Wherever we look in the four kingdoms of Nature, we find that she is perpetually striving to achieve diversity. She rejects and abhors a monotonous uniformity. And if we restrict our gaze to the human kingdom, we find that the differences in thought and the divergencies in feeling are the expressions not only of variations in evolutionary growth, but also of this innate striving of Nature herself.
We live in a world where every entity is formed as an individual one. Each is unique. If people have different ideas about the same thing, this is the inevitable result of the differences in their own capacities and perceptions. Why, then, should they not be themselves and therefore different?
It is useless to regret the unavoidable, to pine for the unattainable, and to strive for the undesirable. We should not waste time seeking for unity of thought or creating unity of outlook. These aims are unfeasible; these endeavours are impracticable. Even amongst the very proponents of unity, unity--whether of association or doctrine--has been non-existent. During the course of their short history, they have periodically separated themselves into factions under rival leaders. The ladder of incarnated life stretches all the way through progressively different levels of intelligence and character. It is to be expected, therefore, that there should be inequality, disagreement, and disunity. Men can arrive at the same views when they arrive at the same standpoint, when they all attain an identical level. But this is prevented from happening by the ever-active operations of re-embodiment which, by the special influences brought to bear upon particular groups and by evolution, which admits new entrants to the human kingdom and lets out old inhabitants, differentiate their various evolutionary stages, environments and conditions. A monotonous uniformity of thought and solidarity of aspiration--could they ever be obtained--would be signs of totalitarian compulsion, intellectual paralysis, or moral inactivity. They would not be a social advance, but a social calamity. What is the use of pursuing such an artificial ideal?
It is impossible for all the men and women in the world to think and feel alike. What is repugnantly intricate to one is fascinating and intriguing to another. Consequently it is impossible to persuade them to accept a single ideal, a single religion, a single metaphysic, or a single form of mysticism. This planet is not a nursing ground for the mass production of souls. Each human being represents a divine thought and is consequently working out a divine end. He may be a mere thought of God, but he is nevertheless an important thought to God. We are individuals and have each an individual purpose to fulfil even though the One abides in us all. It is better to be more realistic and less ambitious than to play Don Quixote and tilt at windmills.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 1 : Origin, Purpose of Religions > # 198
