Question: Are you personally in favour of the division of Czechoslovakia?

Sri Chinmoy: I am a student of peace. Division is something that I cannot appreciate. If division takes place, it is a most painful experience. I want oneness, oneness, oneness. In a family, for years and years, brothers and sisters live together. When they are young they need one another. Then when they grow up, they want to show their supremacy. One brother thinks he is superior to the other brother. When they were growing up together, that kind of jealousy, rivalry, insecurity, superiority complex or inferiority complex they did not have. But as they grow up, all kinds of unhealthy, undivine qualities enter into them. Previously they said, “If our bad qualities divide us, at least let us try to be interdependent.” If they are interdependent, then when they are grown up, they may not stay with their parents, they may live separately, but at Christmas time and on special days, they will meet together.

Here it is exactly the same. Division is not the answer. But if a painful division takes place, then let us try as much as possible to live with goodwill. Once upon a time you were brothers. If you cannot stay together under the same roof, at least try to be interdependent and have utmost goodwill towards one another. If you need something, you will just make a phone call and your brother will come to your rescue, and if he needs something, then you will come to his rescue. So division has taken place, but division is not the final answer. The goal is coexistence, interdependence. By division alone we do not get any satisfactory result.