Flame-Waves, part 7

Question: What is the relationship between the soul of the United Nations and the soul of the world?

The soul of the world embodies the soul of the United Nations. There are many nations which have not joined the United Nations. There are many places on earth which unfortunately do not have any connection with the United Nations. But the soul of the world must have some connection with everything that is in God’s creation. There is nothing on earth that does not have a direct connection in the inner world with the soul of the world. But the soul of the United Nations unfortunately does not have or has not yet established that kind of connection with the entire world. You can call this connection oneness or awareness of the things that have been created here on earth.

Question: Unless the peoples of the world as a whole aspire collectively, will there ever be abiding peace in the world?

Suppose in your family there are three brothers. You are the eldest member in the family, so you know more about the inner world, more about God, more about spirituality. You have to run according to your own speed, according to your own inner light and wisdom, and they will also run in their own way. When we use the term “collective”, we have an idea of people sitting together or doing something together. But this is not the right approach. We will do it in our own way, according to our own capacity. You will begin to aspire when the hour has struck for you, and somebody else will begin to aspire two months or two years later when his own hour has struck. The result in this case will be far better than that achieved by putting everybody together to meditate. Aspiration has to be spontaneous. You reach a certain goal, so you go and stand there as a perfect human being. Tomorrow my time will come and I will start aspiring sincerely; then I will go and reach the destination that you have already reached. And the following day somebody else will go.

Each day if some human beings can achieve perfection in the inner world, then that means that these particular human beings are freed from imperfections. No longer are they quarrelling and fighting. Peace will come about in the world from the perfection of individuals. When ten individuals have achieved perfection, then it becomes a collective perfection. But in the beginning, while you are walking along the path, if you feel that the whole world will aspire together, it will not work. The whole world will aspire, but in its own way according to its receptivity. And if your aspiration is genuine, it has to be much more sincere, much deeper and more profound.

Question: How can our imagination be used to help raise our consciousness or improve our meditation?

Inside us are many worlds; imagination is one of these worlds. We have a free access to the world that is around us and before us, whereas we do not have a free access to the worlds that are inside us. So what we have to try to do is bring the world that is inside us into the world that is around us. It is like this: somebody is inside the house and somebody is outside the house. You are friendly with the person who is outside the house. You know him well because most of the time you stay outside. But when you come inside, you see that somebody else is there. You can also make friends with that person and ask him to come out with you and make friends with the person who is staying outside.

So, think of imagination as a reality in its own right which is on another plane of consciousness. That plane of consciousness you are trying to bring to the fore and make one with the plane of consciousness which we call reality. You are trying to establish friendship between the two: between the imagination-world, which is a reality-world in another plane of consciousness, and the reality-world which is the outer plane of consciousness. But this you can do only if you take imagination as a reality in another plane, in its own world.

Question: How can the various world religions respond more co-operatively and effectively to humanity's aspiration?

Question: Is man growing away from organised religion and moving towards meditation?

Question: People are often afraid of practices like meditation which are not prescribed by their own religion. Why is this?

Question: Can one find the fulfilment of his life in religion?

Question: Is your path a religion?

Question: How can religion be made more spiritual?

Question: How can I lose my suspicion of the outer world?

Then you have to know where your suspicion is. Is it in the mind? Is it in the vital? Is it in the body? There can be suspicion in the physical and in the vital, but the suspicion that exists in these places is negligible. But the suspicion that is in the mind is like a mountain. So first you will enter into the place where suspicion is lurking all the time, which is the mind. Then you can tell suspicion, “Look, I have got nothing from you except misery, so why do I need you? You pretend to be my real friend, but you are not. A real friend does not create problems. It is only an enemy that creates problems. For a long time I did not know that you were an enemy; I considered you to be my friend. For this reason I allowed you to remain inside my mind. But now I know that you are not my friend. Just because you are my enemy, you have to leave. This is my house, absolutely mine. Here you have no place.”

But again, you have to realise that nobody and nothing can remain an eternal enemy. You will invoke and create boundless Light inside the mind and then either you shall allow suspicion to come into your mind for its illumination, or your illumined mind will enter into the human suspicion which has been discarded from the mind. The mind will enter in order to transform and illumine suspicion.

Question: Is there one divine quality which encompasses all the rest or does a seeker have to meditate on each one?

Question: Is the reason for this that there is a feeling of oneness in human gratitude and God's Compassion? Is that why these two qualities are so all-encompassing?

