Glen T. Martin
Published in: Swami Vivewkananda: A Quest, Dr. Santi Nath Chattopadhyay, editor. Kolkata, India: Minerva Publications, 2015, pp. 515-535.
I wish to clarify at the outset that the following essay expresses my personal opinions only. It does not express any official views of the Earth Federation Movement, the Provisional World Parliament, or the World Constitution and Parliament Association. These movements include within their framework a great diversity of religious and cultural viewpoints, including those of my wonderful friends and colleagues around the world who follow Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Baha’i, Oomoto, Unitarian-Universalism, atheism, agnosticism, etc. The greatness and glory of the Earth Constitution is that it embraces such a great diversity of human views within the framework of profound democratic unity. In this essay, I have simply tried to express my personal appreciation of Vivekananda’s life and works in relation to the Earth Federation Movement as I understand it.
Part One. Karma Yoga: Work in the Service of Freedom and Unity
The greatness of Swami Vivekananda was his passionate involvement in the good of this manifest world and the human project on planet Earth while at the same time living free from this world, unattached, and awakened through a direct realization of the Infinite One or God. His brief life of 39 years was devoted with great energy to preaching a wake up message of great hope to humanity, to living in the service of others, and to promoting education for the masses of India. His vision of spiritual freedom was not simply for individuals. He understood our common human life as collectively moving towards planetary spiritual awakening.
All people long for freedom and happiness. And the only true freedom is this direct realization of God. The rest is Maya. This was the central message of Vivekananda. The Advaita Vedanta is not a set of doctrines or scriptures to be believed or followed. It is a pronouncement of truths that must be actualized for freedom to exist. “With every breath,” he insisted, “with every pulsation of the heart, with every one of our movements, we think we are free, and the very same moment we are shown that we are not. Bound slaves, nature’s bond-slaves, in body, in mind, in all our thoughts, in all our feelings. And this is Maya” (2: 119). The world – all creatures, all phenomenal manifestation, all good and evil – is none other than God: That which we are, the Atman, is the Infinite One. Direct realization gives the only freedom and forms the basis for a life of work in the service of humanity.
No proponent of endless rebirths leading to eventual birth as an awakened Brahmin, Vivekananda lived a life of karma yoga – intense, non-attached work on behalf of humanity and a transformed world order. “Man,” he said, “is the greatest being that is in the universe, and this world of work the best place in it, because herein is the greatest and the best chance for him to become perfect…. This is the great center, the wonderful poise, and the wonderful opportunity – this human life” (2: 271). Awakening can happen here and now for every person and therefore logically for the entire human condition.
Vivekananda presents the idea that the stages of development from childhood through adulthood recapitulate the stages through which the human race has developed, from the early savage stage to the most advanced spiritual and civilizational levels. He understands the potential for the human race to actualize these highest stages very rapidly. We can create the social conditions necessary for persons to actualize their vast human capacities for awakening and transformation:
There is an end toward which the whole is moving. Let us call it perfection. Some men and women are born to anticipate the whole progress of mankind. Instead of waiting and being reborn over and over again for ages until the whole human race has attained to that perfection, they, as it were, rush through them in a few short years of their life. And we know that we can hasten these processes, if we be true to ourselves…. We are all doing the same thing, hastening the growth of things by artificial means. Why cannot we hasten the growth of man? (2: 18)
Vivekananda’s prophetic life was devoted to hastening the growth of man toward perfection. Despite the fact that the Infinite is ultimately beyond knowledge, he welcomed the science of his day as liberating. Late 19th century historical and textual criticism was revealing that the scriptures of the world’s religions did not have a miraculous origin. Textual analysis and scientific dating uprooted the traditional ideas concerning these scriptures and revealed them as having a very human origin (7: 362-64).
