Page 40 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

The Journey to Civilization

of ‘love all’. This is what provides the real intellectual basis for
social peace.

All those consumer goods that we obtain from shopping
centres today, all those facilities that make our life comfortable
at home and outside the home when travelling have not been
made by the present consumers. They have been developed
by humanity over a long period of time. We use them without
giving any thought to their origins. If we took all these things
as gifts to us from humanity, we would regard others as
benefactors rather than as rivals. All our negative thoughts
for others would then be eliminated. We would live with the
thrilling spirit of compassion for others. Thinking in this way
would certainly root out the negativism that develops the ‘we
and they’ concept, and sometimes flares up into violence.
A person who looks at things in this way will realize that
the whole of humanity has a role to play in his existence.
Till now he has been labouring under the illusion that, in his
life, only his family has made a contribution, but now he will
understand that humanity has played a much greater part in
his life. He will come to think that without the contribution of
humanity, he is nothing.
Each individual has strong affection for every member of
his family. But if he develops the above universal thinking, he
will feel strong affection for the whole of humanity. He will
discover that Christ’s saying ‘Love your enemy’ means ‘Love
all because all are your benefactors, there is no enemy.’

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