Question: How can I feel that my small job at the United Nations is really important to the total spirit of the United Nations?

Sri Chinmoy: Each drop is essential to the ocean. You may be holding a very insignificant job, but if you are taken away, one more drop will be missing from the ocean. And when all the drops are taken away, there is no ocean. It is the unification, the combination, of countless drops that makes the ocean.

Similarly, the whole United Nations right from the Secretary-General is only one body, one soul, one reality, which is composed of glowing thoughts and glowing ideals. You represent a thought in an infinitesimal measure. The capacity that you have is in the form of an ideal. The ideal is always the same, although you may or may not embody the ultimate truth that this ideal holds. But you do represent and embody an iota of the ultimate truth. Some individuals have perhaps a little more light than others, but it is the combination of everybody’s light that makes the whole reality.

So, you as an individual, in whatever capacity you are serving, must feel that you are necessary, that you are needed. Like you there are many who make up the United Nations. If all are excluded precisely because they are not Secretaries-General, or because they are not holding high posts, then there will be no United Nations. When a house is built, there are many bricks, there are many nails. If one or two bricks are missing then there will be a hole. The walls will not be strong and the foundation will not be secure. So each one is necessary, each one is essential. Each worker, no matter how insignificant his task is, is necessary in order to keep the body and the soul of the United Nations together.