Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim

Mortals long for name and fame, for they feel that to have name and fame is to have everything. But U Thant did not see eye to eye with human beings. He felt that only service to mankind, acceptance of the inner light and the manifestation of truth, light and bliss on earth could quench his inner thirst.

He refused world acclaim sincerely and smilingly. Service was his joy. The result of all his actions he offered in silence at the Feet of the Lord Buddha. The supreme pilot of the United Nations-Boat, Kurt Waldheim, who brings about world progress with lightning speed, graciously tells us of U Thant’s genuine concern for world problems and his significant contribution to world hope and world peace: “In 1965, when full-scale war erupted between India and Pakistan, U Thant went to the subcontinent to negotiate a cease-fire. At about the same time also, the tragedy of Viet-Nam, in which the United Nations was never directly involved, began to assume its historical momentum. U Thant made a long personal effort to help in ending the Viet-Namese tragedy. In 1967, there was renewed war in the Middle East. In early 1971, the war clouds gathered again in the South Asian subcontinent and the situation dominated U Thant’s last months as Secretary-General.”

His body U Thant sacrificed. Untold suffering he embraced. Wild frustration he endured. The present-day world is extremely grateful to Secretary-General Waldheim for revealing these illumining and fulfilling secrets about his predecessor: “No one will ever know the intense internal struggle which U Thant’s discipline and his deep faith concealed from the public gaze. He was occasionally even reproached for his calm. His medical history, which he concealed as far as possible, tells another story — the story of a good and disciplined man doing his best to perform one of the most difficult jobs in the world, and privately enduring the extremes of fatigue, worry and frustration.”