This does not destroy the foundations of religion, for Vivekananda, but makes clear that the message of truth is not dependent on particular historical personages, whether Buddha, Mohammed, or Christ. The real heart of the religions takes us beyond name and form to a direct realization of God. “Jesus saw God and Buddha saw God,” he affirms, “If you have not seen God you are no better than an atheist…. If no God, what is the use of life?” (2: 473)
Science does what the intellect also does. Both explain the particular by the universal. Both create unities, leading onward to ever-greater unification, and pointing to the ultimate, Infinite Unity. All pursuits that show ever-greater universality are to be welcomed. Not only the religions, but science can be the ‘skillful means’ leading toward the ultimate universality of the One:
Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate reality is reached. Religion can go no further. This is the goal of all science. All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language, and with further light from the latest conclusions of science. (1: 15)
Vivekananda saw the vast potential in science even before the revolutions in scientific thought that characterized the 20th century. Einstein’s special theory of relativity did not appear until 1905 and initiated a perpetual revolution in the way human beings understand the world scientifically. Newtonian science, which dominated the late 19th century, still conceived of the universe on the model of a machine composed of discrete parts (atoms). Yet Vivekananda recognized the process of universalization, of creating ever-greater unities, that is fundamental to the scientific method. His vision included both the unity of humankind and the unity of the universe.
After his premature death in 1902, the 20th century revolutions in science would progressively reveal a mysterious absolute unity that encompasses the vast multiplicity of the universe. Vivekananda’s intuitions concerning science are born out in the breakthroughs of 20th century physics. In his book The Tao of Physics (1975), physicist Fritjof Capra describes the astonishing unity that had been discovered by 20th century science:
Thus modern physics shows us once again – and this time at the macroscopic level – that material objects are not distinct entities, but are inseparably linked to their environment; that their properties can only be understood in terms of their interaction with the rest of the world. According to Mach’s principle, this interaction reaches out to the universe at large, to the distant stars and galaxies. The basic unity of the cosmos manifests itself, therefore, not only in the world of the very small but also in the world of the very large; a fact which is increasingly acknowledged in modern astrophysics and cosmology. In the words of the astronomer Fred Hoyle:
“Present-day developments in cosmology are coming to suggest rather insistently that everyday conditions could not persist but for the distant parts of the Universe, that all our ideas of space and geometry would become entirely invalid if the distant parts of the Universe were taken away. Our everyday experience even down to the smallest details seems to be so closely integrated to the grand-scale features of the Universe that it is well-nigh impossible to contemplate the two being separated.” (pp. 209-210)
God and the universe are not two. Manifestation is the One, and the One is manifestation. As Vivekananda suggested, science points to the primal Truth of the universe. Any authentic pursuit of truth, whether through meditation, science, or religious practices, will bring us closer to the realization with which every present moment should be lived:
If there is anything in the universe, it must be universal; there is not one movement here that is not universal, because the whole universe is governed by laws. It is systematic and harmonious all through. Therefore what is anywhere must be everywhere. Each atom of the universe is built on the same plan as the biggest sun and the stars. If one man was ever inspired, it is possible for each and every one of us to be inspired, and that is religion…. Religion does not consist in believing any number of doctrines or dogmas…. It is here and now, and you have not to wait for the future. (4: 215)
As with the satyagraha of Mahatma Gandhi, a passionate “clinging to truth,” and the drive to actualize that truth in one’s life in the here and now, gives the key to realization, whether the truth come from science, reason, metaphysics, or religion. “The world is one,” Vivekananda says, “not that the spiritual, the material, the mental, and the world of energies are separate. It is all one, but seen from different planes of vision” (2: 31).
Yet in its social and religious forms, the human world is not one, as Vivekananda so plainly observed. The religions often see themselves as mutually exclusive of one another. The races often assume fundamental incompatibilities. The nations see themselves as absolute sovereign territories. People economically exploit one another. Rather than a beautiful pattern of unity in diversity leading toward the ecstatic realization of the Infinite One within the many, the condition of the world is one of discord, disharmony, and the apparent incommensurability of religions, races, ideologies, and nations.
Although the assumed incompatibility of the religions with one another goes back to the Axis Period of human history during the first millennium BCE, the modern capitalist economic system and system of sovereign nation-states are products of Western civilization since the 15th century. These three are based on assumptions of incompatibility that Vivekananda repudiated from the start. Drawing on the Newtonian paradigm, the nations see themselves as incommensurable territories ruled over by militarized governments charged to protect their populations from foreign aggression and interference.
