It is perhaps wise for us to consider
that the cause of most of our problems
can be traced back to the outstanding human weakness,
the great sin of separateness.
There is surely no greater sin than this;
it is responsible for the entire range of human evil.
It sets an individual against his brother;
it makes him consider his selfish, personal interests
as of paramount importance;
it leads inevitably to crime and cruelty;
it constitutes the greatest hindrance to happiness in the world,
for it sets man against man, group against group,
class against class and nation against nation.
It engenders a destructive sense of superiority and leads
to the pernicious doctrine of superior and inferior nations and races;
it produces economic selfishness
and leads to the economic exploitation of human beings,
to trade barriers, to the condition of have and have not,
to territorial possessiveness and to the extremes of poverty and riches;
it sets an important emphasis upon material acquisitiveness, upon boundaries,
and the dangerous doctrine of national sovereignty
and its various selfish implications;
it breeds distrust between peoples and hatred throughout the entire world
and has led since time began to cruel and destructive wars.
It has today brought the entire planetary population
to its present dire and dreadful condition
so that men everywhere are beginning to realize
that unless something is fundamentally changed,
mankind is practically already destroyed.
But who will engineer the needed change
and where is the leadership which will bring it about?
It is a state of affairs which mankind itself must face as a whole;
and by meeting and facing this basic expression of universal wrongdoing,
humanity can bring about the needed change
and is offered a new opportunity for right action,
leading to right human relations.
We need to realise the essential truth
that Humanity is One at heart;
that we come from the same source
and are treading the same evolutionary goal,
whether we realise it or not.
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