ALL NARROWNESS LIMITS LOVE

True love is no game for the faint-hearted and the weak.
It is born of strength and understanding.

In its enthusiasm for the highest ideal, wise leadership can never afford to lose sight of the relative and practical. Human evolution proceeds by gradual stages from selfish violence to unselfish violence, and then from non-violence of the brave to the pure and incorruptible non-violence of truth as infinite love. Each individual exists at some point in this succession, and his duty in time of war is indelibly determined by that position.

All narrowness limits love. In the East, as in the rest of the world, humanity is breaking itself into narrow groups based upon caste, creed, race, nationality, religion or culture. All this is due to ignorance, prejudice and selfishness. It can only be mended by fostering a spirit of mutuality which will derive its strength from a sense of the inviolable unity of all life.

Creative leadership will have to recognize and then emphasize the fact that all men are already united, not only by their co-partnership in the great divine plan for the earth, but also by the fact that they are all equally the expression of the one life. No line of action can be really fruitful unless it is in complete harmony with this truth.

There must be love for friend and foe, good will, patience and forbearance. Man must try to remedy his own defects instead of clamoring about the faults of others. The world will soon realize that neither cults, creeds and ceremonies on the one hand, nor passionate striving for material welfare on the other, can ever bring about real happiness — but that selfless love and universal brotherhood can accomplish it.

The future of humanity is in the hands of those who have this vision, and the role of the East in that future will be an irreplaceable one if it knits its spiritual and human resources together into a creative synthesis of its ancient heritage.