Sri Chinmoy:
The Peace Meditation at the United Nations

This is a most challenging question. Each person is competent to answer this lofty question according to his soul’s light. First, I wish to tell you what the United Nations is, according to my own inner light. The United Nations is humanity’s colossal hope. The United Nations is Divinity’s lofty promise. Hope needs assurance from Heaven’s soul. Promise needs receptivity from earth’s heart.

Let us take the United Nations as human being. Naturally, this human being has a body, a vital, a mind, a heart and a soul. The body of the United Nations is trying to serve humanity. The vital of the United Nations is striving to energise humanity. The mind of the United Nations is longing to inspire humanity. The heart the United Nations is crying to love humanity. Finally, the soul of the United Nations is flying to embrace humanity.

The United Nations as a whole wants to offer peace. Peace and the United Nations are inseparable. Now what is peace? Peace is a very, very complicated word when we live in the physical world or in the mental world. In the physical world, we see children all the time quarreling and fighting. They derive satisfaction from their fighting. This satisfaction is their peace. In the mental world, people are always doubting, suspecting, arguing and doing quite a few things that the spiritual world may not appreciate. Nevertheless, the mental world gets satisfaction from using its intellectual capacities, its doubt-weapons. This doubt and suspicion is the peace of the mental world. But there is also an inner world. In the inner world is self-giving, and self-giving is immediately followed by love-becoming, truth-becoming and perfection-becoming.

Peace does not mean the absence of war.

Outwardly two countries may not wage war, but if they inwardly treasure aggressive thoughts, hostile thoughts, that is as good as war.

Peace means the presence of harmony, love, satisfaction and oneness.

Peace means a flood of love in the world family.

Peace means the unity of the universal heart and the oneness of the universal soul.

To me, the United Nations is great. Why?

Because it has high principles.

To me, the United Nations is good. Why?

Because it leaves no stone unturned to transform these principles into living realities.

To me, the United Nations is divine. Why?

Because it is the fond child of the Supreme dedicated to promoting world peace.

The world may notice a yawning gulf between the principles of the United Nations and the realities of the world. But the world must remember that in the transformation of principles into realities, time is a great factor. The world is old, and it has old ideas, old idiosyncrasies, old propensities. The United Nations is young, very young. Nevertheless, if we go deep within we can easily observe how many things have been accomplished in the brief twenty-nine years of the United Nations’ existence. For the first thirteen years of our human life, we consciously or unconsciously wallowed in the pleasures of ignorance without even trying to live a better life, a higher life, a more fulfilling life. In order to live a higher life, an illumining life, a life that perfects and fulfils us, we need a great length of time.

We expect everything from the United Nations child, but we forget that the child has to grow. If we nourish the child, encourage the child and appreciate him for what he already has offered, only then will the progress of the child be satisfactory. If we place a very heavy load on the child’s shoulders while he is still small and weak, whose fault is it if he cannot carry it? It is our fault. The child may think that he can carry the entire world on his shoulders, but the parents know that the child’s wish will be fulfilled and manifested only in the course of time.

Unfortunately, the world is a bad parent. The world’s pressures are attacking the United Nations, but the world’s appreciation is rarely seen or heard. The way the United Nations has become a victim to the world’s criticism is most deplorable. The world knows how to criticise, but the world does not know how to become one with the soul of the United Nations and see how hard its light is trying to come to the fore to establish a kingdom of Peace and Light on earth. The United Nations is trying to ameliorate the teeming afflictions that weigh so heavily on the world’s shoulders. It is trying so hard to cancel the world’s inequalities.

The United Nations sings one song:

the song that says it is love-power that will conquer the world.

No other power can conquer the world.

From this song we realise something more: when love-power conquers, the conquest is not for the expansion of influence, but for the illumination of existence.

The United Nations is the meeting place for the big brothers and the small brothers of the world. The big brothers are at times reluctant to share with the small brothers their capacities, their wisdom and their achievements. The little brothers at times want to grab the capacities, wisdom-light and achievements of the big brothers without, working for them. When the younger brother sees that his older brother has got his Master’s degree, he too wants to get a Master’s degree. His wishful thinking far transcends his reality’s capacity. But if the big brother offers a little bit of light from his abundant light to the little brother, the little brother feels that he has gained world-knowledge all at once.

The big brother wants only one thing: satisfaction. The little brother also wants only one thing: satisfaction. Complete satisfaction dawns only when elder brother and younger brother smile simultaneously. If I smile because of my possession and you cannot smile because of your lack of achievement, I will have no real satisfaction. The smiles must be reciprocal, universal. The need of the younger brother and the abundant capacity of the older brother can be amalgamated. When they are united, both can together smile.

