Sri Chinmoy:
The Peace Meditation at the United Nations

The meditation group celebrated its tenth year of inner and outer service to the United Nations community on 14 April 1980 with a programme of music and meditation) followed by an anniversary luncheon.

At the first ceremony, held in the Chapel of the Church Center for the United Nations, members of the meditation group thanked Sri Chinmoy for his decade at the UN. of tireless work for world peace, since … 1970.

At the luncheon, Ambassador Illueca of Panama, Ambassador Hepburn of the Bahamas and Ambassador Rossides of Cyprus) as well as Mr. Ghandikota V. Subba Rao, Senior Officer of the Energy Unit of DIESA, and Mr. Donald Keys of Planetary Citizens, spoke about the importance of meditation in relation to the work of the UN. …. Following are excerpts from both programmes. (excerpt from June 1980 issue of “Meditation at the UN”

---

Ceremony in the Chapel After the programme of music and meditation, Mr. Donald Keys, President of Planetary Citizens, spoke and Mr. Kwadwo Ofosu-Benefo of DIESA presented Sri Chinmoy with a u.N. Flag. Mr. Anselmo Evans then offered Sri Chinmoy flowers on behalf of the group.

Mr. Donald Keys, President of Planetary Citizens: Sri Chinmoy, members of the meditation group, friends, the United Nations is thirty-five years old this year. This unprecedented mission of Sri Chinmoy is ten years old-nearly one third of the life of the United Nations. The world may know it not, or perhaps someday the world will treasure and understand what has occurred here in this continuous act of divine intercession on behalf of the soul of the United Nations and through the United Nations on behalf of the soul of humanity. 15 This continuous and unstinting act of divine grace has given us to understand more deeply the meaning of peace, the meaning of harmony, the meaning of unity, of oneness and love . It remains for us to appeal and to pray, dear and beloved Sri Chinmoy, that He who has sent you and whose divine emanation you are , may allow you to be with us for yet another decade, for the benefit of humanity, of which we are a part, and that we may continue to play this act in the divine Lila in which our years are set.

Mr. Kwadwo Ofosu-Benefo, General Analysis and Policies Division (DIESA) United Nations: Dear Sri Chinmoy, on behalf of the meditation group I am very happy to present you with this U.N. flag . This gift to you is symbolic of your dedication to world peace, harmony and oneness of the human family. We are deeply privileged to be associated with you in your divine mission. We thank you so much for dedicating your life to serving humanity at large and the United Nations here in New York, as well as your centres throughout the world.

---

Anniversary Luncheon

Below are highlights of the anniversary luncheon, which the meditation group offered in gratitude for the participation and support of its friends in the United Nations community over the past ten years.

---

H.E. Dr. Jorge E. Illueca, Permanent Representative of Panama to the United Nations :

Honourable Sri Chinmoy, distinguished members and friends of Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations, we gather today on the happy occasion of the tenth anniversary of Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations to pay a tribute of recognition to the outstanding service rendered by this group to the United Nations ideals and aspirations.

We all realize that, according to the Charter of the United Nations, the main purpose of this world organisation is to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in order to assure to all peoples the right to self-determination, the promotion of their own national and cultural development in their own way and the respect of fundamental human rights and freedoms . .

The greatest religions of mankind proclaim that man contains something independent of the flesh and his basic survival: his consciousness and moral capacities, his essential personality – the soul. In the daily struggle between power and liberty, at the level of individuals or at the level of nations, we must find a democratic balance that can only be obtained through this beautiful worship of the human soul, practised by Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations.

International peace and security can only endure in a United Nations system based on the principles of justice and international law. Mankind needs more people with noble thoughts such as those men and women that form Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations. They are always spreading feelings of unity, completeness and spiritual satisfaction.

They honour the old proverb that “you can only make others better by being good yourself.” They are good and they have made us better.

They believe, as so well stated by a great American, “that prayer is the peace of our spirit and stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of our recollections, the sea of our meditation, the rest of our cares and the calm of our tempest.”*

In its tenth anniversary, we offer our best wishes to Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations.

