SPIRIT OF ISLAM JULY 2O18

47 Spirit of Islam Issue 67 July 2018 who has a predictable character. All these qualities stem from spiritual training. It is the responsibility of reformers, therefore, to train people to become duty conscious by enhancing their thinking capacity—for the duty-conscious person can never involve himself in any such negative activity as corruption. There is much discussion about the necessity for social reform but this has not come about. What is the reason for this? Though Himalayan efforts have been made with regard to bringing about social reform, they have proved infructuous. In my opinion this is so because the starting point is not the right one. The starting point must be to bring about change in the individual. The mind of the individual must be addressed in order to revolutionize his thinking. This is the right and only way to carry out social reform. Other methods have proved ineffective. When we are living in a society we face many unpleasant experiences from people we deal with. How to love all human beings in spite of such negative experiences? The rationale behind the ‘love all’ formula is that you should consider every person as a benefactor irrespective of the type of experience you have with them. It is lack of awareness of this fact that makes you unable to adopt this love-all culture. For example, a person who was in need of some help approached his relative requesting him to come to his assistance. This relative instead of extending his help gave advice about the importance of self-help. Though hurt and disappointed the person returned vowing to himself to never ask for help and worked hard to make himself self-sufficient. Later in life whenever he thought about his relative, he felt he had actually been his benefactor and found that he did not have any negative feelings for him in his heart. In fact, he looked at him as his benefactor. The above is an example of an individual. Let us understand this in terms of love for all humanity. We are living in a civilization. Civilization is an advanced stage of refinement in ethical and material matters resulting from continuous effort on the part of all humankind. It has taken thousands of years of the joint efforts of humanity to bring civilization into existence. The whole of humanity was involved in this process. The discovery of this reality about history gives rise to the culture of ‘love for all’, while unawareness of this leads to hate culture. The truth is that in this world the most realistic principle is that of ‘love for all’. We cannot afford the opposite of this. o