Similarly, the early theorists of capitalism such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill understood the human self as an “atom of rational self-interest,” independent from all other selves. By placing all these selves together as producers and consumers within an economic framework of competition and “free trade,” these thinkers speculated, a perfect balance, an “invisible hand” would produce for society the “greatest good of the greatest number of people.” The economic disaster of the modern world, like the horrendous wars that ravaged the 20th century, stem from this immense ignorance concerning the self, and from these systems of fragmentation and incommensurability. The system of autonomous nation-states, the assumptions concerning the self in capitalism, and the belief that my religion is the only truth and that all others are damned or excluded – all share the same root of ignorance. Vivekananda declares:
This is another great theme of the Vedanta, this Oneness of life, this Oneness of everything. We shall see how it demonstrates that all our misery comes through ignorance, and this ignorance is the idea of manifoldness, this separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between earth and moon, between moon and sun. Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery. But the Vedanta says this separation does not exist, it is not real. It is merely apparent, on the surface. In the heart of things, there is unity still. If you go below the surface, you find that Unity between man and man, between races and races, high and low, rich and poor, gods and men, and men and animals. If you go deep enough, all will be seen as only variations of the one, and he who as attained to this conception of the oneness has no more delusion. (2: 153)
Part Two. The Constitution for the Federation of Earth and the Principle of Unity in Diversity
The Earth Constitution was a product of the paradigm shift of the 20th century, anticipated by Vivekananda. The framers of the Constitution understood the lethal consequences of a world order fragmented into sovereign nation-states, international economic competition, racism, incompatible religions, ideologies, and cultures. In a world reeling from two world wars, the invention of weapons of mass destruction, and the threat of ecological destruction, they understood the fatal consequences of continuing fragmentation.
Vivekananda lived before the diabolical application of advanced technology to war-making that began with World War I, accelerated through World War II, and culminated with the advent of weapons of mass destruction – a development, like the threat of climate collapse, placing the future of human project in grave doubt. We saw that he characterized our human project as “the wonderful opportunity – this human life. “ He would have been profoundly disturbed by our profound betrayal of the religious quest of life and the 20th century’s deceitful use of religious dogmas to divide the world into a militarized “clash of civilizations.” “Religion,” he says, “begins with a tremendous dissatisfaction with the present state of things, with our lives, and a hatred, an intense hatred, for this patching up of life, an unbounded disgust for fraud and lies” (2: 123-24). Religion passionately clings to truth, a truth, at the profoundest level, that sees the unity in diversity of all things.
The world federalist vision of a united, democratic world order began in earnest during the carnage of the First World War, not long after Vivekananda’s death. It rapidly expanded between the wars, and reached significant proportions (perhaps its apex) immediately following the Second World War. Nevertheless, the simultaneous creation of the United Nations and commencement of the Cold War diverted the federalist movement into a number of ineffectual factions. Some began working to reform the U.N., others to “unite the democracies” against Communism, and many others to establish a limited European Union.
One world federalist who was neither deceived by the illusion of the U.N. nor by Cold War propaganda was Philip Isely. Isely, with his wife Margaret, founded the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) in 1958 with the intent to rally citizens around the world to create and ratify a genuine constitution for the Earth. Through a process of four Constituent Assemblies over a period of 33 years, involving the participation of thousands of world citizens, the Constitution for the Federation of Earth was at last completed and ready for ratification in 1991.
Today, the Constitution stands as a beacon calling humankind to a transformed world order of peace with justice and prosperity for all. The Preamble of the Constitution philosophically grounds the document on this monumental principle of unity in diversity:
Conscious that Humanity is One despite the existence of diverse nations, races, creeds, ideologies and cultures and that the principle of unity in diversity is the basis for a new age when war shall be outlawed and peace prevail; when the earth’s total resources shall be equitably used for human welfare; and when basic human rights and responsibilities shall be shared by all without discrimination…. (www.worldproblems.net)
The Constitution, erected on these fundamental philosophical principles, moves the world forward toward that unity envisioned by Vivekananda – a world of cooperation, rather than destructive competition, a world of human friendship and toleration, rather than hatred, racism, and religious animosity, and a world of peaceful planetary democracy, rather than one of interminable war, destruction, and militarism, a world or reasonable prosperity for all rather than immense wealth for the few and misery for the vast majority. The Constitution creates the minimum necessary conditions for the spiritual unity and freedom of human kind. As Santi Nath Chattopadhyay puts it, Vivekananda advocated “the creation of minimum material conditions” whereby the spiritual journey toward freedom could be undertaken by the masses of humankind (2001: 405-06).
