[[We were discussing socio-sentiment. When sentiment expands beyond the limit of an individual to embrace others also, it is called “socio-sentiment.” Where does it end?]] Just as zero cannot have any radius, infinity has no radius [[either]]. You can form a circle with a radius greater than zero but less than infinity; only in this circumstance can it exist. Unless the radius of anything is greater than zero and less than infinity, its existence becomes meaningless. Then there may be existence in theory but not in actuality.

Now, family sentiment is also a kind of socio-sentiment, but its radius is very small. Greater than this is the radius of caste sentiment, and still greater is that of community sentiment, national sentiment, international sentiment, and so on. Now, the narrowest of all the socio-sentiments is technically called “socio-sentiment minimitis”, and the greatest is called “socio-sentiment maximitis” or “socio-sentiment excellencio”. What is the difference between these two terms?

The small theoretical gap between excellencio and maximitis makes little difference so far as the collective welfare is concerned. It merely soars high in the realm of theory, just like the argument whether the pot contains the oil or the oil is contained in the pot, or the argument whether the palmyra fruit falls first or the sound of its hitting the ground comes first. This is how the ancient logicians used to endlessly debate.

It is said that once the scholars in Navadwip researched for a long time whether the sound is produced before or after the palmyra fruit hits the ground. The story goes that the scholars carried on this debate for three days and nights, and five maunds [approximately 411 pounds] of snuff was consumed in the process! After three days and nights, it was found at daybreak that almost all the scholars were dead. And what was the cause? The palmyra fruits fell on their heads, and that is how they died!

Now, this socio-sentiment, in its stage of excellencio or in theory maximitis, is called “humanism.” Suppose I was working for a particular nation, but now I am working for all nations. When I admit the existence of nations and say that I am working for all nations, then it is neither humanism nor universalism – it is merely internationalism. When I use the term “internationalism”, I am admitting the existence of separate nations, and along with this I must naturally also think, within the nations, of the people’s five fundamental requirements of life (food, clothes, education, shelter, and medical care). But when I discover that one nation is trying to thrive on the life-blood of another, I oppose it, and this opposition ultimately leads to world war. So internationalism is not the solution either.

Now, if we enlarge the circumference beyond the scope of nationalism or internationalism and embrace all people within one fold, this is called “humanism”, or, still better, “ordinary” or “general” humanism.

What is this humanism? It is socio-sentiment maximitis. Is this the panacea for all problems? Does it provide answers to all questions? No, it does not, for two reasons. The first is that even within humanism there is still intra-humanistic clash; and secondly, in the living world, humans are not the only living beings – there are many other creatures as well. If people completely ignore them, indeed this may not create any great conflict in the external world, because non-human creatures are psychologically undeveloped. (Even if they are physically developed, mentally they are undeveloped.) Thus it is easy for human beings to destroy the animal and plant kingdoms. But this destruction will upset the balance among the plant, animal, and human worlds and result in the catastrophic ruin of human life as well.

Now, what does “intra-humanistic clash” mean? Suppose I find that a particular social group is suffering from starvation, and I provide food for them. This is humanitarian, no doubt, but at the back of my mind I am thinking, “Let me utilize these people as the suppliers of our raw materials and the purchasers of our finished products, because these people are now obligated to us.” This sort of mentality will one day destroy peace in society. So the humanistic approach is not perfect; it is adulterated.

Suppose we discover that a particular group is educationally backward. We feel pity for its people because they are also our fellow human beings. So we think, “Let us introduce them to the printed word at least!” and actually we do something towards that end. But through this so-called “literacy drive”, we inject ideas in their minds that paralyse them mentally, and then we ultimately govern these mentally-paralysed people as colonized people. In this way the peace of the world will be destroyed. This is all “intra-human conflict.” The intention is to develop them socially in the way we like and thus destroy their originality. This is the mentality at work.