The younger brother wants nothing but acceptance; the older brother wants nothing but self-transcendence. Acceptance and self-transcendence are the prerequisites of action and perfection. Action means acceptance of the world, no matter how weak or insufficient it is, for its present and future transformation. Perfection means constant transcendence of today’s achievement by means of self-giving. Self-giving is immediately followed by self-transcendence, and in self-transcendence only do we get the message of perfection.

People say the United Nations is imperfect. I wish to ask them what organisation on earth is perfect. They say the United Nations has not fulfilled human needs. I say we have not given full opportunity, not to speak of full authority, to the United Nations to do the needful.

Imperfection is the fate of human organisations until divinity reigns supreme within them. There is no organisation which is totally perfect. But there are organisations which, knowing perfectly well they are imperfect, still pretend to be perfect. There are also human beings who know perfectly well that they are imperfect, but do not want to lift one finger to achieve perfection. Again, there are organisations and human beings that cry for perfection and work for perfection, for they know it is only perfection that can bring satisfaction. Without the least possible hesitation we can say that the heart of the United Nations is crying for perfection. In the inner world, the entire being of the United Nations is crying for perfection. But perfection is not a one-man game. It is a collective game that is played by all men. The capacities of all human beings have to be offered, as well as the capacities of all those who work for the United Nations.

Fifty-four years ago Woodrow Wilson and others had a lofty, sublime, supernal vision: a world united and at peace. The United Nations is trying to transform that vision into reality. Let us consider the vision as the height of Mount Everest, while the present reality is the foot of Mount Everest. We are now still at the foot of the mountain, but if we go deep within we will see that we have definitely climbed up a few metres, although we know how difficult it is to climb all the way to the top. Slowly and steadily the soul of the United Nations is offering its light to the body of the United Nations, which is the world, so that it can reach the height of the lofty vision seen fifty-four years ago. This vision cannot and will not always remain a vision, because inside the vision itself is reality. We can see the face of reality in four hundred years or in one hundred years or in fifty years or in ten years, depending on what the world sees and feels in the heart of the United Nations on the strength of its identification. And this identification can be achieved only if we live inside the soul.

Peace, freedom, progress, perfection— these are the four rungs of the cosmic ladder which the United Nations has perfectly housed in the unseen recesses of its heart. Peace we achieve when we do not expect anything from the world, but only give, give and give unconditionally what we have and what we are. Freedom we achieve only when we live in the soul’s light. If we live in the light of the soul, if we can swim in the light of the soul’s sea, immediately we grow into and achieve the true inner freedom. Progress we achieve by our self-expansion. How do we expand ourselves? We expand ourselves only by offering our inner concern, which comes directly from the very depths of our heart. Perfection we achieve only when we see the One in the many and the many in the One. When we see the One in the many, we have to feel that Silence-reality is holding the entire cosmos. When we see the many in the One, we have to feel that Sound-reality is nourishing the entire cosmos. Silence-reality is the soul and Sound-reality is the body of the United Nations. From the body of the United Nations we get the message of union. From the soul of the United Nations we get the message of perfection.

If we want to know what the United Nations is really doing for humanity, each one of us has to ask himself or herself the same questions, for each of us represents humanity. Are we really seeing the bright side of the United Nations? Are we sincerely working for the fulfilment of the vision of the United Nations? Are we wholeheartedly trying to become one with the struggles of the United Nations? Are we deeply concerned about the United Nations and its role in the world community? If we can answer all these questions in the affirmative, then the soul of the United Nations is bound to reveal to us what it has already done for mankind, what it is doing for mankind and what it will be doing for mankind. What has it done? It has brought down the message of promise from the highest in Heaven. What is it doing? It is proclaiming this promise to the length and breadth of the world. What will it be doing? It will be manifesting this promise not only in and through the seekers after truth, light and perfection, but also in those who deliberately deny the potentialities, the capacities and the soul-realities of the United Nations.

The United Nations has a big heart. Irrespective of human attainment, irrespective of human assessment, it will offer its nectar-drink to each human being on earth. Its soul’s offering will be felt first in the soul’s world, the inner world. Then it will be seen in the outer world. Finally, it will be accepted wholeheartedly by the entire world. And in its acceptance of this undeniable truth-reality, humanity will move one step higher on the ladder of divine manifestation and divine earthly perfection.

– Sri Chinmoy, Conference Room 14, UN , NY on May 31, 1974