Question: The situation in Bosnia deeply troubles me and I have been meditating very much in the hope that President Clinton will make the right decisions. I am wondering if there is anything special we can do to help bring peace to these people?

Sri Chinmoy: If we feel that some problem is outside our own reality, then we will not be able to solve it. When there is a problem arising in any part of the world, immediately we have to bring that part of the world deep inside us. We have to feel that it is part and parcel of our inner existence. If we want to do something special for Bosnia from a spiritual point of view, first we have to bring Bosnia into our own inner existence. Then we are bound to see and feel that there is Somebody within us to tell us absolutely the right thing to do. This is our Inner Pilot. He is the Pilot, He is the Boat, He is the Journey and He Himself is the Golden Shore.

If we come to realise that the Supreme is the Pilot, the Boat, the Journey and the Shore and that we are just passengers seated in His Boat, then we will know that it is His bounden Duty to take us to the Shore. Our role is only to be consciously, prayerfully, soulfully and self-givingly part of this journey.

Whenever we make a decision, it usually comes from our mind of intelligence or, we can even say, from our mind of wisdom. But there is something infinitely higher than our human intelligence and human wisdom, and that is the Will of God within us. At every moment we are exercising our individual will. Everybody wants the world to be happy in his own way. I feel that if my way is followed, then the world will be happy. You feel that if your way is followed, then the world will be happy. But a particular individual’s way of happiness, or his way of injecting happiness into other individuals, may not actually make them happy at all.

God is both the Creator and the creation. God the Creator definitely wants God the creation to be happy; He wants everybody to be happy. God the Creator is all Love, all Compassion and all Concern for God the creation. But God can make us happy only if we are willing to be happy in His own Way. If we can consciously invoke the Presence, the Guidance or the Will of God the Creator, then the world will be inundated with peace and happiness. Following God’s Will is the only way to achieve happiness individually, collectively and universally. Otherwise, if each individual tries to make the world happy in his or her own way, then we will definitely make mistake after mistake before we solve the world’s problems or even our individual problems.

How can we know God’s Will? God’s Will we can know by virtue of our prayer and meditation and by virtue of our conscious self-giving to the world that we live in and claim as our own, very own. If we have a free access to the inner life of aspiration and to the outer life of selfless dedication, then we do come to know and realise the Will of God. And if we listen to the Will of God, then all our problems and all the world’s problems will be solved.