Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

FIFTH TALK 83

certain points in which your race is superior to the
others, but you will find others in which they are
superior to yolfrs, if you look for them. Therefore,
as I say, pride of race is very often* a foolish
pride. You are there not because you possess
all the best qualities, but because you need them.
Do you not see ? You may be glad to belong to a
certain race ; yes, but let that enjoyment be tempered
by the knowledge that in your last incarnation you
belonged to some other, and in your next incarnation
also you will certainly belong to some other. There-
fore your permanent relation is that of a citizen of
the world, and not of any particular race.

Patriotism is good just as family love is good ; but
in all these relations you must remember that there
are temporary and that there are wider things, and
so, whilst you must take what is good in them, you
must not let yourself carry them to such extreme as
to put evil in the place of good.

Truly family affection is a very good thing, but
the family affection of the robber barons of the Middle
Ages, which led them to murder other people for the
sake of enriching their own families, was certainly a
virtue carried to an excess and become a vice.

Now iq exactly the same way your patriotism for a
particular race is a good thing, but if it leads you
into aggression against other races, not the patriotism,
but the method of its expression, becomes a bad thing.
Merely to be proud of belonging to a race,^-well, it