WORLD GOVERNMENT AND PEACE

From: The Supreme Justification of Life. Maitreyanam. Koot Hoomi Lal Singh (Pr. OM Cherenzi Lind). Yearly World Spiritual Message, published originally by the Aghartha, 1948.
Appendix III (Part 2) of the book.

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KH 1199

New York the 12^th of August 1947

To the attention of Conventionists of the
UNITED WORLD FEDERALISTS,
At Montreux, Switzerland

Dear Mr. Chairman and Fellow Companions

I intended being at the Convention personally, butt unfortunately my work does not permit me at this time to take such a vacation to Europe, and due to the impossibility of being with you on such a momentous occasion, I want to let my voice be heard, because I deem your program an ambitious one, and being as I am in love with some of your most cherished ideals I want to dwell upon them to some extent so that my considerations may be taken into account when you decide to reach decisions or to engender some sort of action.

The profession of thinking is nowadays a somewhat dangerous profession. Most countries, even in those who praise themselves for being Liberal, Democratic and advanced, regard with suspicion those whom they deem too exalted, or even too advanced and outspoken. However, we must think if we want to free ourselves of bondages, whether these are economic, social, religious, or only of an ideological character. To think is to prepare the ground for evolution. Thinking is always creative, provided it is wholesome and constructive. This is precisely what most nations fear, when we begin to think about World Government, or in terms of Universality. To them, even Humanism in its wider sense is construed as dangerous thinking.

I have followed very closely your thought and projections, and I must admit I sympathize verily with your World Government ideals. However, I cannot say that I sympathize with your methods and plans. You seem to believe that Nations will readily surrender their sovereignty in favor of a Super Government, or World Federation. This is obviously not consonant with world events and thinking trends in official circles. Personally, I believe that Nations must be respected insofar as they stand for the People´s will and designs. What is fundamentally wrong and despicable about “nationalism” is its ruthlessness and extreme exaltation, which rests on human instincts and passions, oblivious of humanistic principles, and Moral or Spiritual Values. Nevertheless, these tremendous ills belong to our time, and they are remnants of primitive tribal times, which have not as yet been transcended by the domesticated yet unwholesomely civilized man. If we want to correct such errors, or remedy such ills, we must go to the root of the wrongs and ills. Nationalism is but an exterior form of individual problems, and individuals to form and integrate collectivities or nations.

There is a great malaise everywhere, even within the most conservative forms of a Nation, such as in Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia and North America, and many among the ablest thinkers already contemplate a world devoid of restricted or superlative nationalism. In countries like Germany, Japan and Austria, the concept of nationalism hardly means or stands for anything, and this is not due to the fact that they suffered so much through the war, but simply because they realize that the historical moment is suitable only for a wider form of thinking, which brings human beings more closely together. This is a form of belief that is very evident throughout Asia, and it sweeps the whole surface of the earth like a redemptory promise of true Democracy for future generations.

We have been upholding this ideal of UNITED WORLD, or UNITED HUMANITY for the past 35 years. We have advocated the need of some form of WORLD GOVERNMENT as the only wise form of society for Humanity at large, which should not be divided and set up against it as it is with the nationalistic schemes. We are not novices in this field. However, we believe that is sheer-wishful thinking to expect nations to give up their sovereignty. This, we have seen to be impossible at each attempt of World League of Nations ever since the time of Henry the IV and Cromwell. The present INO set-up is already following the foot-steps of its disreputable predecessor, the Geneva League, and so long as nations will refuse to have their sovereignty interfered with, no UNO will ever succeed in developing a form of Moral and Sane World Government. Even such small nations as Yugoslavia, Albania and Holland refuse the UNO any right to intervene in what they deem their own internal affairs, no matter how human rights and Spiritual Values may be affected by their crude and obnoxious decisions.

Why, then lose our precious time dreaming about World Government, unless it be by actually starting one on a purely Moral and Spiritual basis, as the UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL UNION has? We know Humankind must be United. But unless we begin by making individuals of all nations “Unity conscious”, peace-minded, and Spiritually inclined, we will never succeed in even making the firs base toward a wholesome form of World Federation and Supernational Government. Where there is no Moral and Spiritual Values, it is ludicrous to believe in humanitarian designs, or in the eradication of this tribal mechanism of nations, founded on primitive instincts and taboos.

