Never retire!

I beg all the disciples, never retire, never retire! Retirement stands against enlightenment. If you retire, then your life-energy, your mental strength, everything disappears, unless you can be very, very active. Retirement is just the opposite of enlightenment. Never retire! Work as long as you can! By your own choice I never, never advise you to retire. But if the organisation has a fixed retirement age, you are helpless.

Those of you who are serving the United Nations, I will be very, very happy if you can continue as long as possible. True, the United Nations is not perfect. Is there any place that is perfect? Is anybody perfect in God’s Creation? In comparison to other places, the United Nations, as it is, is Heaven. Some individual bosses or colleagues may be undivine, but the soul and heart of the United Nations will always remain the goal of goals for humanity. Life is complicated; the mind is complicated. To transform the mind and the life of the United Nations, spirituality is needed.

Again, I am so grateful to my spiritual children who come to meditate at the UN in my absence. Those who come to meditate when I am not present deserve my boundless love, affection and admiration. Those who come to pray and meditate for fifteen minutes in my physical absence I can say are my true, true disciples. They value my inner existence; they value my God-realisation; they value me.

19 May 2005 Sri Chinmoy’s home Jamaica, New York