Meeting With Kazuki Furui, Deputy Mayor of Nagasaki³

Sri Chinmoy: I am very happy and deeply honoured to be here. Nagasaki is a most significant place, not only in Japan, but also in the whole world. The message of peace and oneness the world has come to know from Nagasaki's most sorrowful experience.

Destruction is an old experience; illumination is a new experience. Now humanity is being illumined. This illumination that we are having, and that the whole world is going to have, is called oneness and peace.

Deputy Mayor Furui: During your visit, are you travelling to other cities?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, tomorrow we are visiting Hiroshima, and then the next day, Kyoto.

Deputy Mayor Furui: In your Peace Concert, will you be performing by yourself?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, I play by myself. I do not speak Japanese, and you do not speak Bengali, my mother tongue. If we use our mother tongues to communicate, we shall not be able to understand each other. But music is a universal language through which we can establish our oneness-feeling. That is why I play music — to have an inner communion with everybody. Outer language is not necessary at that time.

Deputy Mayor Furui: I understand that our staff helped with public relations for the Peace Concert.

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. I am so grateful, so grateful to them for their kind help and participation.

Deputy Mayor Furui: I hear you are going to see the Governor as well. You have come to Japan many times.

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, many times. I have been to Nagasaki three times.

Deputy Mayor Furui: Is that so! When you conduct Peace Meditations at the United Nations, do you give instructions?

Sri Chinmoy: I do not give any instructions. I pray and meditate, and those who come do the same. We pray and meditate together, each in our own way. Our sincere and soulful prayers we share, but no outer instructions are given. I feel that the silent, inner communication is far better than using words. When we talk, we use the mind. When we use words, our mind gets the opportunity to create confusion. But when we use the heart to pray together, then we feel our oneness, and oneness is what we need. The mind divides. We do not want division; we want oneness. Oneness we get only from the silence of our hearts.

Deputy Mayor Furui: I am praying from the depths of my heart for the success of the concert you are giving tonight.

Sri Chinmoy: I wish to thank you from the very depths of my heart for your kind words and for your prayers.