..續本文上一頁 education developed and we got civilization. The [human] mind became more sophisticated and so greed increased. That brought jealousy and hatred and, over time, they grew stronger.

　　Today, in the twenty-first century, so many changes have occurred [in human society]. Differences among us have developed – differences in] education, jobs, and social backgrounds. But even differences in age and race – all of these are secondary. On a fundamental level, we are all still human beings and we are all the same. This is the level of several hundred thousand years ago.

　　The attitude of young children is like that. They don”t care about the social background, religion, race, color, or wealth of the other children. They all play together; they are genuine playmates, so long as they are friendly with each other. Now we grown-ups supposedly are more intelligent and more highly developed, but we judge the social background of others. We calculate, “ If I smile, will I get what I want; if I frown, will I lose something

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　　Universal Responsibility

　　The sense of universal or global responsibility functions on a human level. We”re concerned about other humans because: “I am one of them; my welfare depends on them no matter what the differences are.” Differences are always there; but this can be helpful.

　　For several centuries, the population was only one billion people on this planet; now there are over six billion. Already, because of overpopulation, one country can”t provide all the food and resources for its own population. So we have global economy. Therefore, according to today”s reality, the world is much smaller and is heavily interdependent. This is reality. On top of that, there is the ecological issue: global warming. This is a concern for all six billion inhabitants of this planet, not just for one or two nations. The new reality needs a sense of global responsibility.

　　For example, in older times, the British here thought only of themselves and sometimes exploited other areas of the globe. They didn”t care about the concerns or feelings of these other people. OK, that”s past. But now things are different; things have changed. Now we must take care of other countries.

　　Actually, the British imperialists did some good things, in fact. They brought good education in the English language to India. India has much to acknowledge from this. Also Britain brought technology, the railroad system. That is one of your redeeming qualities. When I came to India, some Gandhians were still alive and they advised me on Gandhian nonviolent methods. At that time, I had felt that the British imperialists had been very bad. But then I saw that there was an independent India judiciary, free press, freedom of speech, and the likes. So, when I reflected more deeply, I saw that these things were very good.

　　Today, nation to nation and continent to continent, there is heavy interdependence. According to this reality, we really need global responsibility. Your own interests depend on the development and interests of others. So for your own interest, you have to take care of others. In the economic field, this is already there. Even if there are different ideologies and even if we don”t trust each other, we have to interact in our global interdependent economy. Therefore, global responsibility on the basis of respect of others” interest is very important.

　　We need to consider others as brothers and sisters and have a close feeling. This is nothing to do with religion. We really need this. The very concept of “us and them” – on a certain level, of course we can say that – but the whole world needs to consider itself as part of “us.” Our neighbors” interest is our own interest.

　　Contentment

　　Leading an ethical life as an inpidual, then, means not to harm others,…

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