THE PHILOSOPHY OF A GLOBAL CITIZEN

By Moin Qazi

An award winning poet, Moin Qazi holds a doctorate and is an independent researcher and
consultant who has spent three decades in microfinance with State Bank of India, India’s
largest bank, where he was involved in microfinance as a grassroots manager and as head of
its microfinance operations in Maharashtra. He belongs to the first batch of managers of
commercial banks who were associated with the launch of India’s microfinance programme.
He writes regularly on development finance and environmental issues. He was a Visiting
Fellow at the University of Manchester specializing in microfinance
.

According to the great philosopher poet, Mohammed Iqbal, “that which

really matters is a man’s faith, his culture, his historical tradition.” “These
are the things which” said Iqbal, “in my eyes, are worth living for and
dying for and not the piece of earth with which the spirit of man happens
to be temporarily associated.”
“Every free man,” wrote Gardner, “in his work and in his family life, in
his public behaviour and in the secret places of his heart, should see
himself as a builder and maintainer of the values of his society.”
Erhard has pointed out that what is missing most in people’s lives is a
sense of nobility — not merely a sense of purpose, but, as George Bernard
Shaw described it, “a purpose recognised by ourselves as a mighty one.”
Was Socrates a success? He was forced to commit suicide which the
willingly did and while we hardly know a single name of his detractors, the
name of Socrates is a household word wherever a civilised discourse takes
place. Charged with impiety and corruption of youth, for which the
punishment meted out was death, his answer was simple and it is an
answer, one may add, that stands out for all men in all times.
Einstein iterates this philosophy in his illuminating words:
If the natural vanity of man is sobered and corrected by these considerations, there
is scope for further correction and sober reflection in the fact of human fallibility.
Man has an infinite capacity for making mistakes. It is this realisation, which should
make him pause and think that the other side may be right, and that there is
always another point of view besides his own.
I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — this critical
basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way and time after
time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness,
Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the
occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and
scientific endeavours, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of
human efforts — possessions, outward success, and luxury — have always seemed
to me contemptible.
“Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds.
The most powerful one’s are those we can’t even describe, aren’t even
aware of,” says Ellen Goodman.
Doubts and fears are harmful emotions. It is always wiser not to
succumb to them. Fear of death is instinctive and universal because few
understand the scientific and metaphysical implications of death. Life is a
form of energy and energy is indestructible. Energy can only be
transformed from one form into another. It is never bad to have intentions
what is harmful is the insatiated lust of desires.
Desire is that intention that turns into a feverish thought in you. A desire
is a thought with feverishness coming in you again and again, again and
again and again. These make the whole nervous system. Desire brings a
disease in the mind, an obsession in the mind. It clouds the clarity of
mind. It brings feverishness and it burns you. It leaves you with scars and
wounds. Every frustration, every desire has caused scars in the nervous
system, and you are not even aware of it.
Every society, in the course of its evolution, gathers certain intellectual,
ethical and spiritual values. The aggregate of these values can perhaps be
said to be the culture of a society at a given period of time. The beliefs,
the dogmas, the predilections and the antipathies of the people
constituting the society have all a share in the formulation of these
values. A society has its occupation and activities. The effect of these is
necessarily reflected in its social, economic and political outlook. This
outlook, in its turn, influences the thoughts and the life of the society,
which find their reflection in some of the ideals towards which it strives.
Till the commencement of the middle of the nineteenth century, religious
beliefs formed a powerful force in shaping the thought and life of a
society. Rational, technological and scientific thinking is now leaving an
ever-increasing impress on the thoughtful sections of advanced societies
and have given society a twist in a new direction. Their impact on the
minds of every nation has been very great and has necessarily drawn
them to new ways of thinking, which, in their turn, have set new norms to
what they cherish and what they desire. These and many other elements
get woven into the texture of the culture of a society. Culture may well be
described as the totality of the basic impulses of the social conscience.
The virtues of self-discipline, self-restraint and self-development, which
are the quintessence of culture, are as fully relevant today as they were at
their first teaching. You almost hear their echoes in Sir Thomas Taylor’s
Convocation address to the Aberdeen University:
