The welfare of all · 2 of 10
One human family
Human society is one and indivisible. The divisions are made by people, and those who gain from them keep them alive; the remedy is to end exploitation and build on universal fraternity.
On each page the marked passages are the words of Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti, from the books, as they are printed. The lines between them are ours and only lead from one passage to the next.
One Father, one family
The argument starts from a common origin.
The starting point of the origin of human beings and the culminating point of their movement is the same. It is the natural law for any entity to originate from the same source and to merge in the same source. The fundamental stuff of all the humans of this world is the Macrocosmic Consciousness. All are the children of the Supreme Immortality (Amrtasya Puttŕah). Fundamentally all human beings are equal. Therefore there should not be any discrimination.
Does a child know that it belongs to a particular country? Does a child know that it is white or it is black or it is yellow? Does it know – a child, a little one? It does not. We senior people inject so many isms into their minds. We say, “You belong to the upper class;” we say, “You belong to the lower caste.” We say, “You are a Jew,” “You are a Muslim,” and so many things. We, the senior people, are responsible for all these differences in human society. But human society is one. And who are the people at fault? The senior persons, the respectable persons.
Race and color
Is any race superior to another?
Human society comprises these various branches of various races. There is no reason whatever to recognize one race as superior to another race. The external differences in constitution among these human groups cannot alter their basic human traits – love and affection, pleasure and pain, hunger and thirst. These basic biological instincts and mental propensities equally predominate in human beings of all complexions in all countries and in all ages. A mere rustic, unlettered, half-naked tribal mother of an unknown hamlet of Chotanagpur Hills (in Bihar in India) bears deep maternal affection for her young children; in the same way, a well-educated mother of a locality of New York pours out of her heart a great love for her own children. The subterranean flow of love and affection exists in all hearts alike.
Only recently Hitler fed the German nation on the spurious notions of Aryan supremacy and incited the vain and arrogant Nazis to fight a horrible war. He raised his arrogant slogan – “The Aryans are not to be ruled but to rule”. But is this chauvinistic and blind concept of Aryan supremacy supported by the science of ethnology? No, this science holds that the modern Germans are not a homogeneous race. They are a mixed race. Thus, if analysed, it will be found that none of the existing human races are free from admixture of the blood of other races. Therefore the talk of “purity of blood” of a race is meaningless, for there cannot be any purity of blood of a particular race. Rather, blood is always pure.
Caste and religion
The first passage takes a rule of the caste system itself, that children inherit the caste of the father, and turns it around.
In the second, “religion” means doctrine held by fear and without logic; the discourse sets it apart from spirituality.
When all are children of the Supreme Father, all are progeny of the Supreme Entity, children of the same Father, can they belong to more than one caste? If the father is a Brahman, his children will certainly be Brahmans. Children inherit the caste of the father. When the Supreme Father for the world is one, can there be more than one caste in human society? You say – I just ask you. No, there cannot be more than one caste. No Brahman and no Shúdra, all one. When they have got the same father, the same progenitor, then they must belong to the same caste. So my decision is final and supreme. Human society is a singular entity; human society is one and indivisible.
Religions create undue fear complex in the human mind. Utilizing the lure of heaven and the dread of hell they destroy nationality and humanity. Motivated by their own petty interests they create artificial divisions in the human society. Should intelligent people be bound by the serpentine nooses of such religions? No, they should not; they must not. If at all people allow themselves to be bound by nooses, it should be understood that they are intellectually bankrupt. In all countries of the world such people form separate communities. Perhaps religion has done the most damage to humanity. After all, it is in the name of religion that most human conflicts have occurred. Now the time has come to put an end to the conflict over religion forever.
Nation and language
How much is a nationality worth as a line between people?
One day, Jessore and Bongaon were in one country [India]. Suddenly, a few people arbitrarily decided to put these two towns in two separate countries. Illiterate people living in Jessore heard one fine morning that they were Pakistanis, while the people of Bongaon, equally ignorant, suddenly, as they cultivated their fields, heard that they were citizens of India. This decision was enforced from the top without the prior knowledge of those at the bottom. Common people could not know anything about the crime which forced them to desert their ancestral homes forever as helpless refugees. They were unable to identify those who made them refugees. What is the value of nationality when it changes overnight? Is it ever feasible to draw a line of demarcation between one human and another on the basis of such superficial considerations? Or is it wise? Such distinctions, imposed as they are from above, are mere figments of some people’s imagination.
The human race has numerous languages. Each language is our language, the language of all of us. In this context sentiments such as, “My language; your language” or, “Indigenous language; foreign language” are extremely defective. Only this much can be said: that we have many languages, but I can express myself in one or more than one language among them.
Who divides, and what really divides
If people are one, who keeps them apart, and for what?
Baser elements and vested interests that do not like to see a free and prosperous humanity, invent and advocate different kinds of “isms” to suck and exploit the ignorant masses under the guise of lifeless dogmas. In the name of “isms” they sow the seeds of dissension and fissiparous tendencies in the society to perpetuate their exploiting machinery. Human society is one and indivisible. There is no fundamental difference between one human being and another.
The exploited have the same value as the exploiters. The only line of demarcation between them is exploitation. If we remove exploitation from society there will be neither exploiters nor exploited. The fundamental disease is exploitation, and once it is removed, there will be no further demarcation on that basis. The opportunists who utilize a situation to create rifts in the society will not get any scope to do so when exploitation is removed. That is why intelligent humans keen to promote the well-being of humanity will try to eradicate exploitation from the human society. Consequently, the struggle between the exploiters and the exploited will come to an end. Human beings will realize the supreme truth that all of humanity is bound together by common ties of fraternity.
Universalism, and what it requires
Communalism here means group feeling based on religion. “Cosmic sentiment” is the feeling that all have come from one Entity and will return to it.
Hence it is observed that communalism, casteism, provincialism and nationalism are all of the same defective type. Those who are able to capitalize on one of these sentiments advocate it volubly. In fact, every one of these sentiments suffers from the defect of ism, and is completely filled with narrowness, violence, envy, mean mindedness, etc. Those who enter the field of social welfare by creating divisions between “yours” and “mine”, substantially widen the fissures of fissiparous intellect in human society. Those who want to promote the welfare of all human beings, remaining above all sorts of parochial sentiments, have no alternative but to embrace universalism with their heart and soul – there is no other way.
The inspiration of Cosmic sentiment will depend upon certain objective physical problems which must be solved on a collective humanitarian basis. In the relative objective sphere the following few fundamental problems must be attempted at [tackled] and solved. These are: Common philosophy of life Same constitutional structure Common penal code Availability (production, supply, purchasing capacity) of the minimum essentialities of life