The ultimate goal, for Vivekananda, and our ultimate human possibility, is God- consciousness, and whatever promotes the overcoming of ignorance and delusion and fosters unity, toleration, and harmony helps make possible this ultimate goal. For him, this was both a personal goal for individuals and a collective goal for humanity. The Constitution for the Federation of Earth is the great step forward in transforming the world order from destructive fragmentation to cooperative unity and harmony. A democratic Earth Federation forms a necessary condition for progress toward human liberation.
Just as Gandhi understood that the system of sovereign nation-states involved the systematic exploitation of weak nations by strong nations, so Vivekananda comprehended the same principle. Gandhi declared: “The extension of the law of nonviolence in the domain of economics means nothing less than the introduction of moral values as a factor to be considered when regulating international commerce” (1958: 118). “Immediately as the spirit of exploitation is gone, armaments will be felt as a positive unbearable burden. Real disarmament cannot come unless the nations of the world cease to exploit one another” (1958: 112). Lecturing in London to a Christian audience, Vivekananda mocked the argument made by some Christians deriving the truth of Christianity from the economic success of the Christian nations:
Christianity must be the only true religion of the world, because Christian nations are prosperous! But that assertion contradicts itself, because the prosperity of the Christian nation depends on the misfortune of the non-Christian nations. There must be some to prey on. Suppose the whole world were to become Christian, then the Christian nations would become poor, because there would be no non-Christian nations for them to prey upon. (2: 95)
The fragmentation of sovereign nation-states and the global economic system of exploitation and domination are intimately linked, for both Gandhi and Vivekananda. Authentic unity in diversity can only be achieved by uniting the nations within an Earth Federation that demilitarizes them and overcomes their false incommensurability with the truth of the greater unity of the human project. It is precisely this gigantic unity that will make possible a situation “when the earth’s total resources shall be equitably used for human welfare,” and no longer for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many.
The Earth Federation movement today consists of many thousands of citizens around the world, independent World Constitution and Parliament Association chapters in a number of countries, and a host of other NGOs that have committed themselves to the ratification of the Earth Constitution. Under Article 19 of the Constitution, the WCPA sponsors the development of provisional world government. To date, this development has largely consisted of holding sessions of the Provisional World Parliament that has developed a substantial body of provisional world law modeling for the world the kind of transformed world order embodied within the Earth Constitution. The Karma Yoga of non-attached work in the service of humanity and truth inspires much of the Earth Federation Movement. This movement works to overcome fragmentation among the peoples, religions, races, and nations of the world and unite them together in one democratic Earth Federation that protects their precious diversity precisely because it takes its stand on gigantic unity. Vivekananda states:
When a kettle of water is coming to the boil, if you watch the phenomena, you find first one bubble rising, and then another and so on, until at last they all join, and a tremendous commotion takes place. This world is very similar. Each individual is like a bubble, and the nations, resemble many bubbles. Gradually these nations are joining, and I am sure the day will come when separation will vanish and that Oneness to which we are all going will become manifest. A time must come when every man will be as intensely practical in the scientific world as in the spiritual, and then that Oneness, the harmony of Oneness, will pervade the whole world. (2: 187-88)
Ratification of the Earth Constitution will not miraculously rid the world of hatred and fragmentation and create total harmony among humans and between human beings and nature. However, it is the necessary condition that will make such harmony possible. At present the planetary institutions of the system of sovereign nation-states and global capitalism actively fragment the world and produce illusions of fragmentation into the minds of persons everywhere (Maya). They form the primary impediments to the further progress of human beings toward unity.
By uniting the world under the Earth Constitution, these structural impediments are removed, making possible the continued progress of human beings toward the ecstatic truth of unity in diversity. “The whole universe is a play of unity in variety, and of variety in unity” Vivekananda states. “The whole universe is a play of differentiation and oneness; the whole universe is a play of the finite in the Infinite. We cannot take one without granting the other” (1: 433). This reality of unity in diversity has yet to be realized in human affairs. Uniting the world under the Constitution for the Federation of Earth becomes a necessary condition for continued progress toward this goal. A “federation” is precisely that. Diversity is not abolished, being preserved through democratic government at every level from the local to the national to the planetary. Diversity, however, is rendered non-violent and non-destructive through being lifted up into gigantic unity.
