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EXCERPTS FROM SGI PRESIDENT IKEDA'S MESSAGE TO THE GANDHI, KING, IKEDA
COMMUNITY BUILDERS PRIZE CEREMONY
Pave The Way Toward a New Culture of Peace
What was it that enabled Mahatma Gandhi
and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
to maintain such undaunted strength, such profound faith, at all times
and in all circumstances? I believe the answer can be found in the cosmic,
universal scale of their religious convictions, the faith in which their
lives were rooted and framed.
Unfettered by any narrow nationalist or sectarian concerns, both Dr. King
and Mahatma Gandhi saw each of the world's inhabitants as fellow citizens
equally lit by the inner brilliance of life. And they believed that our
highest duty and responsibility is to be loyal to the voice of conscience
that issues forth from the deepest reaches of each of us.
It is well known that when Gandhi translated John Rus-kin's work Unto
This Last, he titled it Sarvodava-"the happiness of all." I
believe this expressed his knowledge that, so long as there is even one
person suffering, one person shackled in misery, none of us can be fully,
truly happy. Without action inspired from within, by a spontaneous spirit
welling forth from within, we cannot create the kind of society and world
where the full enjoyment of human rights is a reality for all.
I firmly believe that a renewal of the human spirit, energized by this
kind of religious conviction, must be the driving force for efforts to
bring forth a new era of human rights.
It is vital that we establish clear ethical guidelines for human rights.
But if these remain mere unembodied principles or externally imposed rules,
in the end we will fail to expose and counter the root causes of discrimination
and oppression.
I am convinced that the most effective forms of action are those based
on a profound inner awareness of how we want to live our lives-how we
must live our lives if we are to be true to ourselves. In the end, only
efforts to confront social ills that arise from a total personal commitment
will move the hearts of others and give rise to a movement capable of
transforming the course of history.
The struggle waged by Soka Gakkai founding president, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi,
and second president, Josei Toda, is the inspiration for the SGI's peace
movement. Their struggle was based on a profound commitment, rooted in
their Buddhist faith, to work for the rights, happiness and freedom of
all people.
Makiguchi and Toda held high the banner of justice and humanity as they
confronted head-on Japan's militaristic fascism, which was tightening
its policies of domestic suppression-trampling underfoot citizens' inalienable
rights-even as it carried out acts of aggression and unspeakable atrocity
against Japan's neighbors. In the confines of his prison cell, Makiguchi
remained utterly faithful to his beliefs to the moment of his death. Toda
resisted and survived two years of confinement.
My own commitment to engage in dialogue with the world's people, to create
a society that rejects war and violence in all forms, likewise grows from
the inexhaustible inspiration I derive from the example of my predecessors.
To make the 21st century into a century of life, to create a new current
of history, requires a clear guiding philosophy. "All life is interrelated.
We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a
single garment of destiny"-this was the inner voice that arose within
Dr. King as an unwavering conviction over the course of his travels to
India to study Gandhi's nonviolence movement.
April 8, 2001
Daisaku Ikeda
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