the long struggle for independence from Britain. He never wavered in his unshakable belief in nonviolent protest and religious tolerance.

When Muslim and Hindu compatriots committed acts of violence, whether against the British who ruled India, or against each other, he fasted until the fighting ceased. Independence, when it came in 1947, was not a military victory, but a triumph of human will. To Gandhi's despair, however, the country was partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.

In January 1948, at the age of 79, he was killed by an assassin as he walked through a crowed garden in New Delhi to take evening prayers.