VIDEO Prayer-Breakfast – 3rd Draft Script, 31 July 1989
Filed under media coverage Text & Photos | Prayer or silence day - event | With videoPossible use as idea or background for future project:
This text would required some insert of references to prayers mentioned or quoted for the different faiths if to be adapted or used in various media or contexts:
Better to use “A” Prayer for Peace than “The” Prayer for peace in each of the faiths represented…
Rijuta Tooker might remember the origin of this or if there were later drafts.
3rd draft text to be revised with citations for various prayers used:
How can world peace be achieved? Can prayer and meditation, serving as a foundation for inspired action, play a significant role in the quest for world peace? Is it possible that the very existence of ;he United Nations is due to the sincere aspirations for peace of people of all cultures and religions around the world over many thousands of years?
The idea of achieving peace through bringing forward the higher qualities of the human spirit has inspired many activities at the United Nations. One example of the cultivation of this spirituality at the United Nations is the minute of silence dedicated to prayer or meditation which opens and closes each annual session of the General Assembly. Another example is the meditation room at Headquarters in New York which has been in existence since the early days of the United Nations. Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden, second Secretary-General of the United Nations, devoted a qreat deal of time and energy to re-designing the meditation room into a meaningful setting to find what he called “the point of rest at the center of our being.”
Spirituality has also been the cornerstone of the lives of some of the great leaders of the United Nations. Hammarskjold took very seriously a life of inward search which was practised outside of the context of organized -2- religion. His personal diary, published under the title “Markings,” offers a view of his inner self, and the strict, self-imposed principles which directed his outer life of selfless service to humanity. U Thant, the third Secretary-General of the United Nations was another leader who’s character and exemplary service to humanity could be attributed to a deeply spiritual life. A devout Buddhist from Burma, now called Myanmar, U Thant strongly believed that the basic precepts of the great religions, alike in so many ways, were applicable to the work of the United Nations. He was known to say that there was not much difference between a good Buddhist, a good Christian, a good Hindu, a good Jew or a good Moslem.
We now invite you to join members of these five world religions in prayers for peace •••
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