Excerpt from Sri Chinmoy’s Interview with Pravda
at Aspiration-Ground, Jamaica, New York
Sri Chinmoy first lifts the reporter overhead. Before the lift, the singers sing the song ‘Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart’.
Reporter [while standing on the lifting platform]: This is like going to paradise, with the angels singing.
Sri Chinmoy [after lifting the reporter once]: I would like to lift you once more. You are our sister-friend from the Soviet Union, whereas I am from India. India and the Soviet Union are extremely, extremely good friends. Therefore, I would like to lift you a second time. The first time I lifted you, I offered my love and gratitude to the Soviet Union. Now when I lift you, I shall be offering my love and gratitude to the soul of India. May the soul of the Soviet Union and the soul of India forever and forever enjoy their unique friendship and eternal oneness.
Reporter [after descending from the lifting platform]: Thank you! It was great!
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.
Reporter: Through what means can a person establish peace of mind and peace in the world? Is it through meditation or through doing good things or through a better way of living?
Sri Chinmoy: It depends on the individual. Some people may try to establish peace on the strength of their prayer and meditation, while others will try to establish peace on the strength of their dedicated selfless service, by working to make the world a better place. A third person may combine both — a life of prayer and a life of service.
* Dr. Felix Kuznetsov: We would like to offer you gratitude for your heart's welcome to us. Through us, you are welcoming our whole country — all the Soviet people. We feel that it is coming from your heart. Meeting with you has been one of the most important events in our visit to America.
Sri Chinmoy: We belong to one big family. When a family is big, a few members of the family go out of the house and live elsewhere. They live in different places, but they still have the same parents, the same brothers, the same sisters. Similarly, God's creation is one family. Some members are living in the Soviet Union, others are living in America and still others are living in India, Canada and different parts of the world. But we are all God's children, and we are all brothers and sisters. Our goal is the same; our destination is the same: universal oneness and peace.
When we pray and meditate, we live in the heart and we come to realise our oneness with one another. If we do not pray and meditate, we live in the mind, where everything is division. If we live in the mind, we find that even in our own being there is division. Our mind wants us to do one thing and our vital wants us to do something else. Therefore we can never have satisfaction. But if we live in the heart, all the parts of our being work together. Let us live always in the heart. The little brothers and big brothers have to go together. The rich countries and the poor countries have to go together, for we are all one.
Mrs. Kuznetsov: We are all one. We hope that our children will be friends with each other and that there will be no borders. We would like to come to visit our friends without any effort.
Dr. Kuznetsov: I would also like to say that you have most incredible eyes. Your eyes are like burning lava, like flowing volcanic lava. It is an incredible force, which is also very kind. You are sending a welcome to us with your eyes.
Sri Chinmoy: It is your oneness-heart that is speaking. You feel in me what you yourself are deep within. You have a most beautiful jewel inside you, locked deep within yourself. But you have misplaced the key, and now you are searching for it. My job is only to show you where you have kept the jewel and to help you find the key. Once you have found the key, the treasure inside will be all yours. It is your jewel, your soul.
* Dr. Felix Kuznetsov of the Gorky Institute, Moscow, and his wife are also present on that occasion.
Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 28