Reporter: What is your message to the world and possibly to the young people of our country? What is the essence of your credo?

Sri Chinmoy: My message is very simple. We all must try to become better citizens of the world. Now let us say at the present time we are good — you are good, I am good, he is good, she is good. But even though we are good, we feel that we can become better and best. As we make progress in this way, we get more joy and more satisfaction in our lives.

Our goal is to have a peaceful feeling in ourselves. First we have to establish peace within ourselves, and only then can we try to offer peace to others. If I feel peaceful, then I shall not find fault with you or quarrel with you. If you feel peaceful, then you will not quarrel with me or with somebody else. So if I can find inner peace within myself and if you can find peace within yourself, then that peace will grow in the world like a flower, petal by petal. Each country in the world is a beautiful petal on the flower of oneness. The Soviet Union is a petal. India is a petal. America is a petal. Each petal has to contribute its beauty and fragrance to the flower as a whole. Only then can they form a most beautiful oneness-flower, which the whole world will be able to appreciate and admire.

So my message is that each country has to come to the fore with its inner message of love and feeling of oneness.