Part Three. Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, and the Struggle with Evil
Chapters of the World Constitution and Parliament Association around the world often create projects to serve the poor. Their motive is not simply to promote awareness of the Earth Constitution and its orientation to a transformed world order, their motive is often simply love. It is said correctly that the teaching of love is at the heart of all the great world religions. Jesus teaches agape: the profound non-attached love for God and all humanity, Buddha teaches mahakaruna: the immense compassion for all sentient beings. The world may overcome fragmentation through the unity in diversity of the Earth Federation, but the preservation of nature and harmony among humankind will not happen until the majority of human hearts fill with love and compassion. In Vivekananda’s understanding of the Advaita Vedanta, it is the same. Love is its own reward and needs no further justification:
The lover has passed beyond all these things, beyond rewards and punishments, beyond fears and doubts, beyond scientific or any other demonstration. Sufficient unto him is the ideal of love, and is it not self-evident that this universe is but a manifestation of this love?… It is what is called love. Its manifestation is from the lowest atom to the highest being: omnipotent, all-pervading, is this love…. Unattached, yet shining in everything, is love, the motive power of the universe, without which the universe would fall to pieces in a moment, and this love is God.” (2: 50-51)
The immense accomplishment of creating the Constitution for the Federation of Earth and the Earth Federation Movement behind it could not have happened without love. However, we have seen that even though the Constitution was created through the loving devotion of many thousands of world citizens, the document itself can provide only a framework within which humanity can move forward toward, as the Preamble states, “a new world order which promises to usher in an era of peace, prosperity, justice and harmony.”
As a framework, the Earth Constitution can provide the political and economic freedom that create the necessary conditions of human spiritual self-realization. Articles 12 and 13 provide detailed lists of the freedoms and “inalienable rights” guaranteed to citizens of the Earth Federation. Number 12.6 specifies “Freedom to profess, practice and promote religion or religious beliefs or no religion or religious beliefs.” Religious intolerance that actively interferes with people’s practice of religion in any nation or locality within the Earth Federation is prohibited by law, as it should be. People must be free to seek the truth, or avoid seeking the truth, in their own ways. Only immense freedom grounded in enforceable world law will establish the toleration and universality of viewpoint that will make possible continued progress for humanity. Vivekananda declares:
Another peculiarity of the Advaita systems is that from its very start it is non-destructive. This is another glory, the boldness to preach, “Do not disturb the faith of any, even of those who through ignorance have attached themselves to lower forms of worship.” That is what it says, do not disturb, but help everyone to get higher and higher; include all humanity. (2: 141)
This is also the framework of the Earth Constitution, institutionalizing the universal freedom and toleration of democratic world law so that humanity may progress to the “higher and higher.” At the same time the Earth Constitution forms a tremendous institutionalized resistance against evil, the evils of domination, exploitation, weapons of mass destruction, war, environmental destruction, and human rights violations. It works to minimize violence in the enforcement of law, yet at the same time enforce democratic laws that protect human rights, preserve the global environment, demilitarize the nations, and create a decent livelihood for everyone.
The non-destructive framework of the Advaita philosophy lends itself to a practice of non-violence in thought, word, and deed. Yet this is the nonviolence of the strong, just as the Earth Federation must be democratically strong in the ending of war and the defense of freedom for all peoples. For Gandhi, as for Vivekananda, nonviolence is the manifestation of the strong, the actualized, the awakened. It should not be the refuge of weakness and impotency. Gandhi declared that “I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honor by nonviolently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor” (1987: 144). Similarly, Vivekananda states that:
Such is the central idea of Karma-Yoga. The Karma-Yogi is the man who understands that the highest ideal is non-resistance, and who knows that this non-resistance is the higher manifestation of power in actual possession, and also what is called the resisting of evil is but a step on the way towards the manifestation of this highest power, namely, non-resistance. Before reaching this highest ideal, man’s duty is to resist evil; let him work, let him fight, let him strike through from the shoulder. Then only, when he has gained a power to resist, will non-resistance be a virtue. (1: 59)
The power to resist evil is not the same as violence, for it can be entirely freed from hatred or anger. According to the Earth Constitution and subsequent legislation by the Provisional World Parliament, the world police are to be trained in conflict resolution, in protecting due process of law, in using the minimum degree of force necessary to apprehend suspects, and at the same time protecting all innocent bystanders. No military organization is capable of such a degree of nonviolence while vigilantly resisting evil. All military organization undermines its own goal of resisting evil through the introduction of evil means. It systematically attacks some collectively designated “enemy” in a slaughter called “war” and consequently expects an inevitable “collateral damage” for the innocent victims of every war. That is why the Earth Federation must necessarily be non-military as specified in Article 2 of the Constitution.
