Sri Chinmoy:
The Peace Meditation at the United Nations

The United Nations is the seed. World union is the fruit.

Both are equally important; both are of supreme importance.

God-Vision embodies the seed. God-Reality reveals the fruit.

The United Nations is the morning. World union is the day.

When the heart of the morning is flooded with inner light, divine light, the Light of God, then it is not only possible but almost certain that the entire day will be flooded with light. On very, very rare occasions we see otherwise. But most of the time morning shows the day. The United Nations tells us where truth is. World union tells us what truth is. Where is truth? Truth is in self-giving. What is truth? Truth is man’s transformation of his earth-bound nature.

The United Nations is a group of pilgrims on a journey. As the pilgrims walk along the path of light toward the same destination, they feel mutual appreciation. From appreciation they go one step ahead to love. From appreciation comes love and from love comes oneness. Oneness is the perfection of man in God and the satisfaction of God in man. He who is a true member of the United Nations treasures a shared life in a shared world.

A divided mind and a separated heart cannot quench the inner thirst either of the United Nations or of the world. We must cultivate a new type of reality, a new type of truth. This truth is creative, illumining and fulfilling. This truth must awaken the dormant physical in us, marshal the unruly vital in us, illumine the doubtful and suspicious mind in us and strengthen and immortalise the insecure heart in us. This truth is world union.

Each individual must dive deep within and discover his pent-up reservoir of dynamic energy. This energy has to be released so that the human mind can enter into the universal Mind, so that the human heart can enter into the eternal Heart and so that the human life can enter into the Life immortal.

Both the United Nations and the world have a special type of faith. This faith is evolutionary. It evolves from within to without, it evolves from unity to multiplicity and it evolves from multiplicity into the transcendental Reality.

The United Nations and world union have an evolutionary faith and a revolutionary life. This revolutionary life wants to challenge the untold poverty and teeming ignorance of the world. The golden day is bound to dawn when this world of ours will be totally freed from poverty. But the outer poverty can be transformed only when the inner poverty is removed. Inner poverty is our lack of faith in our divine reality, our lack of faith in our capacity to realise the ultimate Truth. Unless and until we have put an end to our inner poverty, the problem of the outer poverty cannot be solved.

Inner poverty is disharmony and restlessness; inner plenitude is peace, harmony and love. For the lover of the United Nations and world union, the watchword must needs always be peace. Peace is found in self-giving and in our recognition of others’ good and divine qualities. The more we see the divine qualities in others, the sooner we will establish world peace.

Each nation has the strength and willpower of the Absolute. Each nation has the golden opportunity in the inner world to offer to the outer world a living hope and a living promise. This hope and this promise are not a mental hallucination or a false aggrandisement of ego. They are an inner reality that the nation can easily bring to the fore. In the inner world all the nations are equally important, for in the inner world each nation has a free access to world peace, world light, world harmony and world perfection. But in the outer life the nations that consciously aspire and cry for light are in a position to help the less advanced nations that are walking behind.

In the evolutionary process of human life, the first rung of the ladder is the United Nations, the second rung is world union and the third rung is man’s total and perfect Perfection. But if we do not place our foot on the first rung and then on the second, it will be simply impossible for us to climb up to the Highest.

Each nation is a promise of God for God Himself. What we call world union today has to be surpassed tomorrow by something else, and that something else is world perfection. Union as such is not enough; the perfection of union is what we actually want. We may stay in a family even if we quarrel, fight and kill one another. But only if we can establish the sweetest feeling of oneness, does our union reach the acme of perfection.

18 October 1974, Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium