Sri Chinmoy receives an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities and Peace Studies — Honoris Causa — from the University of Southern Philippines in Cebu City, the Philippines, “in recognition of his unrelenting zeal to spread goodwill and peace among the peoples of the world, and of his being a consummate artist in the fields of music, painting and literature.”
University: The Wisdom-Source of World Peace-Makers
Sri Chinmoy’s acceptance speech
at the University of Southern Philippines Gymnasium, Lahug Campus, in Cebu City, the Philippines
My most esteemed Chairman of the Board of Trustees Mr Oscar Jereza Jr, President Duterte, Vice-President Dr Lourdes Jereza, Vice-President Martinez, and members of the Board of Trustees and the Department of Education, Culture and Sports, to each of you I am offering my gratitude-heart for the signal award which you have conferred upon me, my aspiration-heart and my dedication-life.
The University was founded in 1927; I saw the light of day in 1931. The number twenty-seven is very significant in my life: on the 27th of August I was born. I am now sixty-one years old, and I add four more years to offer my gratitude from the depth of my heart to the source, to the foundation. My sixty-five million gratitude-flowers I am offering to the source.
Since its inception in 1927, this august institution has bestowed its honorary degree upon only four most illustrious citizens of the world. You are now blessingfully granting me the same lofty honour. My dedication-life and I are devotedly bowing to you, your wisdom-light and your compassion-height.
I wish to also offer my heartfelt appreciation to the distinguished members of the government and diplomatic corps, the university leaders, plus faculty, students and friends who are here now with their smiling, loving and inspiring oneness-hearts.
Asato ma sad gamaya
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya
Mrityor ma amritam gamayaLead me from the unreal to the Real.
Lead me from darkness to Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality.O bountiful Soul of the University of Southern Philippines, my soul, my heart, my mind, my vital and my body are now here inside your hallowed heart-garden to receive from you three most significant blessing-gifts: my ignorance-death-certificate, my knowledge-birth-diploma and my wisdom-life-degree.
According to my aspiration-heart and my dedication-life, a university perfectly houses the all-illumining vision of the ancient world and the all-quickening discoveries of the modern world. Here the seers, saints and sages of the hoary past and the scientists and nation-builders of today together sing and together play. Here wisdom-troops are mobilised against the ignorance-night of millennia to declare life’s transcendental victory.
The human mind has endless questions. The heart of a university has sleepless answers. The soul of a university teaches the mind how to choose freedom-light in the world, which is immersed in ignorance-imperfections, and how to radically change the face and fate of the entire world.
A worldwide shortage of wisdom is responsible for the absence of universal peace, universal oneness and universal fulness. We want countless things from life and for life, but there is only one thing we desperately, unmistakably, sleeplessly and breathlessly need: peace, peace, peace. Peace we acquire from freedom, freedom of choice.
Freedom is of two types: the freedom of the mind and the freedom of the heart. The freedom of the mind wants to dominate us, bind us and blind us. It dreams of division and lives in division. While dreaming of division and living in division, it is helplessly wanting in oneness-joy and fulfilment-satisfaction.
The freedom of the heart is self-expansion, self-discovery and self-enlightenment. The freedom of the heart sings only one song, the oneness-home-peace-song. The freedom of the mind loves to make thunder-noise. The freedom of the heart loves to play the flute-melody.
In the inner world, peace and freedom are one, a oneness-reality. In the outer world, peace and freedom are two almost diametrically opposite realities. In the outer world, the war-mongers’ freedom is in world-confusion and life-destruction. In the inner world, the peace-lovers’ freedom is in world-perfection and God-satisfaction. Open your eyes. Lo and behold, war-mongers are dauntlessly marching right in front of you. Close your eyes. You immediately see beautiful, soulful and fruitful peace-lovers in the inmost recesses of your heart.
I am happy not when I say my mind has everything. I am happy only when I feel my heart is everything.
