[continued from previous message]   
      
   Before we can bring real unity into this world, four basic problems must be   
   solved. First, the minimum essentialities of life must be made available to   
   everyone. Second, a common penal code must be adopted for the world – one   
   which prohibits such    
   excesses as capital punishment, or the arbitrary detention and harassment of   
   innocent people. Third, a similar constitutional structure must serve the   
   governments of all the nations of the world, and here one language must be   
   adopted as a lingua franca    
   to facilitate better communications. [424] Fourth, and most important, a   
   common philosophy of life must be accepted and followed by all the peoples of   
   the world. [425] Such a philosophy must be free from all fissiparous   
   tendencies and sentiment-provoking    
   propaganda, such as one finds associated with each of the world's major   
   religions and each of the world's quasi-religions, i.e. capitalism and   
   communism, fascism and national socialism, nationalism and internationalism,   
   racism and even ordinary humanism.    
   The world needs a new philosophy of life – a new humanism – which can unite   
   and perpetually inspire the whole human race, a Neo-Humanism founded on the   
   universal principles of pure love and rationality.   
      
   In every sphere of life there is movement, and that movement flows quite   
   naturally from imperfection toward perfection. Thus the goal of life is   
   perfect spirituality, and the primary human requirement is a path or approach   
   to that perfect spirituality.    
   The defective and self-contradictory models for ideal human existence   
   presented by Judaism and Christianity can never be admitted as the paradigm of   
   perfect spirituality. We must label these religions more correctly as   
   pseudo-spirituality – that is to    
   say, they both have something to do with spirituality; but, because they are   
   amalgamated with so many dogmas, they are not at all the pure substance.   
      
   Human civilization now faces the final moment of a critical historical   
   juncture. On one side is the worn-out skeleton of the past and on the other   
   side is the dawn of a glorious new era. Today the people of the world must   
   make their choice – not between    
   capitalism and communism, nor even between Catholicism and Protestantism or   
   Christianity and Judaism, but rather between pseudo-spirituality and perfect   
   spirituality. On this choice alone rests the entire future of humanity.   
      
      
      
   11         Dogma Versus Dharma   
   The attainment of the abiding continuance in bliss or the endeavor to attain   
   it through constant cogitation   
      
   in the subtler stratum of one's own characteristic state is dharma. This state   
   of blissfulness is the Brahma of   
      
   the wise people – the devotees' very soul.   
      
   Shrii Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar   
      
   The Human Society Part 1   
      
      
      
   A few years ago, while traveling in Morocco, I met a Buddhist monk from Japan.   
   He told me that he had marched all over the world to oppose nuclear   
   technology, particularly nuclear weapons. I asked him why he worried so much   
   about the development of    
   science when the real problem is not so much the nuclear power plants and   
   nuclear weapons, but rather those persons who control them. He replied that he   
   never gets involved in politics.   
      
   The following day we were walking together on the streets of Tangier when we   
   passed a pathetic-looking beggar. I stopped and gave the old man a loaf of   
   bread. The Buddhist monk scowled and said, “I never feed beggars because that   
   only encourages the    
   problem.” Not wishing to remind him that a Buddhist monk is, by definition,   
   almost a beggar, I replied simply that in today's world, approximately one   
   million people die from starvation every month. On the other hand, there may   
   be at most two or three    
   deaths in a year which might be related to nuclear development, and in almost   
   forty years (following World War II) not even one death which may be directly   
   attributed to the use of nuclear weapons. He said, “You have your way, and I   
   have mine.”   
      
   At the Crossroads   
   Once there was a tiny village. To the people living there, that village may   
   have been rich or poor, right or wrong, but still it was the greatest and most   
   important village in the whole world. In the center of that village stood a   
   temple, the tallest and    
   most beautiful building of that burg. All the village people, or at least most   
   of them used to visit that temple to learn the lessons of virtue and vice from   
   the temple's custodian. Quite naturally, the first principle of right conduct   
   was to take good    
   care of the holy man and his family.   
      
   Now this priest had a son. When that son reached the first days of his   
   manhood, he decided to abandon the easy life which he had enjoyed, in order to   
   seek his own fortune – and the Truth – in the great unknown outside the   
   village gates. So, taking a    
   young donkey as his mount, he bade a fond farewell to family and friends, and   
   rode off in search of that fortune and truth.   
      
   Years passed, and ever that youth journeyed hither and thither, over mountain   
   and through valley, but somehow he never could find that truth – or fortune –   
   for which his heart yearned. One day, as he rested at a crossroads, pondering   
   the direction he    
   should take, his donkey just fell down, and died. For quite a while, that   
   donkey had been his one and only trusty companion, so the young man felt it   
   his duty to give the creature a proper burial. Thereafter, he sat by the   
   grave, mourning the loss of his    
   friend and, even more, mourning his own hapless condition.   
      
   Day after day he remained there, weeping beside the grave of his donkey. Then,   
   one fine morning a caravan was passing by that crossroads. The simple people   
   of the caravan thought that surely a very great saint had died, and recently   
   been buried there.    
   They could imagine no other justification for the young man's tears and his   
   distracted condition. Hence, they stopped their journey, and decided to erect   
   an altar over the donkey's grave, and a small temple around that altar. After   
   completing this work,    
   they endowed the young man with a regular allowance, and charged him with the   
   duty of custodian for their newly constructed temple. The people of that   
   caravan felt that they had performed a great religious work and had, thereby,   
   acquired much merit in    
   the kingdom of heaven. Some of them even felt so inspired that they decided to   
   settle down at that crossroads, where they could look after the further   
   expansion of their temple, and perhaps do a little business on the side. Soon   
   a small thriving    
   community was established; and, right in the middle of that community, there   
   was the temple overseen by that young man, himself the son of another temple   
   custodian.   
      
   As things turned out, this new village was not very far from the one at which   
   the young man's father presided. And it was only natural that one day the   
   father made a pilgrimage to this new religious site, where already many   
   miracles were said to have    
   occurred. Thus, after many long years of separation, father and son were   
   reunited. Their tears of happiness flowed together like two great streams   
   merging into one gigantic river.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)