INTRODUCTION official source: Universal Humanism cross-references: none this version: is the printed Universal Humanism, 1st edition, version (spelling mistakes only may have been corrected). I.e., this is the most up-to-date version as of the present Electronic Edition. Words in square brackets [ ] are corrections that did not appear in the printed version. This book comprises a selection of articles - generally transcribed lectures - of P. R. Sarkar, published over more than twenty years. In 1955 P. R. Sarkar founded Ananda Marga, a spiritual and social service organization which spread world-wide in the 1970's. Based on a blending of the spiritual practices of Tantra Yoga and social welfare ideals, Ananda Marga teaches meditation and various yoga practices, as well as running schools, homes and a wide range of social welfare projects. In 1959, Sarkar, who is also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, extended the scope of Ananda Marga philosophy to encompass certain socio-economic principles, which have become known as Prout - an acronym for Progressive Utilization Theory. This theory blends spiritual with socialistic idealism - a formula familiar in Eastern India, where prominent nationalists such as Vivekananda and Subhas Chandra Bose also made use of the present Ananda Marga slogan - `Liberation of Self and Service to Humanity'. Prout is the social side of a total philosophy that blends concepts of spiritual and social liberation. The adoption of social activism by a spiritual organization created controversy in India, and attempts were made to suppress both Ananda Marga and Prout. The Central Indian Government made several unsuccessful attempts to ban members of Ananda Marga from employment in the public service, and Sarkar himself was falsely accused of various crimes and gaoled for nearly seven years. The courts finally rejected the charges against him and released him in 1978. Meanwhile, in 1977 and international organization called Proutist Universal (PU) was launched with its headquarters in Copenhagen. The aims of PU are to propagate the ideals of Prout and to support social movements with similar ideals. The articles that form the various chapters of this book came from a variety of publication, usually the English translations of earlier Bengali editions. The editors have shortened some of these articles and made some minimal corrections of grammar and syntax to the original translations. In the editing process, as few non-English words as possible have been retained. But there are some that have no simple English equivalents and are central to Prout concepts. The two most important of these are `Dharma' - which means the essential inner nature or orientation of an entity - and `Sadvipra' - which has been translated as `spiritual revolutionary' but literally means a person with complete moral and intellectual development. The earliest English edition book was Problem of the Day (1959), from which chapters twelve, thirteen, fifteen and sixteen are taken. This book is the transcript of an inaugural address to the Renaissance Universal (RU) Club. Chapter two comes from the RU magazine Cosmic Society and chapters three, five and nineteen from assorted PU magazines, none having yet been published in book form. Chapter one is taken from the first chapter of Ananda Marga - Elementary Philosophy; chapters six and seventeen from Idea and Ideology; chapters eleven and fourteen from Abhimata - The Opinion; chapters four, eight, nine and ten from The Human Society Part I; chapter eighteen from The Human Society Part II; and chapter twenty is from Ananda Sutram, the seminal work on Ananda Marga philosophy and of which Prout forms the fifth chapter. All these books are English translations published by Ananda Marga in West Bengal in the 1960's and early 1970's. More recent contributions are the second section of chapter eight, which comes from a 1981 address to Proutists on women's rights, and chapter seven, which is taken from the first chapter of New-Humanism - The Liberation of Intellect, published in Calcutta in 1982. In this latest work on `Neo-Humanism', Sarkar give a new perspective to the integration of theories of social and spiritual liberation. He described the development of the embryonic spiritual longing in human beings - `proto-psycho-spirituality' as essential to materializing the `principle of social equality' - the vision of society moving and progressing in unison. He stresses the importance of consistency between the internal and external rhythms of life, describing the process of expanding each form of human ideology or `sentiment' until they match the magnanimity of neo-humanism. Neo-humanism he describes as the sentiment which fully unites spiritual with social idealism. While humanism is broader than geo-centric, cultural or socio-centric sentiments or ideologies, neo-humanism is the state in which "the underlying spirit of humanism is extended to everything, animate or inanimate, in this universe". It will "elevate humanism to universalism, the cult of love for all created beings of this universe". Thus neo-humanism could also be termed spiritual or universal humanism, a concept which underlies Prout's progressive socialism. It is hoped that the articles in this book will stimulate further interest in Prout and encourage further study of P. R. Sarkar's philosophy. We can do no better in introducing the book than to repeat Sarkar's dedication to his work on neo-humanism. To those who think for all Who offer others seats of honor and respect Who venerate others, instead of [waiting] to be venerated To them I dedicate this book with humble esteem and deepest salutations.