What is the reason for this type of mentality? “I pity them” – this vanity, this superiority complex, will eventually create satellite social groups. This adulterated [humanism] is not genuine [humanism], nor is it true humanistic spirit; it is ordinary human sentiment or pseudo-humanistic strategy in another form. It has some affinity with pseudo-reformist strategy.

How does pseudo-reformist strategy work? What is its nature? It arises within socio-sentiment: “Yes, what my opponents [revolutionaries] say is correct; but if this really materializes, it will greatly inconvenience me and disturb my individual sentiment. So what we must do is to try to adjust with the existing situation. We don’t want any great changes; we will just go ahead step by step. Externally we may speak of reform, but in our heart of hearts, we have decided not to allow any change to take place.” This is pseudo-reformist strategy.⁽¹⁾

And what is “pseudo-humanistic strategy”? “Outwardly we preach the gospels of humanistic idealism, but in actuality we stab others in the back.” In the absence of a firm foundation, this sort of ordinary human sentiment remains unstable. This situation is prevalent all over the world today; you must make sincere efforts to see that it no longer continues.

Intra-humanistic clash is a continuing phenomenon, and as a result there are constant conflicts between individual and individual, between group and group. What is the reason? It is because this so-called ordinary humanism or general humanism is nothing more than an enlarged form of nationalism: only its radius is large, or maximitis, as I said in the beginning. That is the only difference.

So you see, socio-sentiment minimitis and socio-sentiment maximitis, although they differ in radius, are both mental diseases which demand our equal attention. Suppose in someone’s body there is a certain disease in one place affecting a limited area, and the same disease in another place affecting a broader area. The disease is the same; the difference lies only in the magnitude of the affected area. The socio-sentiment maximitis or excellencio that is included in socio-sentiment results in clash not only among human beings, but also in mutual clash among humans, animals and plants. If, instead of firmly establishing one’s mind in humanism, one is guided by pseudo-humanistic strategy, one is bound by some means or other to bring the social group to which one has given aid within the scope of one’s own socio-sentiment. Thus today or tomorrow they will become exploited, either directly or indirectly, and the exploitation will be more intense in the economic sphere than in other spheres.

This has one very interesting aspect, which most people overlook. Depending upon the degree of economic affluence, some countries are called “developed”, some “developing”, and some “undeveloped.” Now the interesting thing is that none of these so-called developed countries can stand on their own legs. They are simply compelling the developing and undeveloped countries to buy their industrial goods by creating circumstantial pressure on them. None of these countries becomes developed by developing its own resources.

In those countries which are developing their own resources, the resources are not equally distributed among them, so naturally some countries’ resources will become exhausted sooner than others’. And when this occurs, they will have to use force – either physical or intellectual – against others.

So as long as there are bondages of nationhood – maximitis bondages (not to mention minimitis) – the tendency to exploit individuals or the collectivity will continue to exist. This is bound to have its repercussions on political life as well as religious life. I said yesterday that religion is being used to create satellites; the propagators of religion are performing this unjust action consciously or unconsciously. But behind all this lies the wealth of those who seek to create satellite groups as suppliers of their raw materials or customers for their finished products. Thus there is pervasive corruption in religious life. None of these religions is Bhágavata dharma, the all-embracing human dharma.

There is degeneration in cultural life also. Once one’s cultural life is controlled, one becomes a slave. The rulers and exploiters, who are motivated by socio-sentiment maximitis (otherwise known as general humanism), want to exploit people in all spheres of life – social, economic, political, cultural, and religious. Hence humanism cannot be considered the panacea; it is not a perfect remedy.

Often certain social groups – be they international groups or the largest social groups – seek to preserve their existences by destroying non-human creatures – animals and plants. But all animals and plants also have the urge for self-preservation; no creature dies willingly. This destructive tendency is operating not only in the inter-creature world (the torture of animals and plants), but also in the intra-creature world (within the human world itself). The kind of persecution which is being perpetrated against animals today may be perpetrated by one social group against another tomorrow, because the very tendency to torture others is predominant in the blood of exploiters. They are not free from this disease – they merely mouth high ideals. That is why I said that this is all pseudo-humanistic strategy, not even humanistic strategy.

