Hope for a Better World!: The Cooperative Community Way

by Kriyananda

Walters analyzes with deep insight the views expressed by many of the great thinkers in the West.He studies their conceptions and misconceptions about the individuals relation to himself and tosociety, shows where their influence has proved adverse, and then offers fresh alternatives.In the final chapter Walters describes how cooperative communities can encourage a commonsenseway of life and inspire people to fulfill their own higher potential.

257 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

See also: J. Donald Walters

Kriyananda (born James Donald Walters; May 19, 1926, Azuga – April 21, 2013, Assisi) was a direct disciple of the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, and the founder of the Ananda, a worldwide movement of spiritual intentional communities based on Yogananda's World Brotherhood Colonies ideal. Yogananda made Walters a minister for his organization, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF).

Reviews

[Jack B]

If any of my political buddies wonder what happened to my activist zeal, it died. Why did it die? I realized I was beating my head against a wall trying to convince masses of people to learn to live in harmony (many of them aren`t interested right now!). Walters wrote this book to help people, and this book helped me give up my addiction to affecting change through any mass political movement. This brilliant book surveys some of the greatest thinkers of western civilization and puts their work in context, asking the question "does this idea applied make a better world?" Some of the thinkers surveyed include Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Adam Smith. I would say that the author makes a convincing case that beneficial changes to society begin with the individual and small groups of like-minded people (e.g., groups of artists in 15th century Florence, Italy). Also given is a devastating critique of 20th century Communism--theory and applied--and Walters shows how hypocritally it was applied. Interestingly enough, the author is a proponent of socialism, but of voluntary socialism on a small scale, a very important difference in approach to the idea.