The greater part of the tension and violence that exists between people in today's society is the result of a self-imposed blindness to the common spiritual unity that we all share. This unity is a powerful bond between individuals, a oneness of mind, about which we have all but forgotten. Instead we invent differences between one another, then struggle to deny they are there. We fabricate social categories, then proclaim everyone equal. In the United States there has been for some years now the practice of Political Correctness, through which our society has tried desperately to convince itself that we are all culturally enlightened, believing deeply in the inalienable equality of all people. We pretend that racism has been eradicated, that prejudice is only a distant memory of times long passed. This lie that we tell ourselves does much more harm than good, because we cannot deal with a problem whose very existence we collectively deny. Most people, I'm sure, would tell you that they are not prejudiced, that they treat others fairly, and that racism may exist, perhaps, but only in some distant, rural corner of the country. Yet how many of these very people would be truly content if their son or daughter wanted to marry someone of a different race, religion or ethnic background? Surely, very few. This is the root cause of our problem, the greatest obstacle to unity in our society, whether it be at the local or the global level. It is a subtle form of self-denial, but it is so dangerous and insidious that it destabilizes our entire planet. Until we recognize that it is just not acceptable to pre-judge and categorize people, we can never achieve a truly harmonious state of unity in our society. As long as we continue to separate ourselves from each other, to reinforce these old categories and bigotries, conflict can never cease. Of course there are real differences between people, but these characteristics are secondary to our identity. As long as we define people by these differences, we miss the point. This person may be a Christian, that person may be black, and that other may follow the path of the Buddha. But those are not defining points, merely descriptions, and we too often confuse "what we do" or "what we look like" for "who we are." Beyond all of those descriptions lies a human being, and in that fact we may find our ultimate common bond. We must become one people, truly, in our hearts. We must realize that this smooth unity across nations and cultures is our only hope for a stable, peaceful future. The path to such unity is the cultivation of compassion, through which we may see the commonality inherent in all peoples, and realize that in this spiritual unity lies the path to harmony.
      For support of this concept we can look to the grounded truths of physics, in which entropy and chaos can form admirable goals for society. We've learned to think of chaos as an undesirable thing, because our society has come to equate chaos with disorder and lawlessness, but when I refer to chaos I'm referring to the dissolution of harmful, artificial order. For example, a concentration of particles injected into one corner of a container of water will tend to diffuse itself throughout the entire container. The initial concentration of particles is an example of artificial order, and the action that follows shows the universal tendency toward entropy and harmony. The same dispersal must happen within our own social structure. Artificial order in society is the imposed standard that categorizes individuals, nations, religions, etc., thus separating human beings into disparate groups, when in reality such separations are abjectly false. They are false because ultimately we are all brothers and sisters in Humanity, and all other differences are secondary and insignificant in comparison to our powerful genetic and spiritual kinship. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all systems will move from a state of greater order toward a state of lesser order. This transition continues until the system reaches its maximum level of disorder, at which point it will be at rest. By using entropy and chaos as examples of societal ideals I am not saying that the world will, or should, move toward disorder in a social or legislative sense. I mean that the artificial distribution of wealth, and therefore of education, comfort, technology, etc., should not be so unevenly accumulated in a few prosperous nations. These commodities must be allowed to spread and disperse across the globe until a stable, even harmony is achieved. When we eliminate the artificial order and false categorizations, ultimately we can achieve harmony, and through that harmony we may finally attain unity in our world society.
      The order that we observe in the universal structure is an artificial and temporary state caused by the rapid expansion of the early universe. In the beginning, all universal elements were in a state of dense yet unified harmony until the explosion and expansion of the early universe instilled a kinetic energy in all matter that created the behavior we see today. Entropy describes the relaxation of these vast energies, a final return to universal harmony. Human society is going through a similar expansion, and such giant societal systems as the United States and Europe, for example, represent the highest points of order on the planet. By this I mean that these regions are highly structured and possess or control the lion's share of wealth and resources on the planet. They stand high atop a pedestal-- a vulnerable position indeed. Underdeveloped areas such as Africa and much of the Middle East and Asia are pockets of chaos and disorder that will ultimately be very destabilizing to the economically dominant nations. Issues endemic to these regions such as poverty, poor health and lack of education create a rich soil for anger and discontent to grow, making them socially unstable and therefore a potential threat to the status quo enjoyed by the more prosperous nations. This threat to the higher points of order in the world will undoubtedly continue until the levels of economic and cultural influence become more evenly distributed throughout the globe, more closely emulating that entropic state of harmony previously discussed. Now, we can wait until this process occurs "naturally," through conflict, upheaval and violence, or we can use our influence and our wealth to actively help bring these regions closer to the world standard. Even if we do not act out of compassion and altruism, we must realize that such aid will help our own cause in the long run. It will make our nation safer, more stable, and better respected in the world community. It will transform the landscape of global politics and culture from a jagged map of precarious peaks and canyons to a flowing, peaceful valley of unity and equality.