The framework of unity in diversity that makes possible the realization of love, freedom, and perfection for humanity cannot introduce evil means. It must possess legitimate power, the universal power deriving from common respect and recognition by the people of Earth, but not violence. There is a fundamental difference here as pointed out by 20th century political thinker Hannah Arendt:
Power needs no justification, being inherent in the very existence of political communities; what it does need is legitimacy…. Violence can be justifiable, but it never will be legitimate…. We saw that the current equation of violence with power rests on government’s being understood as domination of man over man by means of violence…. To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high: for it is not only paid by the vanquished, it is also paid by the victor in terms of his own power…. Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance. This implies that it is not correct to think of the opposite of violence as nonviolence; to speak of non-violent power is actually redundant. Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it. (1970: 52-55)
The power to place limits on ignorance and evil through democratically legislated laws enforceable with a minimum use of force within the framework of a demilitarized world is the key to understanding why humanity possesses the Earth Constitution as its only viable option. It makes possible not only the survival of humankind within the endangered world of the 21st century; it also makes possible continuing the journey toward perfection envisioned by Vivekananda. One cannot force the vision of fulfillment and perfection on people. One can only provide the framework that makes this possible. “By trying to force people into narrow limits you degrade them into animals and unthinking masses,” states Vivekananda. “What is now wanted is a combination of the greatest heart with the highest intellectuality, of infinite love with infinite knowledge…. We want harmony, not one-sided development. And it is possible to have the intellect of a Shankara with the heart of a Buddha” (2: 143).
Evil, as the product of ignorance – the greed and fear of the bound, compulsive egoistic self – must be resisted. By placing the resistance to evil within the framework of the democratically legislated universal rule of law, and by simultaneously reducing violence while empowering individual freedom, we perform the non-attached work of Karma Yoga directed toward human self-realization and perfection. We do the work that is absolutely necessary at this point in history to ensure both survival and continued human growth.
Ultimately, however, the perfection of true freedom comes about through an infinite passion for God, not through arguments constructed by the intellect. Ultimately, love trumps intellect, and it is this that we want to empower for humanity through the ratification of the Earth Constitution. Vivekananda declares:
Intellect is necessary, for without it we fall into crude errors and make all sorts of mistakes. Intellect checks these; but beyond that, do not try to build anything upon it. It is an inactive, secondary help; the real help is feeling, love. Do you feel for others? If you do, you are growing in oneness. If you do not feel for others, you may be the most intellectual giant ever born, but you will be nothing; you are but dry intellect, and will remain so. (2: 307)
The Earth Constitution, and the entire Earth Federation movement built upon it, wells-up out of the great spring of compassion for the suffering of others, and for the suffering of all the world’s sentient creatures in the face of the onslaught of global capitalism and the evil system of sovereign militarized nation-states with their endless wars and destruction. “Religion is not the outcome of the weakness of human nature..,” Vivekananda declares, “religion is love, unfolding, expanding, growing” (7: 421).
Compassion for the more than three billion of the Earth’s population who live in extreme poverty and misery is the deepest foundation of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. These are the same people who most often suffer the horrendous “collateral damage” inflicted by the lords of the Earth through their endless imperial wars, bombings, and invasions.It was brilliant intellect that created the Earth Constitution, but it is “unfolding, expanding, growing” love that will determine its triumph. And it is ultimately love that will make possible the spiritual unification of humankind.
Works Cited
Note: all quotations from Vivekananda are from the Complete Works (1989) listed below. References give the volume number followed by the page number, e.g. (1: 275).
A Constitution for the Federation of Earth can be found at www.wcpa.biz or www.worldproblems.net.
Arendt, Hannah (1970). On Violence. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.
Capra, Fritjof (1975). The Tao of Physics – An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Berkekey: Shambhala Publisher.
Chattopadhyay, Santi Nath, editor (2001). Swami Vivekananda: His Global Vision. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak Publisher.
Gandhi, Mahatma (1958). All Men are Brothers – Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as Told in his Own Words. Krishna Kripalani, editor. New York: UNESCO: World Without War Publications.
Gandhi, Mahatma (1987). The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi. R.K. Prahbu and U.R. Rao, editors. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.
Vivekananda, Swami (1989). The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Mayavati Memorial Edition. Eight Volumes. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama Publisher.
one world renaissance 