I would like very much knowing what Sir John Boyd Orr would have to say to this. As for the title of the lecture on “World Federal Government and Russia” which was included in your program, I must state right off that Russia is certainly in love with ideal of World Federal Government, provided the Federation and the Government are in her own hands. Communists are lopsided in their thinking, and they consider as proper and fitting only what spells proletariat, or anti-capitalism. The derisory is that all social problems should be reduced to sheer ideological postulates, which have not solved any great problem since Karl Marx. If the world is becoming everyday more complex, it is precisely because ideological groups refuse to see clear through their own dogmatic windows, preferring to blind themselves by their own partisan or class passions. In ultimate analysis, the problems of man are not precisely economic, but social, and society rests on cultural accomplishments and Spiritual values much more than on “proletariat” and “capitalistic” designs or schemes. Economics is secondary, though vital I be. Those who would contest this principle may well see what happens to workers who work only 44 hours per week. Instead of being economically boyant, they are vice-ridden, less disposed to work, and not more cultured because of this fact. The same applies to workers who are highly paid in some countries. Salaries are always absorbed by high rents, high cost of living, or vices. Better Morals and sound Spiritual Values would remedy these conditions even if the economic standards were not better than those which people are wont to vaunt in the paradises of Democracy, namely, Russia and North America.

Title of Lecture “World Federal Government and the UNO” is rather enticing. However, this is an ironical proposition. The UNO is decidedly not a “Federation” although it certainly is a coalition of “Government”. Its function is rather dubious. In principle it stands for Democracy, yet in terms of historical realities it is purely perfunctory and symbolical since each Member does as he very well pleases. No nation is willing to submit to the consensus of others. As soon as this becomes a possibility, the affected nation denies the UNO the right to interfere in her internal affairs. Obviously, there does not exist as yet a real Moral standard for nations, since they behave like monsters, morons and rogues whenever they choose, doing what even the common civil laws condemn in the most rudimentary nations. In such an atmosphere of delusory morals, what kind of a moral strength can there be in the UNO, and how could it ever graduate for World Federal Government? In reality, the UNO is, presently, the antithesis of W.F.G.

Your program further states that the Convention will proceed to make a choice of a Flag, an Insigne, a Slogan, a Hymn, etc. . . . All this has been achieved long ago. The Universal Spiritual Union has gone through this over three decades ago. Why not join what is in good standing, and continue the task of able leaders, sustaining the good that has been achieved. If each new Group proceeds to create its own Flag, Insigne, Slogan and Hymn, the world will continue to be a confounded babel, and none the better in Morals or in Spiritual Values. Obviously, some UNIFICATION is to be achieved in this world, and we should begin by doing it ourselves! Self-assertiveness is but a form of selfishness and nothing divides and sets-up against each other like selfishness.

Of course, people can very well continue to be French, English, American, Russian, Chinese, Arab, Japanese, Catholic, Jew, Sikh, Buddhist, Brahman or whatever denomination they prefer to live by, yet be GOOD, UNITED HUMAN BEINGS. The fact that they can kill, expoliate and insult in the name of their brand of race, religious creed or nationalism is not evidence of Moral grandeur or of Spiritual dignity. People must, first of all, be taught to think and behave as Good Humans. Afterwards, they can be whatever they choose in the variegated scale of racial, religious and political creeds.

Another point of importance in your program is the title of a lecture, “World Federal Government and a United Europe”. I do not profess to be wholly aware of political trends in Europe. But of one thing I am cognizant and certain, and this is that if Europe cannot Unite, if Latin America cannot Unite, if all Asia cannot Unite, as far as Nations or Governments are concerned, what is there left for World Federal Government? Again I dare venture the conviction that it is not the Nations or the Governments, which must be UNITED, but the people. If peoples were left to themselves, as it will eventually happen, unobstructed by the forceful measures of Governments, or national policies, traditions and designs, there would never be any war, frontiers would be obsolete and supercilious, and humanity at large would be less bent on ignominy and barbarianism. Ere we speak in terms of World Federal Government, let us train people in self-confidence and mutual trust. Nationalism is all right for police and economic purposes, but not in the more vital aspects of sociology. Once nationalism becomes and encirclement, or a prison for citizens, it defeats all its moral designs and Spiritual principles. In fact, nationalism is anti-democratic, since it divides and antagonizes peoples among themselves. Some people are economically buoyant and powerful, yet. Speaking in social terms, they are not free, not free any more than the cattle which are branded and used by the States without due respect to individual rights.

Obviously, society has still a long way to go before man can boast the Freedoms that he dreams about, such as those enunciated in the Atlantic Charter or promised in the San Francisco Carta Magna. Might it not be more fitting to say that even the simplest of Religious Credos would suffice if only it were really applied? People should be able to honor and cherish their race, religion, nation and clan without having to be barbarous about it all. Is not this the real clue to all historical realizations?

Needless to say, I am ready to applaud your decisions. The absolute right to think and believe must be guaranteed everyone as the basic mainstay of democracy. I lament indeed being unable to be with you all. Some day. We will coincide in thinking and in achieving the nobler ideals of man. May this be soon.

