Reflections on World-Transforming Love and Oneness
Sri Chinmoy in conversation with Comrade Jacob Zuma, New York, 15 October 1998:
Sri Chinmoy: In 1995 I visited Robben Island. I was there for about forty minutes or so. You were there for ten years and our beloved President, Walter Sisulu and others were there for almost twenty years. In those forty minutes my prayerful heart felt the excruciating agonies, sufferings, anxieties and worries my brothers had to go through during their imprisonment.
I wish to say that the tears of your heart reached God’s Heart and turned His Tears into His brightest Smile. Again, it is God Himself who gives us tears in order to strengthen our love for Him. He who is chosen by God is examined by God also, to see if his love for God is genuine. God says to him, “My child, prove that you truly love Me.” So, dear Brother, the President, you and many, many others had to prove that you really love God inside each and every South African.
God is both the Creator and the creation.
Let us take your millions and millions of South African brothers and sisters as the creation. God said to you, “Now I am entrusting you with My creation. If you really love Me, then you have to take care of those who are in the street, who are unfed, who are poverty-stricken, who are illiterate. You have to take care of them because they are Mine. You said that you love Me. Now prove it!”
Dear Brother Jacob, the President, you and other freedom-fighters have proved that your love for God is, indeed, very, very deep.
For many of the whites in South Africa during the time of apartheid, civilisation was not born. They thought that they were educating the black South Africans. On the contrary, so many of the whites acted like beasts! Now, what can a human being learn from an animal? We can learn only from somebody who is superior to us in terms of wisdom, understanding and inner illumination. These qualities were not to be found among the majority of whites in South Africa. That is why your hearts revolted. You brought to the fore your indomitable spirit. You said, “We may be poor outwardly, but our spirit is strong. Our outer poverty can readily be seen, but we do not have inner poverty.” You showed the world that your compassion was your strength, your love was your strength, and your awakening to the inner light was your strength.
Night has power. Again, day has its own power, which is far greater. The white South Africans who wanted to conquer you, wanted to do so with the power of darkness. You wanted to illumine them with your light. Eventually darkness has to surrender to light.
The way you all suffered was absolutely brutal; it was not human. Brutality is the right word for your treatment. When you were given interminable prison sentences on Robben Island, the authorities said that you deserved this kind of treatment. But what kind of wrong did you do? What crimes did you commit? The white authorities were more powerful in terms of laws and weapons, but you had your heart-power. Your heart-power was your best weapon. Heart-power is all light. President Mandela, you and other freedom-fighters showed your inner light and finally the undivine forces which many, many whites embodied had to surrender. Because of you, they came to realise that we are all God’s children; we are all one.
The more we give peace, the closer we come to God. This world of ours has everything, save and except peace. People may be very learned, they may have advanced university degrees; but very often peace is totally missing from their lives. It is as though a furnace is raging inside them. Why? Because they do not pray and meditate, because they do not love God the Creator and God the creation as they are supposed to do. They care only for themselves.
Look at President Mandela’s heart! It is like a huge, spreading tree protecting all his brothers and sisters. He will say, “If my brothers and sisters are lying in the street, then I am ready to be in the street with them. They are mine. I do not want to remain in a palace.” President Mandela’s heart embraces each and every human life.
President Mandela has taught us so many sublime things, so many new things that bring to the fore our divine qualities. Undivine qualities everybody has to some extent, but these undivine qualities have to be illumined. President Mandela’s life of sacrifice is lovingly illumining our undivine qualities.
People who assert their superiority and lord it over others are always afraid that those whom they consider inferior will one day become stronger and surpass them. In every field, whenever there is any kind of competition, there is always fear, fear, fear! Let us consider the whites in South Africa. On the one hand, they were torturing you. On the other hand, they were terribly afraid of you! They knew that your heart-power was infinitely stronger than their mind-power. They were afraid that at any moment you would revolt and get back your freedom, and then they would be nowhere. They lived with this constant fear.
True peace and satisfaction come into our lives only when we can feel that we are one with others. At that time, there is no such thing as superior and inferior. We realise that we are all sisters and brothers of a oneness-world-family.
Mother Earth is vaster than the vastest and yet she is supremely humble. She is not afraid when somebody treads on the grass or flies in the sky. She is one with the entire creation. When we become inseparably one with others, then only can we have true humility. President Mandela is humility incarnate. He does not harbour feelings of superiority or inferiority. At the same time, he is not afraid of anybody. He is his heart’s oneness with humanity.
