SO SIMPLE THAT IT HAS BEEN DIFFICULT TO GRASP

 
Since arriving in America, I have been asked many times what solution have I brought for the social problems now confronting you — what did I have to offer that would solve the problems of unemployment, prohibition, crime, that would eliminate the strife between individuals and nations, and pour a healing balm of peace upon a troubled world.

The answer has been so simple that it has been difficult to grasp.

The root of all our difficulties, individual and social, is self-interest. It is this, for example, which causes corruptible politicians to accept bribes and betray the interests of those whom they have been elected to serve; which causes bootleggers to break, for their own profit, a law designed, whether wisely or not, to help the nation as a whole; which causes people to connive, for their own pleasure, at the breaking of that law, thus causing disrespect for law in general, and increasing crime tremendously; which causes the exploitation of the great masses of humanity by individuals or groups of individuals seeking personal gain; which impedes the progress of civilization by shelving inventions which would contribute to the welfare of humanity at large, simply because their use would mean the scrapping of present inferior equipment; which, when people are starving, causes the wanton destruction of large quantities of food, simply in order to maintain market prices; which causes the hoarding of large sums of gold, when the welfare of the world demands its circulation....

But the elimination of self-interest, even granting a sincere desire on the part of the individual to accomplish it, is not so easy, and is never completely achieved except by the aid of a Perfect Master. For self-interest springs from a false idea of the true nature of the Self, and the idea must be eradicated, and the Truth experienced, before the elimination of self-interest is possible.

I intend, when I speak, to reveal the One Supreme Self which is in all. This accomplished, the idea of the Self as a limited, separate entity will disappear, and with it will vanish self-interest....