A visit to the United Nations Gift Center⁹

Dear friends, dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers, when I use the term “seeker”, please do not be scared to death. Some of you are afraid of the term “seeker”, while others may be attracted to it out of sheer curiosity. Still others may feel something haunting or illumining in the term.

A seeker may be aware of what he is doing, or he may be totally unaware of it. There are conscious seekers and unconscious seekers, but we are all seekers here. This world of ours is quite vast. There are many, many places on earth where you could have worked for your living and gained earthly and heavenly experiences, but you have chosen this particular place. Why? Some of you or even all of you may give outer reasons, but actually it is your souls that have brought you to the United Nations. Some of you may outwardly convince your minds that because of this or because of that you wanted to work at the United Nations. But I wish to say there is only one inner reason and that is that your heart cares for union and oneness with the world at large. Your heart of aspiration wants to be inseparably one with the rest of the world. Therefore, you found a job here or your soul decided on your behalf to accept a job at the United Nations. You represent not only this beautiful, meaningful and soulful gift shop; you represent not only the United Nations, but you represent also the Almighty Father’s Oneness-Heart here, there and everywhere.

Every day people come to this shop from various parts of the world. They come here to identify themselves with the large, larger and largest world. Let me give you an example. I come from a tiny, obscure village in Bengal, India. If I buy something from this place and take it back to my little home and show it to my friends, immediately a new world dawns before them — a world of vastness, a world of oneness, a world of satisfaction. The tiniest possible world is my village, Shakpura, in Bengal, India. The tiniest world comes into this shop and gets a gift which comes from another part of the world. Perhaps that part of the world where the gift was made may also be a small village. But my coming to this shop from one tiny place and your offering this gift from another tiny place makes a happy union between the two places.

We come to the United Nations to be united and to serve humanity with one heart, with one soul and with one body. In this way the little, little worlds become one with the big world; and again, the big world gives to the little worlds what it has and what it is. There are countless drops in the ocean. Each drop is a world of its own, by virtue of its very existence. When all the drops are together inside the ocean, they represent the world itself. So the ocean is the largest world and each tiny drop is also a world, but a little world. This moment the union of countless drops makes the vast ocean and the next moment the vast ocean feeds and nourishes the tiny little drops.

Here in this shop at the United Nations you have ample opportunity to unite the little worlds with the big world, the finite with the Infinite. Each little gift that you sell represents the beauty of the finite and, at the same time, welcomes the Blessings of the Infinite. By welcoming, by invoking and by imploring the Blessings of the Infinite, the little beautiful gift becomes immortal. Then it flies from one part of the world to another, from here to the so-called most insignificant village on earth; it covers the length and breadth of the entire world. The United Nations is extremely fortunate to have you and you are also extremely fortunate to have the United Nations, for from here you offer your heart’s magnanimity and your mind’s luminosity to the world at large.

In conclusion, I wish to say a few soulful words about your leader-boss, June. She has been with our little spiritual family for about a year. With all my heart’s sincerity and my soul’s effulgence, I wish to say that she is an extremely sincere, devoted and earnest seeker. In her there is a very rare and unusual combination of the aspiring heart and the illumining mind. There are many, many, many good qualities of hers which I am sure all of you know, for you work with her. But the thing that strikes me most is that she practises what she preaches. Her life of illumining discipline is at once the embodiment of what she has and is and the revelation of what she has and is. Some of you may think that she is a strict disciplinarian, but I wish to say that this very discipline she practises in her own life for the betterment of her own life and the world-body.

The word “discipline” frightens the physical mind and the human in us. But the divine in us knows that inside the so-called earthly discipline there is boundless joy and boundless satisfaction. Punctuality is discipline. We know that our goal, let us say, is three metres ahead of us. If we are punctual, then we go towards our goal. By virtue of the regularity of our course we cover one metre, two metres, three metres. Then we reach our destination. Until we reach our goal there is no satisfaction at all. When we reach our goal we get tremendous satisfaction. So satisfaction looms large inside discipline.

Punctuality is severe punishment if we remain in the mental world. But if we remain in the heart-world, then immediately we will feel that punctuality is just an outer means to reach our goal. It is like our legs. If we are supposed to walk, we desperately need our legs in order to reach our destination. So discipline is the way to reach our destination there can be no other way.

June’s heart of aspiration and her life of dedication both are exemplary. In the union of her aspiring heart and dedicated life, she has been contributing something very soulful, meaningful and fruitful, both to the tiniest possible world, the tiniest village in a corner of the globe, and also to the largest possible world, to this earth-planet. Her dedicated service is undoubtedly satisfaction to the soul of the United Nations. All those who are working with her are sailing in the same boat. They are doing the same thing, pleasing the soul of the United Nations in a most significant manner. By pleasing the soul of the United Nations you are pleasing the Real in you, and this satisfaction is the supreme satisfaction of God, our Heavenly Father. Satisfaction He infinitely has and satisfaction He eternally is, and this Existence-Oneness-Reality of His He wants to share with us.

[To Ms Henneberger] My heart’s boundless light and my soul’s infinite blessing I am offering to you. What I said about you is all from the very depth of my heart. You are uniting the little world and the big world, the finite and the Infinite. It is a most significant achievement of your soul, far beyond your imagination, which we are placing at the Feet of our Eternity’s Beloved Supreme.