I wish to remain Yours in Cosmic Harmony

MAHA CHOHAN

Principal of the UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL UNION
             P.O. BOX 494, Los Angeles (53) California, U.S.A.

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P.D. – What the world needs foremost is GOOD CITIZENS, people with enlarged civic consciousness, no matter to which nationality they may adhere. After all, “nationalism” is itself but an enlarged sense of the Free city States. Clans and Tribes of the remote past. I find a sort of subversion in antagonizing the “nationality concept openly as though it were an ignominious fortress. This is the current concept of Communists, but we must admit that they are rather antisocial characters and lopsided thinkers. The wrong of Nationalism lies exclusively in its extremes, ruthlessness and aggressiveness. But the same can be said of almost everything on this earth.

The concept-consciousness of World Federated Government is no doubt a good one. The only weak, or should we say inoperative point in this idea is that humanity has emerged from this last war with a sort of rabid and unconciliable super nationalism, against all expectations and Idealistic promises. Those of us who took to the letter the Atlantic Charter and all the pronouncement of the politicos who used their position to appear as world saviors are now sadly disillusioned, because we discover that civilization is drifting toward worse immoral schemes. The concept of Government is now everywhere more in the kind and ware of totalitarianism, and nationalism has become a synonym for regional or geopolitical absolutism, despite all the beautiful rhetoric about Democracy, Christianism and the Divine Rights of the People. Present-day developments confront us with facts that seriously lead us to believe that humanity is embarked on a full-scale retrogression toward barbarianism and prehistorical tribalism.

I am sending you my book THE COSMIC ORACLE, where you will find all your ideas duly treated. It deals with possibilities and potentialities of man, and in its greater part it is only a blueprint of the future civilization, a New Age which is still in the ushering-in stage. But at least it presents a sound basis for a great accomplishment, and what little of it is already accomplished proves to us that this is no time to juggle with principles and dream of beautiful ideals, but, rather, to made them feasible. The North American, French, and Swiss nations give us a pretty good idea of what Federalism can do, in limited scales. Now, if we could enlarge any of these Federations we would have a sound basis for World Federation and World Super government. But will the French and the Swiss consent to being Americans, or vice versa? Will the people of other smaller nations willingly adhere to the American, French or Swiss way of living? The problem in hand here is to let all people belong to the nation of their choice, just as well as they should not be interfered with in their racial characteristics, religious propensities and political fancies and hopes. If we make GOOD HUMAN beings, there are countless olds to prove that nationalism will recede in its exclusive character, and Citizens will promptly realize that after all we all were human-beings before we ever belonged to any political creed, religious faith or national conglomerate.

In the natural course of evolution people will sooner or later discover that NATIONALISM is but an enlarged sense of the Tribe of prehistoric times with all its taboos, totems, and crudities. Nationalism is also a sense of social and economic security, and each nation procures to afford this sense of security to its Citizens. Patriotism and chauvinism develops precisely on the sentimental assumption that the nation is a Divine Right of man because it ensures his rights to live against the aggressive forays of others nations or great tribes. However, even at this moment of much boasted progress, it is an assertion of cruel irony to affirm that people are economically and socially free and protected within the pattern of any given form of Government, since Citizens are left very well on their own; except in what they are subject to in forms of regimentation. Democracy as we know it nowadays is no exception. Is it any wonder, then is so many people find their sentimental capacity exhausted, and emerge into a field of thinking which tends permanently to free them from limited forms of belief? But it is only the better Citizens who happen to succeed in this venture, emerging as we know as gallant and vigorous Citizens of the World.

The problem of World Federation is, therefore, a problem of individuals, not of nations. Nations crease to be obnoxious aggressive, or ruthless, when their best Citizens, thinking and behaving on a World scale, imbued with Universal principles instead of selfish regional schemes and limitations, will enlarge the horizons of nationalism to the point of exploding its sentimental fetters and conventional traditions. When human beings will be capable of thinking and feeling and behaving in terms of One Humanity, the concept of nationalism will have become obsolete, transcended. In fact, there is only one Humanity, and there is no valid reason why we should not all be a happy family, faring wholesomely and in complete abidance of Peace. We oppose each other because we are separated, and what separates us the most is our own mental make-up. We are as we think. Nationalism is somewhat an evil only when it becomes exclusive and aggressive, because it is a form of super-relative selfishness.

There is such a thing as being peaceful and non-aggressive, or progressive nationalism, as we beckon in the Tibet, in the Scandinavian countries, in Switzerland and in San Marino. There, each Citizen feels safe and respected, hardly conscious of nationalism, because they have managed to map a way of living peacefully and minding their own business, looking upon the rest of the world as a great family which refuses to live tougher, in mutual safeguard and respect. That is most unfortunate for the world, and no World Federation or Super national Government could ever remedy such a maremagnum of selfishness, vanity and ominous scheming.