There are, of course, moral duties that the law will enforce. But beyond
the sphere of duty that is legally enforceable, there is a vast range of
significant behaviour in which the law does not and ought not to
intervene…. Now this feeling of obedience to the unenforceable is the
very opposite of the attitude that whatever is technically possible is
allowable…. This power of self-discipline is the very opposite of the fatal
arrogance, which asserts, whether in government, science, industry or
personal behaviour, that whatever is technically possible is licit…. All
through history men have needed it to preserve them from the temper
that hardens the heart and perverts the understanding. For our generation
it is nothing less than the prime condition of survival.”
A sense of values will enable you to find happiness within yourself and
joy in the most ordinary of things which we often pass by unseeing. As
Robert Louis Stevenson said in “The Celestial Surgeon” —
 If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain: —
Lord. They most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake.
There are periods in world history, which are characterised by a loss of
the sense of the sense of values, and the times we live in are pre-
eminently such an age. All our troubles may be summed up in three lines
(if I may quote T.S. Eliot again) —
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “To laugh often and much; to win the
respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the
appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to
appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit
better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social
condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have
lived. This is to have succeeded.” Gandhi. advises: “Be the change you
want to see in the world.”
We must strive to live out our lives in the manner of Jack London‘s
exhortation: “I would rather my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dry rot! I would rather be a superb meteor…
than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live,
not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them I shall use
my time.”
Einstein, considered earthly pleasures much subservient to those noble
elements that provided the true propelling power to the mind and heart.
One could well ponder over his great words. “The ideals which have
lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face
life cheerfully have been truth, goodness and beauty. Without the sense
of fellowship of men of like mind, of presumption with the objective, the
eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would
have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavours —
property, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me
contemptible.”
.
Einstein was guided by a strong personal philosophy. He said, “My
scientific work is motivated by an irresistible longing to understand the
secrets of nature and by no other feeling. My love for justice and striving
to contribute towards the improvement of human conditions are quite
independent from my scientific interests.”
If the natural vanity of man is sobered and corrected by these
considerations, there is scope for further correction and sober reflection in
the face of human fallibility. Man has an infinite capacity for making
mistakes. It is this realisation that should make him pause and think that
the other side may be right, and that there is always another point of view
besides his own.
 The great Indian jurist M.C. Chagla makes an eloquent plea for renewal
of the cardinal values in our lives. In a resonant chapter in his
autobiography, Roses in December he says:
The longer one lives the more one realises how necessary and important tolerance
is. Most of the strains and tensions in life are due to the fact that we lack this
sovereign virtue. We are angry and irritated because the other does not think as we
do, live as we live and worship before the same Gods as we do. True tolerance is
based upon respect for the dignity of the individual. It recognises the right of every
one to experiment with his life and to live according to his own lights. The lights
may not be the city lights — they might burn on the mountaintops or in forlorn
caves — but to the person whose lights they are, they are the only authentic ones
and all others are false.
We are becoming so matter of fact, the world is so much with us the we refuse to
give any place to sentiment in life. And yet sentiment is the salt that gives savour
to life. We must learn to hold out our hands to the stars, although we may know full
well that we can never reach them. Unless we aim at the unattainable, existence
becomes humdrum and prosaic — there is neither zest nor colour nor poetry in
anything we do.
With proper motivation these activities can help humanity; without it they go the
other way. This is why compassionate thoughts are so important for humankind.
Although it is not easy to bring about the inner change that gives rise to
compassion, it is absolutely worthwhile to try.
Denis Goulet argues that the concept of development is best expressed
in the phrase, “the human ascent,” and the ascent of all men in their
quintessence of humanity, including the economic, biological,
psychological, social, cultural spiritual and transcendental dimension.
Kahlil Gibran was a crusader and visionary who pleaded for the
reformation of society on a moral foundation. The poem Seven
Reprimands compels attention:
