Politics and spirituality

Sri Chinmoy: Music unites. We are so happy and so grateful that you gave up politics for music. The universal language, the universal heart, you now possess. Politics only creates confusion; you are caught in it and cannot come out. But music creates only oneness.

Mr Masur: We had a meeting tonight with the audience, as you know. Some very interesting questions were asked. Somebody asked me if I would like to use music as a political tool. It makes no sense to me. Music is to bring harmony. When Mr Bush announced the Gulf War, I said at the time that I believe every President who starts a war should apologise because it means he was unable to keep peace. What is your vision about politics in the next century?

Sri Chinmoy: Politics has to surrender to spirituality. Then spirituality will guide and lead politics. Now it is like a blind man trying to lead someone who has very clear vision. People who pray and meditate have clear, good vision, and they are the ones who can lead the blind people. Blind people are those who remain in the mind and all the time doubt and suspect others. People who doubt others will never be able to give joy either to others or to themselves. Today they are doubting others and tomorrow they are bound to doubt themselves. But people who live in the heart are always loving. Today they love God; tomorrow they will love all humanity.

If the spiritual people get the opportunity to guide the mental people, who right now are in politics, then there will be a different kind of politics — a politics of the heart. That is to say, guidance will come from the heart, and there will be no division between people. The heart is expanding all the time, whereas the mind is all the time dividing and dividing. By dividing and conquering we can never get joy. Only by becoming one can we get joy. A boxer defeats another boxer today, only to be defeated by a third boxer in a few months’ time. So where is the joy?

Right now politics is all in the mind. When we are in the mind, we are always trying to show our supremacy: “I am greater than you. I have to be one step higher than you. I have to be one step ahead of you.” But if we are in the heart, then we are all together. “Where you are, I am also. Wherever you are, I am inside your heart and you are inside my heart.”

This is how we find joy — not by becoming a little superior to someone for five seconds and then having our pride smashed by someone else, but by becoming one with others.

Mr Masur: What will you do tomorrow?

Sri Chinmoy: Tomorrow morning I shall be coming here to Manhattan to meet with the President of Malta. About two hundred students of mine will go to Malta in December. We will be there for two weeks. So tomorrow I have a meeting with the President of Malta.

Mr Masur: Another important day! Today was only joy.

Singer: Tomorrow is politics.

Sri Chinmoy: But I never discuss politics. It is not my forté, so I do not have to worry. I have met with many, many politicians, but we never discuss politics because I know nothing about it. We only meet to talk about the heart.

Mr Masur: I think you remind politicians that they may have a soul still.

Sri Chinmoy: Again, some politicians do have light. President Gorbachev, for example, was able to unite East and West Germany and liberate so many countries because he definitely received some light from Above. We are lucky that some very rare politicians have been able to receive light from Above. For that we are grateful.

In everything there is light. Some rooms are fully illumined while others have a little bit of illumination. So with our prayer and meditation we try to bring light into the rooms that are still unlit and not fully illumined.

Mr Masur: Thank you. I have had a truly wonderful time today. I am so impressed. Thank you very much.