But again, if you find it extremely difficult to think of God’s Compassion all the time or your own gratitude, then try to bring to the fore individual aspects of God’s Capacity. If God’s Power is what you want, then concentrate on God’s Power. If you want inner cry, which you need, then try to bring this to the fore. Or if you need sincerity, try to get this. Anything you need, you bring forward individually.

Question: Is the way to get rid of anxiety to ignore it?

But in the meantime, while it is away, you may create or develop or acquire or achieve light. Then, if you have brought light into your system, when anxiety comes you can put light into it. At that time, anxiety is transformed and then it no longer exists. In this way it will not bother you again.

Question: Should we advertise in our offices that we belong to the U.N. Meditation Group?

Question: How can our own spiritual efforts within the Meditation Group assist the work that you are performing in serving the soul of the U.N. and the family of nations?

All the members of the Meditation Group must establish a soulful oneness. It is like a tree that is offering flowers. Each flower is of supreme importance. The Meditation Group is the tree: each individual is a flower, a flower of dedication. The seeker has aspired. That is why he has become a real flower. But now this flower has to dedicate itself. At every moment each member of the Meditation Group has to feel that the purpose of his life is dedication — dedication not only to one particular nation but to all nations.

We pray and meditate in this room. A few hundred members of the United Nations know about us, but most of them do not care for what we are doing. But still we have to care for them. We have to play the role of the mother. Very often children do not care for their mother. They take the mother for granted, knowing she will do everything for them, even if they do not do anything for her. In the inner world, I see that there are many, many who do not participate in our group or come to our meetings but who get a kind of inner strength unconsciously from us. The child won’t come to the mother, won’t listen to the mother, but he feels that if he has some need, the mother will be the first person to protect him and help him. Here also, those who do not come still feel our soulful assistance. When they dive deep within even for a few minutes, their inner beings tell them that there is a Meditation Group that prays and meditates for the U.N.

What we do for the United Nations as members of the United Nations Meditation Group or as members of a spiritual community — any community — is recorded in the soul of the United Nations. A day will come when we will be recognised as a true asset to the body and soul of the United Nations. And something more. Now we do not have even a proper place to meet in; from here to there we move. But one day there will be a permanent place at the United Nations for our Meditation Group. Now it is in its infancy, but a day will come when it will grow into a mature young man. It will shoulder inwardly and silently much spiritual responsibility. The politicians won’t believe it; their minds won’t believe it. But their souls will believe it, and their souls will make them believe it in their hearts’ inmost sincerity. There will be many, many problems that will arise and there will be no outer way to solve these problems; but they will be solved. The human mind will say it was a stroke of fate that has solved the problem. But the heart will say, no, it was because there are some sincere seekers who are crying for world harmony and world peace. It is the accumulated prayer and meditation that we do regularly at home and, especially, twice a week here at the United Nations, that will solve these problems. So our prayer and meditation will be recorded in the gratitude-heart of all the U.N. members who really want a world of harmony and a world of peace.

Question: People at the United Nations, in our offices, think of the Meditation Group as a family. Is that a helpful attitude?

Question: How can I make the staff members of the United Nations feel that the Meditation Group is available to them?

You can be like a mother with her child. The mother knows that something is good for the child, so she gives it to him. But the child may say, “No, I don’t like it,” and reject it. Then what can the mother do? Here at the United Nations, the Meditation Group is like a mother. All her children, the workers at the United Nations, may not know that there is something that is good for them. But the mother will try to show them. She will offer them kindness, oneness, sympathy, peace, joy, light, satisfaction. So you give to your colleagues your peace, your joy and your concern for light and universal harmony. If they reject it, that means that their hour has not come. Then you can approach some other people.

Question: Is it possible that the United Nations will one day be a nucleus of world-wide spirituality?

Previously there was the League of Nations, the dream of Woodrow Wilson. Now we see the United Nations. A few things are changed and modified and for the better. The League of Nations was Woodrow Wilson’s dream. It no longer exists. Instead, it has blossomed into another dream, a greater dream. The United Nations is also a dream. And this dream will eventually take a better and more fulfilling form also. At that time it will be Oneness-World.

A League of Nations is like a cluster of flowers. A United Nations arranges the flowers harmoniously. When we have a Oneness-World, at that time we will not see several individual flowers; we will see all as one whole. That also will take place.