      To believe the arrogant declaration that any single nation or group rules by its own divine right is a dangerous illusion. The United States, for example, stands precariously atop a peak of its own creation. It is strong, yes, and wealthy, but the more it accumulates these things, the more enemies it fosters, and the more instability will exist in the political dynamic of the world. The great Taoist sage Lao Tzu wisely pointed out that it is not desirable to always be the first or the best, because there will be too many behind you trying to topple you from your position of dominance. We enjoy many comforts and securities in this country that are rare or unknown in many parts of the world, and as those disenfranchised populations increasingly realize this they will naturally want to enjoy the same comforts we do. This is reasonable and we should not begrudge them this. By helping them to improve their societies, we are not only doing the compassionate thing, we are also making our own position safer by leveling the playing field. Such dangerous behaviors as religious extremism and fanatical nationalism usually fester where local conditions are poor and the population is dissatisfied. If we help to eliminate these conditions, we can help to make the world safer for everyone.
      In the same way, by helping the disenfranchised in our own country we can create a stable, unified society. We also suffer from these false and damaging categorizations when we classify people as white or black, as Christian, Moslem, or Jew, rich or poor, pious or heathen. All of these are ways of psychologically boosting ourselves above those around us. It is a cruel exercise of the ego through which we make ourselves feel better by belittling or dismissing others. This tendency is a holdover from our evolutionary history when the simple brutality of being on top meant you were most likely to survive, and therefore procreate to spread your genes far and wide. With the intricate human ego at play, though, the situations and behaviors become far more layered and intricate, thus harder to analyze with any satisfying degree of finality. But ultimately, when we disparage this group or that, when we tell racist jokes, when we mock or criticize an entire foreign culture, what we are doing is reverting to ancient, animalistic tendencies that spur us to be, or to appear to be, the best, the strongest, the smartest-- or at least to belong to the group that we believe possesses those qualities.
      To successfully achieve this desired state of unity we need to discard the old ways of thinking about people, the ethnocentrist view that "my culture is better than your culture." For "culture" you can easily fill in such words as "nation" or "family" or "self" and see that it is all just chest-pounding in the jungle. We need to truly realize the innate equality among peoples, that our differences are secondary to our similarities. His Holiness the Dalai Lama tells us that all people are equal in their desire for happiness and in their need for compassion. Why, then, would we deny such things of others simply because we deem them different from ourselves? Why is it so difficult for us to put ourselves into the shoes of others and realize that they have the same spiritual core that we do, the same needs and insecurities? We must learn to sympathize and to ask ourselves what we would feel like if we were treated in such an unjust manner as we often treat others, how we, too, would develop feelings of outrage and indignation, would feel ostracized and excluded, might even resort to desperate and violent measures to try to attain whatever we viewed as justice. It is a matter of sympathy and compassion, and this can only come from the understanding that we are all the same under the skin.
      Just as, on the global scale, only the large, more influential groups are adequately represented on the world stage, within our society it is mostly the large, overarching majority that is culturally represented, with everything else considered fringe at best. If such primary aspects of our culture as economics, employment, art, and literature, among others, dealt with all groups equally, then the very definition of those groups would begin to dissipate. Instead of white, black or whatever, we would all simply be people, equal in every way. But how do we achieve this? We can work toward this important goal by honestly analyzing our own thoughts, our own behavior, and asking whether they are based on sympathy and compassion for others or on selfish, defensive insecurities. We must ask ourselves "Would I like to be thought of and treated the way that I think of and treat others?" If not, then there is something wrong with how we view and interact with the world. It is our grave individual responsibility to behave in a manner that benefits humankind as a whole, and only by taking this responsibility seriously can it ever set the standard for our behavior. We must stimulate our sense of sympathy through continuous self-analysis, and develop our compassion through analysis of the suffering of others.
      In this way we may one day achieve true and harmonious unity in our society and across the world. There is nothing more important, nothing more crucial to our future, than this. But nations and their leaders will not go where the people do not push. Before these kinds of changes can occur on the world stage we must implement them in our own hearts, in our own neighborhoods. Before we can achieve unity as a planet, as a nation, as a society, we must bring spiritual unity into our own hearts, so that when we encounter discord and injustice in the world around us, we will be ready--even eager-- to correct it.