I reprimanded my soul seven times.
The first time; when I attempted to exalt
Myself by exploiting the weak.
The second time; When I feigned a limp
Before those who were crippled.
The third time: when given a choice
I elected the easy rather than the difficult.
The fourth time: when I made a mistake
I consoled myself with the mistake of others.
The fifth time: when I was docile because of fear
And claimed to be strong in patience.
The sixth time: When I held my
Garments upraised
To avoid the mud of life.
The seventh time: When I stood in hymnal to God
And considered singing a virtue.
A great seeker of truth, Kahlil Gibran combined beauty and wisdom
evident both in his poems and parables. Gibranism is no doctrinaire
religion but an artistic vision of the divinity that is within all men, that
indwelling divinity that governs all men’s thoughts and passions. In style
aphoristic, wisdom lies scattered in abandon in the pages of his books.” “A
root is a flower that disdains fame.” “Turtles can tell more about the road
than hares.” “Faith is an oasis in the heart that will never be reached by
the caravan of thinking,” all from his great work Sand and Foam which
Gibran called The Little Book of Sayings.
In 1931Gibran wrote The Earth Gods and the last line of the book is very
significant today when the world is torn with so much scorn and strife.
“And let love, human and frail, command the coming day.” Gibran
believed that there are individuals the world over who live in the “same
realm of consciousness” regardless of race or kin. Gibran was himself one
such great individual who wrote for everyone desirous of a spiritual
communion that gives meaning to life.
We are surrounded by too many persons who are willing to compromise
and temporise; we have in our midst far too many “boneless wonders.”
With such men, expediency is all. A man who has the courage never to
submit or yield is like a rock in the wilderness of shifting sands. In our
daily lives we will observe that nothing is so scarce as intellectual
integrity. A closer contact with the world will convince us that intellectual
integrity is a much rarer quality than financial integrity. The treason of the
intellectual consists in his not speaking out loud and clear for the values
that he, by his vision and the very nature of his personality, holds sacred.
What is needed is the resolute courage to stand up and be counted in
support of a view, which is not popular. Everyone finds it easy to swim
with the tide. The great scientist G.H. Hardy said, “It is never worth a first
class man’s time to express a majority opinion. By definition, there are
plenty of others to do that.”
There is no replacement for a sense of values. As Einstein observed, “It
is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively
feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of
the morally good. Otherwise he — with his specialised knowledge — more
closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed
person.” These are pregnant words. They do not exaggerate the
importance of sense of values in your future life.
Eckhort proclaims:
This man is known by five
signs First, he never
complains. Next, he never
makes excuses; when accused,
he leaves the facts to
vindicate him. Thirdly, there is
nothing he wants in earth or
heaven but what God wills
himself. Fourthly, he is
not moved in time. Fifthly,
he is never rejoiced : he is
joy itself.
Martin Luther King Jr’s description of a complete life is a synthesis of spiritualism
and compassion….
Life should be strong and complete on every note. Any complete life has three
dimensions, length, breadth and height.
The length of life is the inward drive to achieve one’s personal ends and ambitions,
an inward concern for one’s own welfare and achievements.
 The breadth of life is the outward concern for the welfare of others. The height of
life is the upward reach for God. Only by a painstaking development of all these
dimensions can you expect the life a complete life.
Let the strivings of us all prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct, when he
said that humanity could no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of
racism and war.
Let the efforts of us all prove that he was not a mere dreamer when he spoke of the
beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace being more precious than diamonds or
silver or gold.
“Truth” said Isaac Newton “is the offspring of silent and unbroken
meditation.” An arrogant person being a celebrity has no value. So an
ignorant person being innocent has no value. When intelligence and
innocence go together, a beauty dawns — very profound, very essential.
Today what our world needs is not intelligence. There is enough
intelligence in this country, in every country. What the world is missing is
innocence. The value of innocence is being destroyed. And that innocence
is egolessness, naturalness.
A little reflection shows that humility undoubtedly is a noble instinct and
is a desirable trait of character. But, here again, appearances can be
deceptive. Humility is neither timidity nor servility. True humility comes
from within and a fearless soul alone can be capable of true humility.”
“Humility” said Grouocho Marx, “is a strange thing. The moment you think
you’ve got it, you’ve lost it.”

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Phone: +91 – 712 – 2533006
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E-mail: moinqazi123@gmail.com