This outer form may not last, but there will always be another way of approaching the reality. And that reality is bound to dawn. It will dawn and we will have Oneness-World. This is God’s Dream, God’s Vision of Perfection. The Kingdom of Heaven that we talk about, that we have heard about, is Oneness-World, nothing else. Oneness-World must dawn. And even Oneness-World is not the ultimate thing in God’s Vision. In God’s Vision, oneness need not and cannot be total perfection. In oneness there should be constant aspiration to transcend. There are twenty members of a family and they have become one. But if there is no aspiration to grow higher, to grow deeper, to grow better, then that is not perfection. Even when oneness is established, we can’t say that that is the end of the game. No, inside oneness there should be a continuous aspiration to go beyond, beyond, beyond. God’s Vision is always a Self-transcending Reality, so after oneness we still have the message of continuous transcendence, which is real perfection.

Question: What should be the attitude of those who work at the United Nations?

Some of the members of the United Nations Meditation Group are conscious of this, but in spite of being conscious they are not taking it seriously, while others are not even conscious of it. They feel that they happen to work here just as they might happen to be at any other job. But each member of the United Nations Meditation Group must feel that his job is a golden opportunity to serve the Vision of God’s Oneness.

The United Nations is the song of oneness, and the song of oneness we are going to sing. We are going to sing it just because somebody has inspired us. Who has inspired us? The Absolute Supreme. Therefore, we have to be grateful to Him. If we are grateful to Him, then we will be able to sing our song. We will have a more soulful voice, and in our voice, in our action — which is dedicated service — there will be more spirituality, divinity and feeling of oneness.

If we want to serve anyone or anything in the best way possible, the best thing is to discover gratitude in our life. We are grateful because we are given the chance. God could have given the golden opportunity to somebody else, but He gave it to us. There should be no fear, no doubt, no anxiety, no worry — only gratitude. People who serve the United Nations in any capacity should feel some sense of gratitude inside their hearts. Here they are given the opportunity of serving humanity. There are many places where people are not even given that opportunity, but here at the United Nations they are.

Question: How can we have purity in the mind?

Question: Does it help our spiritual progress to understand things intellectually?

Again, the intellect may surrender to the heart’s oneness and say, “I don’t get abiding satisfaction from understanding intellectually. So let me get joy by identifying myself with the highest Reality.” The decisions of the mind are constantly changing, so we can never find real certainty and satisfaction on the path of the mind. But if we follow the path of the heart, we see that the heart immediately identifies with the Reality — no matter what the substance or the essence of the Reality is. If this is the substance, if this is the essence, then the heart will claim it as its very own. If we want to learn something soulfully and understand it fully, then the heart is the answer.

Question: Is the mind ever self-giving?

Question: How can we increase the mind's sincerity?

Question: Does the mind have a will of its own?

Question: What is the difference between the mind of a world-renowned statesman and the mind of a world-renowned scientist?

A scientist uses another strength. His strength is the strength of imagination-reality. Imagination has a plane, a reality of its own. But we call it “imagination” until we see it with our ordinary, naked human eyes. Then we try to go to the intuitive world. The scientist often goes to the intuitive world, but on very, very rare occasions in world history will a statesman or dictator have that kind of mind.

Again, I must say that in the second World War, once or twice Churchill’s utterances came from the psychic plane, intuitive plane. When he spoke, it was on a very high level. Kennedy and Nehru also spoke sometimes from the intuitive and psychic planes. But these are all very rare exceptions. Usually, dictators or statesmen try to dominate the physical world with their vital strength. But the scientist deals mostly with imagination-strength and, if he is successful, he goes one step ahead, to intuition. When the scientist discovers something, he enters into the subtle world and brings forward its capacity. His discovery has a physical shape, but its real essence comes from the imagination-world, intuitive world. He may think he has used the mind, but it is a reality in subtle form to which he is bringing physical form, in its own way.

So a world statesman will have access to vital or dynamic worlds, whereas the scientist will have access to the imaginative world or intuitive world. The worlds that the scientist explores are much higher than those explored by eminent political figures. But even the scientist surrenders to the spiritual person. Spirituality houses everything, including science. But, unfortunately, science does not give value to the spiritual life. The scientist wants constant proof on the physical plane, vital plane, mental plane. He wants to prove the reality he has seen. Spiritual people will say, “As the physical plane is real to you, even so, the spiritual plane is real to us. Why do I have to prove my existence by coming down to your level? If I am on the top of the tree, you climb up to the top of the tree to see whether I am enjoying the sweetest fruit or not.”

