Question: Is there a special need to promote co-operation between the newer and often poorer countries in the General Assembly and the older and, in most cases, more established, wealthier countries? Should the latter not take the lead in fostering good relations?

Sri Chinmoy: We all believe in progress. Progress is nothing but true satisfaction. If one country is more established and more financially secure than another country, that doesn’t mean that this particular country is the happiest and the most perfect country. If one country wants to remain always at the vanguard of all the other countries, or if it wants to exercise supremacy over the other countries, then it may be able to do so. But true satisfaction, for which there is a common and universal cry, will never come. Supremacy will never be transformed into either an individual or collective smile.

Everything is relative. One country may be poorer than another country in one particular aspect of human life but it can easily be richer in some other aspect of life. Outer wealth it may lack, but inner wealth it may have in profuse measure. Again, if one country is wanting in the outer wealth as well as in the inner wealth, then it will be an act not only of kindness but also of wisdom if the superior country opens both its inner door and outer door to help, guide and illumine the unillumined, inferior one. At that time the illumined one is only increasing its reality-existence. The heart of love knows only how to expand, and another name for this expansion is satisfaction. Satisfaction-reality is the fruit of the satisfaction-tree, which comes from the perfection-seed.