Professor Reynolds: I have been teaching a seminar on world peace for about twelve years. I have come to realise that the United Nations is a hopeful organisation although it does need some changes. Since you have been close to the United Nations, maybe you could make some suggestions.

Sri Chinmoy: I do not make any suggestions. I am a student of peace. I go there to offer my services through my prayers and meditation, and many come to pray and meditate with me. We have come to realise from our prayer and meditation that the human mind as such cannot solve any world problems. What is needed is the aspiring heart. As soon as we use our mind, doubt comes to the fore. If you doubt me and I doubt you, how can we do anything together? This moment my mind tells me you are a nice man, and the next moment my mind says you are not a nice man. But who is my mind to judge? By judging someone I am not enlightening or illumining him. It is only by loving someone, by claiming him as my own, very own, that I can transform and illumine him. It is like a parent and a child. When the child does something wrong, the parents don't say, "Oh, you are a bad fellow. Go away!" No! By virtue of their compassion, affection and love, they feel that the child's defect is their own and that it is their bounden duty to save and illumine him.

The mind wants only to enjoy supremacy. For the mind, peace is being one step ahead of someone else. But if I want to be one step ahead of you and you want to be one step ahead of me, how can we have peace? The heart wants only oneness. With my heart-power I will try to claim you as my own. With my heart-power I will seek not to be one step ahead of you, but to walk side by side with you. So it is only heart-power that will bring about world peace.

The heart has the message and capacity of identification; the heart is all oneness. We feel our heart is synonymous with a home; we speak of a oneness-home. We go to work in various walks of life and come back home for the evening, where we enjoy our oneness with our family, our world-family. For real peace to be achieved, we need eagerness and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm we need in our minds, eagerness we need in our hearts and soulfulness we need in our life.

Unfortunately, when nations meet together to discuss peace, they are using their mind-power. They are trying to solve their problems mentally, not psychically. That is why the problems are still there and will always be there. If we enter into a room that is unlit, then how can we get light? The mind-room is unlit, whereas the heart-room is getting light directly from the soul, which gets the light directly from God. So, from Above, the light is coming down to purify and illumine our life. The light has already entered into the heart. Next it will have to enter into the mind. From the mind it will enter into the vital and then into the body.

Again, we have to know that receptivity is of paramount importance. The morning sun is for everybody. But if I keep my doors and windows closed, then the sun will not be able to come in. Since you have kept your windows and doors open, the sunlight is coming in and illumining your room. You are getting fresh hope, new inspiration and new aspiration. But I am continuing in my darkness-life.

The human mind only sings the song of division. Because my left arm is weaker than my right, my mind gives all importance to my right arm. But I know that if I didn't have a left arm, then people would say, "Look, he is imperfect." Perfection can be found only in the totality, and what the heart does is accept and embrace the totality. I have written many, many books, but they all have only one message: the heart's power of love must replace the mind's love of power. If I have the power of love, then I shall claim the whole world as my own. So at every moment we have to know whether we are using the heart-power to enlarge ourselves or the mind-power to blind and bind ourselves.