Grandiloquent peace-talkers are countless and everywhere. Closely examined, they are nothing but strangers to sincerity, reliability, purity and probity. Quite often they comport themselves in utter stupidity if not absurdity. Prayerful, soulful and meditative peace-dreamers are few and far between. Peace-lovers and peace-givers like the Polestar-guidance President Gorbachev — humanity-divinity’s colossal pride — are urgently needed to come to the fore and quench the world-mind-thirst and feed the world-heart-hunger.
The world does not need another Julius Caesar to declare, Veni, vidi, vici— “I came, I saw, I conquered.” What this world desperately needs it richly has — our Holy Father, our Universal Father, Pope John Paul II, who blessingfully tells humanity: “I came. I loved. I have become. I have become Divinity’s Compassion and humanity’s aspiration.”
The mind-pinnacle-compromise-meetings for the manifestation of world peace may prove to be of no avail and may even eventually end in total fiasco. It is the heart-summit-oneness-meetings that will without fail reveal and fulfil the all-illumining Heaven-sent message for peace throughout the length and breadth of the world.
When we live in the mind-prison we are compelled to be helpless and hopeless fatalists. We are convinced of the fact that man’s doleful destiny is inexorable. But when we live in the heart-temple, we sincerely feel and irrevocably know that man’s destiny has to be changed and can be changed. The limitation-mind will grow into the unlimited Universal Mind at God’s choice Hour. Perfect Perfection will dawn in humanity’s heart-home. Impossibility will unconditionally surrender to the blossoming possibility. Possibility will start an unprecedented race — the world-transformation-race — and arrive at the reality-destination, which is flooded with the ever-transcending Divinity of the Beyond.
To our great surprise and joy, the doubting mind is surrendering to the searching mind and, before long, we feel that the searching mind will be ready to capitulate to the aspiring heart, the heart that receives infinite Blessings from the highest Lord Supreme for the radical transformation of mankind. Not with a nebulous mind and not with a credulous heart, but with an adamantine will-power-mind and with a confidence-promise-inundated heart, the earth-bondage-night will be transformed into Heaven-Freedom-Light.
Our goal is where our peace is, and vice versa. As an individual has a goal of his own, even so, each country has a goal of its own. The goal of the individual is to see the Truth in everything. The goal of the country is to become the Truth in everything.
It is the individual that sees and augments the potential of the country. Momentous is the utterance of our beloved President Fidel Ramos. On the strength of his inseparable oneness with his own country, he tells the whole world: “My goal is simply to transform our country into a peaceful, productive and progressive society.”
Each university has a special dream — happiness, happiness within, happiness without. Each university’s mother-heart-children are destined to play the role of world peace-makers. Again, here we must realise that there are two types of world peace-makers: a human peace-maker and a divine peace-maker. The human peace-maker happily feels and proudly proclaims how much he has already done for the world. The divine peace-maker sincerely and soulfully feels how much he has yet to do for the betterment of the world, for the poor Mother Earth and for the unfulfilled God.
The motto, the heartbeat of the University of Southern Philippines, runs: “Knowledge, integrity, industry.” This special message is a unique pathfinder to world peace. ‘Knowledge’ is humanity’s birthless and deathless thirst for ever-expanding and ever-transcending horizons. ‘Integrity’ is the harbinger of self-illumination and world-perfection. ‘Industry’ means dedication; industry means self-giving.
We give what we have. We are giving the world-transformation-message-light to the four corners of the globe. This message we have received from the Transcendental Heights. We give what we are. We are Eternity’s Readiness, Infinity’s Willingness and Immortality’s Oneness.
Aum
Purnam adah purnam idam
Purnat purnam udacyate
Purnasya purnam adaya
Purnam evavasisyateInfinity is that. Infinity is this.
From Infinity, Infinity has come into existence.
From Infinity, when Infinity is taken away,
Infinity remains.
Published in The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind, part 1
Sri Chinmoy is presented with a banner by school children he has lifted at the Shaanxi Rare Wildlife Centre in Xi’an, China.
The banner reads:
To Great Master Chinmoy and others
TAKE GOOD CARE OF CHILOREN
ACHIEVEMENTS OUTSHINE THE SUN AND MOON
Respectfully presented Dy Zhou zhi Yonghong School Xi’an Shaanxi China
Jan 18th 2005 Year