*Prayer from Jeremy Taylor  -1879

---

H.E. Mr. Davidson L. Hepburn, Permanent Representative of the Bahamas to the United Nations:

Thank you Mr. Master of Ceremonies. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, today I am indeed honoured to be here once again with the Sri Chinmoy meditation group. I must admit that when I got up this morning, I certainly was not feeling very well and I thought I could not possibly attend the luncheon today. But the moment I came into the room and I began to talk with a few people here,

I felt a sense of peace, a sense of calmness that I think one normally does not get during the hectic days of working at the United Nations. And I am sure this came from the kind of presence that we have in this room today. Over and over again people ask me, “Do you think that the United Nations is serving a function in our world?” and sometimes it is difficult to answer this question.

But I often say that without the United Nations we would probably have greater problems. The decade of the seventies was a very difficult one. We had problems, we had trials, we had tribulations, we had all kinds of difficulties everywhere. But I think the United Nations kept a kind of balance. Having the United Nations to talk about peace, whether or not we were able to see it in any tangible form, certainly helped to make nations feel that it was necessary to work much more closely together.

In the decade of the eighties I hope that we can continue to build on the kind of example that has been set in the United Nations and that we will be able to sift through the rhetoric – if one might call it such – and find the good things that come out of what is being done at the United Nations, and then try to use them towards bringing about a much more peaceful and stable world.

I am sure that with a group like this one here and the kind of challenge and impetus that you give to us at the United Nations, we certainly can help to make it a much better place to be. I am very thankful for having met the members of the the meditation group .

I cannot attend the meditations on a regular basis, but I think that the calm that I see on some of your faces must filter through to me by something like osmosis. I congratulate you for the work that you are doing and I especially congratulate your leader, who has been, I think, very instrumental in keeping the United Nations on a very firm footing.

Thank you for having me here today.

H.E. Mr. Zenon Rossides, Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the United Nations (emeritus):

Sri Chinmoy, Excellencies and friends, it is a deep pleasure for me to attend this meeting as I have attended previous ones because I feel very deeply in my heart that this meditation group, apart from cultivating the peace that comes from meditation, performs a very vital function of the United Nations. We are at a time when the intellect of man has become bankrupt and we need the spirit of man to get humanity out of the mess which the human intellect has created through the progress of science and technology. The more knowledge we have, the more sense of responsibility is demanded from us. To have that sense of responsibility we need strengthened moral values within us to help us meet the challenges of an advanced technological world.

The intellect of man can go towards good or evil. It is more bent on evil in relation to technological progress because this progress has primarily been the result of the preparation for war. But the enemy now, in this nuclear age, is the nuclear weapon itself, threatening the whole of humanity with destruction. Guidance can only come from the spirit of man because this spirit is linked with the universal mind.

The spirit of man will always lead us in the right direction. Sri Chinmoy, in this ten years, has been working at the United Nations for peace through meditation, which means bringing forward the spiritual side of man. This is why I believe that we need more and more of Sri Chinmoy, and that Sri Chinmoy should be the official centre of meditation at the United Nations. I am reminded of a poem by T.S. Eliot where he says, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

We now have tremendous knowledge enabling us to travel into space and to create nuclear weapons that have grown in their destructive capacity. This is our knowledge, but where is the wisdom which we have lost because of this knowledge? And even this knowledge has been lost in the confusion created by a mass of information. In this unfortunate situation, the tides suddenly clear up the moment we turn to the spirit. When I think of the spirit of the United Nations, I herald the work of Sri Chinmoy, who embodies this spirit that we need.

I am very glad to see more and more attendance from distinguished Ambassadors and others working within the United Nations community because we want to have the spirit permeate all functions of life in New York Headquarters and everywhere. We must all work so that this meditation group can realise these important objectives in the United Nations. Thank you.

Mr. Ghandikota Subba Rao, Senior Officer, Energy Unit, DIESA, United Nations:

Sri Chinmoyji and friends, I am really privileged to be asked to pay a tribute to this group’s activities over the years. In the beginning I used to wonder what the United Nations had to do with meditation. Then, when I saw these faces every week gathering under the leadership of the personality of Sri Chinmoy who embodies the values of meditation – I was slowly but steadily drawn and attracted towards the group. I wondered more and more about the impact and the contribution that this group would make. Over the last few years I have come in touch with several of the members of the group and I have also been able to participate in a very small way in the proceedings of some of the group’s functions.

