If We Are to Survive This Dark Time— [1950]

The Russian Government has a different conception of the ends of life. The individual is thought to be of no importance; he is expendable. While Russia underestimates the individual, there are those in the West who unduly magnify the separateness of separate persons. No man’s ego should be enclosed in granite walls: its boundaries should be translucent. In former days, most children died in infancy, mortality in adult life was very high, and in every country the great majority of the population endured abject poverty. Now certain nations have succeeded in preserving the lives of the overwhelming majority of infants, in enormously lowering the adult death-rate, and in nearly eliminating abject poverty. The East reveres Buddha, the West reveres Christ. Both taught love as the secret of wisdom.