The scientist right now has not climbed up as high as the spiritual Master. What the great spiritual giants have achieved in the march of evolution is right now far beyond the imagination of the scientist. So the discovery that the spiritual Masters have made is not yet possible for the scientist to accept, and he tries to deny the spiritual Master’s discovery. Spirituality at that time tells the scientist, “No matter what you want to do with my existence, even if you deny it, I am not going to be the loser. I come from a very far-off land. This land is totally pure and this reality is absolutely authentic. If you want to taste my achievement, then come to the place where I can supply nectar. You have to come to my standard. If I want to prove my achievement to you on a mental level, then instead of giving you illumination, I will only add more confusion to your discovery. Your discovery will not and cannot give you abiding satisfaction, because it is mixed up with the mental and physical world.”

Question: You have started offering songs to the United Nations Meditation Group to sing and I was wondering if you would like to expound upon the purpose of this?

So this year I am executing an inner command to compose a good many songs. Like my paintings, each song is my dedication to aspiring mankind. Each song embodies my aspiration, my realisation and my dedicated oneness with you all.

It is my wish that the seekers of the ultimate Truth will learn these songs if they can sing well. While practising them, they are bound to get delight, and when they perform before the rest of the world, they should feel that they are offering their aspiration in the form of dedication.

Those who are listening to the songs will be meditating as much as those who are singing. Meditation does not mean to remain closeted, to keep your eyes and ears shut and not to know what is going on around you. Meditation is a form of self-dedication, and this dedication comes from our aspiration. Those who are singing can offer their dedicated service through their soulful music, and those who are listening to them soulfully and devotedly can also be doing their best meditation.

Suppose I sing fifty songs and it takes two hours. During these two hours, your mind can roam and think of millions of things, or you can feel that singing is not important, so you will feel drowsy and fall asleep. Or you can take it as an opportunity to do your best meditation because here the music is adding to your own aspiration. If you are trying to aspire, the soulful songs will add to your own aspiration.

Each song is a golden opportunity to increase our spirituality, to increase our aspiration. Each song is like an additional plant in our garden. Naturally the plant will offer us more beautiful flowers. Each song soulfully sung gives us tremendous inner joy, and this joy gives us the message of heart-expansion. Our heart expands when we are in joy. If we are wise, we shall adopt all means in order to expand our heart so that in our heart’s joy and delight we can see the entire world.

A song is a seed. The seed will germinate and grow into a tree and the tree will mature and offer many flowers and fruits. The flowers will offer their fragrance and beauty to increase our aspiration, and the fruit will give us immortal joy. So these soulful songs will give us the message of Immortality by helping us to become one with the universal Light, the universal Delight, which they embody.

Question: During our Sixth Anniversary celebration on 14 April, you spoke about serving the United Nations with gratitude. Could you please elaborate on this?

So far, in spite of our teeming ignorance, limitations and imperfections, we have achieved something for the world, we have done something for mankind by serving the United Nations. If we want to separate the United Nations from the world at large, we can say we have achieved something for the United Nations proper. If we want to separate the United Nations from our own existence, we can say we have achieved something for ourselves. Even if we take the United Nations as something other than the world or as something other than ourselves, still we can say we have achieved something.

Instead of saying there is one, we can say there are three complementary friends: the world, the United Nations and the individual Meditation Group member. If we can’t take them as one, let us then take them as three intimate friends. These three intimate friends may at times find it difficult to see eye to eye with each other. The world is seeing something wrong with the United Nations and the individual is seeing something wrong with the United Nations, or the United Nations is seeing something wrong with the world or with the individual. They are finding fault with each other, but at the same time, they are friends. The different countries do not always agree with one another, but still they are friends. If they were not friends, they would not be in the United Nations proper. They would not be involved in United Nations activities. They do believe in the United Nations, they have faith in the United Nations, but they also have individual problems which they are trying to work out.

So, the world is a friend, the United Nations is a friend and the individual is a friend. Let us put it this way. Three friends, in spite of their misunderstandings and shortcomings, are trying to offer their best qualities and become one. When they offer their best qualities, when they sincerely give, then they become totally one in the inner life and in the outer life. At that time there cannot be a separate world or a separate United Nations or a separate individual. There is no sense of separation; it is all oneness.

Right now friendship is there, but inseparable oneness is not there. Just because there is some basic friendship, all the countries are together and all the individuals are together. But oneness is still missing. That oneness will come only when each individual is able to offer his own sincerity and other good qualities to both the United Nations and the world, when the United Nations can offer its good qualities — its body and soul — to the individual and to the world, and when the world can offer its good qualities to each member and to the United Nations proper. In this way three will become one.

