In the world today, we have had it demonstrated to us that the mass mind can be educated; a new point of view can be presented to it and a new attitude engendered. If this can be done, then what are the ideas and principles which our leaders should themselves accept and offer to the public to change the minds of millions?

Adult franchise is a mark of political privilege obtained by the people in a democracy; but it is not necessarily the mark of a sense of responsibility. Nor is free education always serviceable to the people. The balance between privilege and responsibility has to be maintained. What is needed is such education as will train the people in the responsibility which the vote, free speech, and all the rest, bring.

The virtue of self-help and self-reliance cannot be overstressed. No outside grace can save us unless we help ourselves. The implication of this is far-reaching. Not only has it a political implication; it has a philosophical implication also. And unless that basic philosophical implication is grasped, the social, economic and political implications will not be clearly understood. People everywhere should be taught to rely not on political leaders and parties, but on principles. On what principles?

Man is a self-conscious intelligence with the power to choose between right and wrong. All human privileges are most intimately connected with this basic power to choose, to decide, to will freely. Because this power is not used, the corresponding privileges do not accrue to man. And the power of choice and determination is not used because such a use entails responsibility. Men want privileges without responsibility; but Nature speaks most emphatically and clearly, pointing to the fact that privilege and responsibility are coeval, inseparable, the two sides of the same coin. Rights cannot be enjoyed without execution of duties; duties properly performed never fail to bring in their train privileges.

The Religion of Responsibility is what all people need; it cannot be brought to the hearts of men and women through dictatorship and autocracy which enslave human minds, enchain human hearts and degrade human morals; but on the other hand neither can it be brought to our hearts by the power of the vote, of free speech, and the like, which, so-called democracies offer to their citizens through the machinery of party politics.

The Religion of Responsibility comes through a perception of the place of man in the scheme of things, of the purpose of human evolution, of the fundamental which the Laws of Manu put forward—"Other-dependence is misery; Self-dependence is happiness." The pivotal doctrine of the Religion of Responsibility is that Man grows by self-induced and self-devised efforts; it admits of no privileges or special gifts, save those won by man's own Soul or Ego through personal effort; hence, whatever merits a man possesses have been acquired by that Soul throughout a long series of reincarnations.

The greatest difficulty in man's way in practising the Religion of Responsibility is rooted in the wrong education which he has been receiving for centuries. The education of the public everywhere has stressed the importance of falsehood, which in the language of the Buddhistic philosophy is the Heresy of Separateness. Organized creeds teach the false doctrine of religions—one true, others false. Organized social groups also teach the same false idea that differences in social status mean superiority and inferiority—the Eastern castes are different one from the other, but not superior and inferior; the Western classes are different, but capitalists are not superior to the labourers any more than the proletarians are superior to the bourgeois. Organized political parties offer different programmes, but mere affiliation to a particular party does not confer superiority or inferiority; a man is not superior or inferior from the mere fact of belonging to a political party. Organized nations with different cultures and different historical backgrounds are different one from the other, but no nation is superior to the others. The Heresy of Separateness has to be destroyed ere the true education of the public can really make progress in the Religion of Responsibility.

A culture with a universal outlook which broadens human sympathies and deepens human insight is what we need. It may be worth our while to consider some of the principles of the Religion of Responsibility appropriate to the mind of the race which is unfolding now.

It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song.
But the man worth while is one who will smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praise of the earth
Is the one that shines through tears.

It is easy enough to be prudent,
When nothing tempts you to stray,
When without or within no voice of sin
Is luring your soul away;
But it's only a negative virtue
Until it is tried by fire,
And the life that is worth the honour of the earth
Is the one that resists desire.

By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
Who had no strength for the strife,
The world's highway is cumbered today;
They make up the sum of life.
But the virtue that conquers passion,
And the sorrow that hides in a smile,
It is these that are worth the homage of the earth
For we find them but once in a while.

—Oscar Wilde