Tao Te Ching
Nicholas Roerich
Citizens of the World
Similarly to how Montana is known as “Big Sky Country,” literature could be named, “Big Mind Country.” It dissolves nationalism, undermines prejudice and chauvinism, inspires visions of better and more meaningful lives, and ushers us along toward our true place as Citizens of the World.
In the earliest of times, we can easily imagine some of the first human interactions. A person has something valuable and another person sees it. The first person either shares or fights. If he shares, it begins a sequence toward civilization—family-clan-village-tribe-country-civilzation. But that basic choice continues for each step and determines if the scope of organization increases or leads to conflict and warfare. The multiple wars in the world today reflect how often this basic choice goes for fight instead of share. And so war will only end when the share choice extends to all the world.
For humanity to survive, human culture and politics will have to evolve into a One World Government, a federation of nations, a "United States of Earth.” Informational technology, social media, international business expansion, and the ever-expanding global awareness speed this process along. The question remains however if this evolution will take the dictatorial path of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Putin’s Russia; of if it will go along the more democratic lines of Bahá'u'lláh, the Shambhala mythologies, and an empowered United Nations. The realization of this necessity goes back to the most ancient of times, was embodied by Socrates, and described by Immanuel Kant as a necessity for achieving world peace. Recent steps in this directions include a World Passport, a World Birth Certificate, a World Political Asylum Card, a World Marriage Certificate, and a World Identity Card.
Quotes (108)
“Not least for those who are called foreigners, for they are not foreigners. For, while the various segments of the Earth give different people a different country, the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country, the entire Earth, and a single home, the world.”
“Even those who do not know me—if there actions are straightforward, just and loving—venerate me with the truest kind of worship.”
“The world is not owned by one person, but by all the people of the world.”
“There are no large or small states; all are Heaven's townships. There are no young men or old, no patricians or plebians: all are Heavne's subjects...”
“It is forbidden to decry other sects; the true believer gives honor to whatever in them is worthy of honor.”
“We were born to unite with our fellowmen, and to join in community with the human race.”
“We are all sprung from the same seed, all have the same father by whom mother earth conceives and supplies for a pleasant life and the continuation of our race”
“To study the Way is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others.”
“That you are patriotic will be praised by many and easily forgiven by everyone; but it is wiser to treat men and things as though we held this world as the common fatherland of all.”
“Strange is it that our bloods,
Of color, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty.”
“Avoid the faults of your nation… There is not a nation among even the most civilized that has not some fault peculiar to itself…It is a triumph to correct in oneself such failings… There are also family failings as well as faults of position, of office, or of age.”
“If you are concerned with the welfare of the future, it is most important to become more and more non-sectarian.”
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart.”
“Those who are governed by reason desire nothing for themselves which they do not also desire for the rest of mankind.”
“Think of the profit of all as being the real profit and the mind of the whole country as being the real mind.”
“To wish for the greatness of our own country is often to wish evil to neighboring countries. Those who wish their own country to be neither greater or smaller, richer or poorer are true citizens of the universe.”
“To wish the greatness of our own country is often to wish evil to our neighbors. He who could bring himself to wish that his country should always remain as it is, would be a citizen of the universe.”
“You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!”
“A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.”
“It was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous confederacies which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union.”
“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”
“Science and art belong to the whole world and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.”
“One great society alone on earth:
The noble living and the noble dead.”
“If my death contributes to the end of partisanship and the consolidation of the union, I shall be lowered in peace into my grave.”
“A great poet belongs to no country; his works are public property, and his Memoirs the inheritance of the public.”
“In the twentieth century, war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, animosity will be dead, royalty will be dead, and dogmas will be dead; but Man will live. For all there will be but one country—that country the whole earth; for all there will be but one hope—that hope the whole heaven.”
“I represent a party which does not yet exist: the party of civilization. There will come from it first, the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.”
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”
“Love both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. and you will perceive the mystery of God in all until you come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.”
“There is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family”
“God laughs again when two brothers divide their land with a string, saying to each other, 'This side is mine and that side is yours.' He laughs and says to Himself, 'The whole universe belongs to Me, but they say they own this portion or that portion.'”
“The time for petty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the domination of the world.”
“There is only one sort of genuine Socialism, the democratic sort, by which I mean the organization of society for the benefit of the whole people.”
“Internationalism is not an aspiration but a fact, not a sentimental ideal but a force...[though] thrown out of gear by the traditional doctrine of exclusive national sovereignty... an international mind alone agrees with the moving forces of present-day labor, commerce, science, art, and religion”
“Class, creed and nationality are words which should find no place in the vocabulary of the Australians, because these words are synonymous with everything that is hostile to peace and happiness in the world.”
