The enduring legacy of the 20th century is that it has compelled the people of the world to begin seeing themselves as members of one human family and of the Earth as its common homeland. There is no point in continuing with the past which has betrayed us, for doing so will be suicidal.
Historian Arnold Toynbee remarks, “……..The question of mankind’s future religion arises because all the current religions have proved unsatisfactory…A future religion that is to bring into being, and to keep in being, a new civilisation will have to be one that will enable mankind to contend with, and to overcome the evils that are serious threats to human survival.
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Among the most formidable of these evils are the oldest: greed, which is as old as life itself, and war and social injustice, which are as old as civilisation. A new evil that is hardly less formidable is the artificial environment that mankind has created through application of science and technology in the service of greed”.
Echoing similar views Daisaku Ikeda, the Japanese philosopher said: “….The religion that we need must inspire mankind’s scientific and philosophical spirits and must be able to meet the needs of a new age. It must be a religion that can go beyond the differences between East and West and, binding all mankind into a unified body, save the Occident from its present crisis and the Orient from its current hardships. Discovering this kind of religion is the greatest task before mankind today”.
Recognition of the fundamental spiritual principle of our age, the oneness of humanity, must be at the heart of any new civilisation. Universal acceptance of this principle will both necessitate and make possible major restructuring of the world’s educational, social, agricultural, industrial, economic, legal and political systems.
The new humanity will not be a society in the old sense, where individuals are only parts of it. It will be a meeting of individuals, where individuals are the masters and society is to serve them.
The new age humanity will have an ecology in which nature is not to be conquered, but lived and loved. We are part of it – how can we conquer it? It will not have any race, nation, state, colour or caste. It will have only a functional world government that will not be chosen by mediocre voters because they necessarily chose people of their own category.
Unless everyone is well-educated, he will not be allowed to vote. There will be no party system because people will vote directly for individuals. The government, unlike now, won’t have any power; it will be simply functional. It will serve society in the real sense, not just in words.
Life has so many dimensions, but politics has today dominated them all. Looking at a newspaper, someone on another planet would find it difficult to conceive what kind of people live on earth.
Enlightened leaders should strive to not let crises cast doubt on the ultimate outcome of the process that is occurring. The way to go is to nurture faith and resolve, so that we can overcome all the hardships and anxieties that are bound to arise during any period of a great change.