They will become one on the strength of their gratitude — gratitude for what the world has done for the United Nations, for what the United Nations has done for the world, and for what the individual has done for the world and for the United Nations. Each has done something for the other two; therefore, they are grateful to one another. Once they feel true gratitude towards one another, they will become one. Their hearts will experience expansion, and in the heart’s gradual expansion they will become universal. At that time, we will not be able to separate an individual member of the United Nations from the United Nations because they will be integrally one. The United Nations will not be able to be separated from the world because it will be part and parcel of the world. They will be one by virtue of their sincere and mutual gratitude. By offering gratitude, constant gratitude, the world, the United Nations and the United Nations member will become one. When they become one, they will be perfect instruments.

As long as they remain three individuals, they have to offer their gratitude to each other. When they become one, they will offer their gratitude to the Supreme Pilot for having made them perfect instruments. Why? Because they have become conscious and perfect instruments of the Supreme whereas others are not even conscious instruments. So they are grateful to the Supreme for having given them this opportunity.

Question: When you shower Light on us when we are meditating, how can we be most receptive?

Question: How can man live forever?

People may live on earth for eighty or ninety years, but if they have not given up their ordinary human life or, let us say, their animal life, there is no purpose in it. Only if one wants to act divinely and live in a divine way is there a reason for him to live eternally. But if one wants to live a divine life, then right now he has to develop inside himself a divine consciousness. Each individual has the animal consciousness, the human consciousness and the divine consciousness. From the animal consciousness we have gradually entered into the human consciousness, and from the human we are now trying to grow into the divine. This consciousness with our ordinary human eyes, we do not see; but with our inner vision we see it.

In the world of consciousness each individual is immortal. An individual identifies himself either with the soul or with the body. If he identifies himself with the body, which is far from perfection, then naturally he feels he cannot live forever. But if he identifies himself with the soul, then he knows that he is immortal. The body will die, but when it is a matter of consciousness — which every man has and which he inwardly is — man is eternal, man is immortal.

Question: How can we help the pilots of the United Nations — the Secretary-General and the Directors?

How can we serve the Secretary General, who is the main pilot of the United Nations, and others who are high authorities at the United Nations? Let us call them the hero-warriors of the United Nations, since they are in the battlefield of life fighting for world harmony, for world peace and world oneness, for world illumination and world perfection. These members of the family have gone out to fight against the undivine forces, the forces that separate, the forces that do not want world harmony. These are our brothers, let us say. Our brothers have gone into the battlefield to fight, but we have not gone; we have stayed at home. We were not chosen by the Supreme to fight.

But we can serve the same supreme cause inside them through our constant prayer and goodwill. It is our bounden duty to try to create for our brothers success and victory. Our prayers will undoubtedly be an additional strength to them while they are fighting against disharmony, conflict and the wrong forces that separate the nations of the world. Our inner prayer is of paramount importance, and it does help them considerably. They are doing something for themselves, for us, for all of humanity. So it is our bounden duty to pray inwardly and outwardly for them at home, or wherever we are.

Question: Sri Chinmoy, it is very difficult to know what is a spiritual question. How much of the United Nations is a spiritual reality and a secular reality, or are these meaningless distinctions?

“Spiritual” here means the unity of all human beings and all human aspirations. It means a better, more illumining way of life. I am using “spiritual” in a very broad sense, in the purest sense, as world harmony, world peace, world union and world oneness. This is spiritual.

Appendix: these quotes, from other writings of Sri Chinmoy, were included in the first editions.

> I do not compare myself with the world. I compare myself with my soul’s perfection.

> Three hundred sixty-five opportunities to realise the Supreme, to reveal the Supreme and to fulfil the Supreme.

> NO speaks through my mind: “If there is a God, then how is it that I have never seen Him? No God.”

> When Peace is multiplied, Truth is multiplied.

> When Love is multiplied, God is multiplied.

> What I can do. Although I am feebler than an insect, I dare to criticise God the Omnipotent.

> What I cannot do. Although I am a man, I fail to live a true human life.

> I tell the truth. The world is hurt.

> What am I to do?

> Lo the world loves me, and God blesses me.

> What do I do?

> What else do I do?

> What more can I do?

> Our desires expire when our attachments retire.

> Where joy is wanting, love is wanting.

> Where Truth is, Fulfilment is there.

Editor's preface to the first edition

The Peace Meditation Group at the United Nations (formerly known as the United Nations Meditation Group) functions under the inner guidance of its Spiritual Leader, Sri Chinmoy, who conducts the Group’s meetings and also delivers the continuing Dag Hammarskjold monthly lecture series at the U.N. It is Sri Chinmoy who best sums up the credo to which the Group adheres:

> WE BELIEVE...