“A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.”
“Here there are neither Russians nor English, Jews nor Christians, but only those who pursue one aim — to be able to be.”
“In 1651, he published the Leviathan, it pleased no one Its rationalism offended most of the refugees, and its bitter attacks on the Catholic huh offended the French government... There is not a word in Leviathan to suggest any relation between [states] except war and conquest... Every argument that he adduces in favor of government, in so far as it is valid at all, is valid in favor of international government. So long as national States exist and fight each other, only inefficiency can preserve the human race. To improve the fighting quality of separate States without having any means of preventing war is the road to universal destruction.”
“international government is at least as important to mankind as national government... either man must again become a rare species as in the days of Homo Pekiniensis, or we must learn to submit to an international government. Any such government, whether good, bad or indifferent, will make the continuation of the human species possible”
“Mankind has to find a way to agree that its achievements are global and belong to all the nations.”
“just as the human body shows a common anatomy over and above all racial differences, so to, does the psyche possess a common substratum... the collective unconscious... latent dispositions toward identical reactions.”
“The spirit that penetrates all things is the World Soul... filling all things, binding and knitting together all things that might make one frame of the world.”
“Awakening of Western thought will not be complete until that thought steps outside itself and comes to an understanding with the search for a world-view as this manifests itself in the thought of mankind as a whole.”
“If we regard the world as a family of nations—equally the gospel of India, of Jesus and of Blake, Lao Tzu and Rumi—... a constant intuition of the unity of all life, and the instinctive and ineradicable conviction that the recognition of this unity is the highest good and the uttermost freedom”
“At home we have preached, and will continue to preach, the gospel of the good neighbor. I hope from the bottom of my heart that as the years go on, in every continent and in every clime, Nation will follow Nation in proving by deed as well as by word their adherence to the ideal of the Americas — I am a good neighbor.”
“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”
“the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied”
“I too began to discern the eternal, immutable face of God behind all religious symbols... Every race and every age gives God its own mask. But behind all the masks, in every age and every race, is always the same never-changing God.”
“No one who studies history (the co-operative product of many peoples, ranks, and faiths) can be a bigot of race or creed and so naturally feels themself to be a Citizen of the World, a member of that Mind Country that knows no frontiers, no political prejudices, racial discriminations, or religious animosities.”
“What did it matter which religion we professed or which philosophy we believed, any more than which language we spoke or what clothes we wore?”
“Dante did not accomplish his life-work until he had been driven to withdraw from his native city... in losing his birthright in Florence, Dante was to win the citizenship of the world; for in exile the genius which had been crossed in politics after being crossed in love found its life-work in creating the Divina Commedia.”
“Opposed to the idea of two hostile, embittered wolds in perpetual conflict, we envisage a single world community as yet unrealized but advancing rapidly.”
“The common sense of people will surely prove to them someday that mutual support and cooperation are only sensible for the security and happiness of all.”
“the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms, has a place in every one of the higher religions... treated again and again, from the standpoint of every religious tradition and in all the principal languages”
“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent… separating yourself from the rest of mankind.”
“If you think in terms of people divided up into countries, you won't follow me. The idea of countries is going by the boards. Young people are getting wonderfully uprooted and they're too strong to get sucked into this 'country' crap.”
“Surely men as inspiritors, known and unknown, have shared a common uncommon discovery. The Tao of Lao Tzu, Nirvana of Buddha, Jehovah of Moses, the Father of Jesus, the Allah of Mohammed—all point to the experience. No-thing-ness, spirit—once touched, the whole of life clears.”
“However the brains and abilities of men may differ, their stomachs are essentially the same.”
“A wise one is a person in whom the light has become the leading principle; who sees the world not only under the aspect of time, but sub speciae eternitatis, against the background of universal laws and forces; one who has overcome selfishness and is no more misled by the illusion of separateness. His illumination is complete transparence and spiritual openness, but not mental stagnation.”
“The great American writer Herman Melville says somewhere in The White Whale that a man ought to be 'a patriot to heaven,' and I believe it is a good thing, this ambition to be a cosmopolitan, this idea to be citizens not of a small parcel of the world that changes according to the currents of politics, according to the wars, to what occurs, but to feel that the whole world is our country.”
“A world republic of law and justice must set up the devices of learning by which everybody can become a citizen of the world.”
“We are—all of us—pilgrims who struggle along different paths toward the same destination.”
“It is not possible for this nation to be at once politically internationalist and economically isolationist. This is just as insane as asking one Siamese twin to high dive while the other plays the piano.”
“Globalization inevitably implies more standardization and therefore a decrease in diversity, which in turn would slow down the rate of social innovations. Another danger of globalization is that excessive interdependence of systems increases the likelihood of collective disasters if one of the subsystems fails”
“A world technology means either a world government or world suicide.”
“When you see the earth from the moon, you don’t see any divisions there of nations or states. This is the symbol for the new mythology to come, the country we are going to be celebrating, the people we are one with.”
“I feel myself the inheritor of a great background of people. Just who, precisely, they were, I have never known... I don't know who my parents were. I know nothing about my inheritance. I might be part Negro, might be part Jew, part Muslim, part Irish... I am spiritually a mix anyway... So I can't afford to be supercilious about any group of people because I may be that people.”
“Let us begin by removing national boundaries with the trees and grasses. The liberation of peoples everywhere shall begin from this point... grasses and trees have no national boundaries. Let us scatter the seeds of various drought-hardy grasses, trees, and food crops by airplane all at once over those areas on earth that have turned to desert.”
“For, in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”
“If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.”
“The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he taught Dhamma - the way to liberation — which is universal.”
“I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
“This breaking of the limitations of hospitality to a small in-group, of offering it to the broadest possible in-group, and saying, you determine who your guest is, might be taken as the key message of Christianity.”
“Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.”
“You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”
“We are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one.”
“We are the moral inhabitants of the globe. And to deny it is to lie in prison... And unless all races and all ages of man have been totally deluded, there seems to be such a thing as grace, such a thing as beauty, such a thing as harmony — all of which are wholly free, and available to us.”
“The further back in time, the more narrow and limited our perceptions of the world. It slowly expanded from family to clan to village to city to country. With the revolution of information technology, it now includes all the world and all the people in it. Unfortunately our conceptions of equality and justice haven’t expanded as quickly as this awareness. People becoming true citizens of the world is evolution’s main challenge for us today.”
“These cultural mind prisons. . . . have been crippling to human moral and spiritual growth… freedom of thought.. and clearly a barrier to world peace. So long as we continue to attach more importance to our own narrow group membership than to the ‘global village’ we will propagate prejudice and ignorance.”
“Times of great change and remarkable opportunity are upon us. To succeed we can no longer go it alone, but must partner with one another to share innovative and creative ways in which to rethink and restructure our individual existence within the context of our expanding global communities.”
“Through art as magic, the magic of the mandala embodied in the very fabric of everyday life, we can live our lives as cosmic citizens.”
“Our sophisticated frivolousness makes it easy to criticize society, to become anti-establishment and make fun of traditions. But how would we do it? We could take responsibility for running the whole world economically, spiritually, psychologically, and politically.”
“I don’t really have any ambition, you know? I only have one thing I’d really like to see happen. I’d like to see mankind living together. Black, White, Chinese, everyone. That’s all.”
“Oh, I've been smiling lately, reaming about the world as one. And I believe it could be, someday it's going to come”
“Civilizations are so quick to identify with their own particular brand of life that… they never have the humility to identify the source of the life and oneness running through their veins.”
“I consider tribalism the biggest problem of our time… it could undo millennia of movement toward global integration… just when technology has brought the prospect of a cohesive planetary community within reach.”
“There were a few, an extremely few, people in the world who by sheer dint of their intelligence and their sensitivities could overcome the limitations of national identity, the stupidities of their own bureaucracies to navigate a path to world survival.”
“Love is when you are thinking: ‘How can I make you happy?’ Attachment is when you are thinking: ‘Why aren’t you making me happy?’”
“Your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean… yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops.”
“Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity.”
“The more deeply we examine our minds, the less possible it becomes to find a clear distinction between where our own mind ends and other’s begin.”
“The imperial vision of dominion over the entire world could be imminent... More and more people believe that all of humankind is the legitimate source of political authority... global problems, such as melting ice caps, nibbles away at whatever legitimacy remains to the independent nation states... wouldn't it be simpler for a single global government to safeguard them?”
“almost everybody believes in a slightly different variation on the same capitalist theme, and we are all cogs within a single global production line... the same economic theories, the same corporations and banks, and the same currents of capital.”
“No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.”
“When Kansas and Colorado fall out over the waters in the Arkansas River, they don't go to war over it; they go to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the matter is settled in a just and honorable way. There is not a difficulty in the whole world that cannot be settled in exactly the same way in a world court.”
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