A Guru's View of World Government (Cont.)

(With world government being such a controversial subject these days, given the United Nations' abject failure to address humanity's problems, World Citizen News completes the serial reprinting of Guru Nataraja's 1956 Memorandum on World Government, which treats the subject holistically or, as he wrote, "geo-dialectically." Viewed within the context of the guru's wisdom-though he passed away in 1973 and despite his gender-exclusionary language-readers can enjoy a fresh and timely perspective on an engrossing subject.)

SECTION VI

CONCLUSION

1. Unitive approach

When it is said that wars begin in the minds of men, it is already conversely admitted by even full-fledged politicians that the solution to world problems are of a spiritual order. The doctrine of dialectical materialism, which puts necessity and hunger first, follows another line of approach. Both these approaches can be reconciled in a unitive approach to world problems as implied in the present memorandum.

Let us consider the armaments race which is due to mistrust and fear of other nations. A serious proposal from the World Government is sure to have an almost magical effect in easing the tension of mistrust between nations. The dehypnotization of the mentality of mutual suspicion will save every nation, large or small, from the lop-sided provisions at present made in their budgets. Let world opinion merely support the idea of the World Government and a tangible relaxation will be felt at the poles in the personality of nations which breeds mistrust, and even theoretically respected authority can avoid the waste of billions of dollars for the world as a whole.

2. Various incidental items

Let the World Government honor the farmer instead of vexing him with ever more items of taxation; let it start co-operative colonies to ease the tension of competitive life, such as those known as the Kibbutz now working successfully in Israel, where there is no money exchanged at all; let it start fair-price shops taking a percentage in the place of a tax and so effectively eliminate the middleman, the black-marketer and those who corner the necessities of life and make great and disproportionate profit at the expense of the common man; let it create clubs or pensions for persons obliged to pass their lives in eternal boredom, by means of colonies which will give them a natural outlet for expression and opportunity for light occupation without competition for the young, the old and the weak; let it confer titles or honors on people who render signal service to the needy and thus give them a legitimately deserved chance to shine in the eyes of their fellow men. Such are some of the miscellaneous ways-too numerous to list completely-by which the World Government can justify its existence while it gathers momentum to be finally effective.

3. Decentralization and the canceling out of problems

Another method full of possibilities for the World Government, is decentralization and the method of the cancellation of the plus and minus of a given situation. For instance, capital is the cause of the sufferings of labor. Large mills are responsible for slums. Promiscuous religious charity is responsible for begging. These pairs that are interdependent could be canceled out one against the other without punishment or reform coming from the center. The head and the tail aspects can be canceled out dialectically without central interference. The World Government can help in the ordering of such matters, taking into consideration the counterparts involved in each problem.

4. New states

There are many new states which require a new and fresh constitution. They could be guided by the World Government so that their new constitution would be framed in the spirit of World Government itself. This would save their disruption when world-mindedness in politics becomes a fully accomplished fact.

5. Need for sacrifice on the part of World Government sponsors

The sponsors of World Government have ever to keep before their minds that only through sacrifice and renunciation can such a noble idea be ushered into being. Human unity is an idea which is valid in theory at present. For people to adhere to the idea earnestly, they have to be sure that those who stand for it are not themselves lovers of power or grabbers of goods with unholy greed. Such a detachment should not be merely superficial, taking only the outward form of abstinence or even austerity. Happiness in the contemplation of the Self in its Absolute sense alone brings that blissful self-sufficiency which belongs to one who is able to be an exemplar of Wisdom. This contented state of happiness is induced by knowledge of the Science of the Absolute. A human being attains to his full stature as man when he is happy with himself, and thus in himself represents this high human Value. Such an ideal is within the reach of every human being without distinction of race, religion, nationality, sex, or even station in life. The humblest can walk in the way of the Absolute. Even a bad man who has taken the decision to regulate his life with reference to this final Absolute Norm of human life becomes by that mere decision equal in spiritual status to the greatest of wise men.

Thus having referred finally to the fountain-source of Wisdom from which one has to drink if one is to become a World Citizen in the fullest sense of the term, we hereby commend this memorandum with all its imperfection to the attention of those spirits who are favorable disposed to examine it with sympathy and earnest understanding. Let those who are not of this category at least spare the sponsors of the memorandum from their disadoption of it and consequent disparagement of its contents. Such is the prayer with which this document goes out to lovers of Wisdom and of humanity.

Table of Contents