What do people do to meet their growing needs for agricultural lands, for industries, etc.? They bring about large-scale deforestation; but no one bothers to think about the creatures that live in those forests. Thus the tigers and elephants haunt the villages, kill the people and demolish their houses. Why? Out of their instinct for self-preservation. We have destroyed their natural habitat, the forests, but we never bothered to consider any alternative arrangements for their shelter. We have recklessly destroyed large areas of forests without caring to think that thereby we are destroying the balance among the human, plant, and animal worlds. And we never realized – and still do not – that this wanton destruction of the animal and plant worlds will be of no benefit to human beings. Rather it will be a great loss for human society, because each and every living entity, whether plant or animal, has two types of value: one, its utility value, and the other, its existential value.

Human beings usually preserve those creatures which have an immediate utility value for them; for example, cows. Human beings protect them for their own benefit, because cows have some utility. Nowadays horses have lost their utility value. Thus horses are rarely found in large numbers in the streets these days; you do not see many horses around at all. After some time, people will have to go to the zoo to catch a glimpse of a horse; they will not be found anywhere else. Since horses no longer serve human needs and their utility value is nil, human beings are not eager to preserve them.

Similarly, when people are able to prepare synthetic milk by chemical process, they will also stop breeding cattle. That day people will either kill the cows by starving them, or they will themselves eat the cows. This is the situation.

Who says that those creatures who have lost their immediate utility value have no right to exist? No one has the moral right to say this. No one can dare to say that only human beings have the right to live – and not non-humans. All are the children of Mother Earth; all are the offspring of the Supreme Consciousness. Most creatures have existential value, although they may not be valuable to human beings, or we may not be aware that their existence has some significance. This existential value is sometimes individual and sometimes collective, and sometimes both. Oftentimes, we cannot know the utility value, or the collective existential value, of a creature; we wrongly think that it has no existential value. This is the height of foolishness. As human beings have not advanced very far in the field of knowledge, they are prone to this sort of error.

Even those creatures that have no utility value for human beings or whose utility value has ceased, which have no existential value for human beings or whose existential value has ceased, still have the right to live. Even those animals which have negative utility value instead of positive, and negative entitative [[existential]] value instead of positive, human beings will have to try to preserve even those animals by creating a congenial environment for them instead of destroying them. And they will also have to provide adequate safeguards so that those creatures may not prove injurious. If, in the absence of proper safeguards, those undeveloped creatures do harm to humans, the fault does not lie with those creatures but rather with the human beings. Human beings are endowed with developed intellect. Why do they not make adequate arrangements to protect themselves?

One more thing must be said – that non-human creatures have the same existential value to themselves as human beings have to themselves. Perhaps human beings can understand the value of their existence, while other living beings cannot: this is the only difference. Even so, no one has conferred any authority on human beings to kill those unfortunate creatures.

Now, within the scope of socio-sentiment maximitis, there are economically-developed groups [[and hence also economically-undeveloped groups]]. Within the greater human society, there are different social divisions in some form or the other, direct or indirect. As a result, the virus of intra-human conflict, and along with this, inter-creature conflict, is bound to spread. And in this inter-creature conflict, human beings have completely forgotten the utility value and entitative value of other creatures.

Thus humanism cannot be accepted as an ideal path to perfection. Human beings will have to progress further towards perfection: Hethá nay hethá nay, anya kothá, anya konakháne⁽²⁾ [“Not here, not here, somewhere else, somewhere else.”] We must move ever forward beyond the confines of sentiment. And does not a still more glorious and effulgent dawn await us there? Indeed it does.

Footnotes

(1) Práksama saḿskáravádátmaka rańaniiti [in Sanskrit].