Meditation, that inner discipline which IS essential for the elevation of the mind, is a great gift. It is a great gift to us from the spiritual seers, from the sages of the past who have handed down through great scriptures-which are the heritage of all mankind-the methodology, the techniques and above all the animation and the direction and the guidance which we all need to practise meditation. We have to move from the grossest, to the grosser, to the subtler, to the subtlest and beyond the subtlest. And this movement from the external grossness to the inner delicacy of the enriched mind is, I think, the main contribution that meditation makes.

Those who practice it may seem , to some people, to be sitting with their eyes closed doing nothing, but I have no doubt that they are really recharging, as it were, the batteries of the world for peace, for harmony, for the evolution of mankind in the right direction. And this is an enrichment to the individual, to the environment and above all to the peace of mankind. We are so very happy today to again pay tribute to this group for having made us more aware of the potentialities of meditation, and above all to the leader of this group , who has given us the invaluable guidance which we all need in this path. Thank you very much.

Mr. Donald Keys, President of Planetary Citizens: Sri Chinmoy, Excellencies and friends, the United Nations is thirty-five years old this year, and this unprecedented mission of Sri Chinmoy and the meditation group is ten years old, which means that the meditation group and this mission have extended over nearly one third of the life of the United Nations. It is an historically unprecedented mission, for, among other things, the United Nations is unprecedented. As I was sitting here looking out the window, I saw a small bird hanging on for dear life in one of the usual gales of wind that we have on the U.N. Plaza. It reminded me how the United Nations is tossed in the winds of the world, maintaining itself through some inner stability, and how the work of Sri Chinmoy has made such a mighty contribution and continues to make such a mighty contribution to that inner stability.

From this work we have learned a great deal more and have received a great deal more of the energies of love, of unity, of harmony and of peace. They have become more available through this act of intercession for those of us who are trying to play our part, to make our contribution through the United Nations framework. This act of intercession has served the soul of the United Nations for a decade, and through the soul of the United Nations it has served humanity for a decade, in ways which have been so sensitively described by the excellencies who have preceded me here. It may be that the world will never be aware of or understand the significance of this ongoing act of grace, or it may be that some day the world will understand. Be that as it may, it remains for us to appeal and to pray that for yet another decade we may have with us in this role he who is present with us and ask that the Creator who sent him and whose emissary he is, may permit him to be with us yet another period of time in this difficult era in world history, this part of the divine Game, the divine Lila, in which our days are set. Thank you very much.

Distinguished guests greet Sri Chinmoy: (above) H.E. Nadarajah Balasubramaniam, Deputy Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations; (below) Mr. David M. Thomas, former Permanent Representative of Liberia to the United Nations,’

---

LETTERS Following are some of the letters the meditation group has recently received from ambassadors and officials of the United Nations, some in regard to the tenth anniversary celebrations. 28

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL 27 March 1980

Dear Sri Chinmoy , Thank you for your letter of 24 March 1980 and for the nice words you addressed to me. You may be sure that your support of my endeavours in the interests of peace and international co-operation and your commitment to the aims and ideals enshrined in the United Nations Charter are most appreciated.

I was very interested to learn that this year marks the tenth anniversary of the programmes which you have conducted for United Nations delegates and staff. I should like to take this opportunity to wish you and the members of the Meditation Group all the best for the years to come.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely, Kurt Waldheim

To:  Sri Chinmoy New York

---

---

Note received from Ambassador Davidson Hepbum of the Bahamas

---

PDF format of report in periodic Bulletin : “Meditation at the United Nations” Jun 1980

 June 1980 issue of “Meditation at the UN”

See Page-images  22 to 42

Gallery 2 below is jpg format

---

---

Gallery 1  Photos from event

Gallery 1A: Some color photos

 

---

Gallery 2: 

JPG scanned page images 22 to 42 of  “Meditation at the UN” Jun 1980

Click on images below to see more details and larger photos: