Inner Flames at the United Nations⁴

Inner Flames signify aspiration. Aspiration illumines the undivine in us and fulfils the divine in us. Our doubting mind is the undivine in us. Our loving heart is the divine in us. The doubting mind unconsciously and consciously tries to destroy the whole world. The loving heart consciously and unreservedly creates a new world: a world of hope, a world of light, a world of delight.

Aspiration is the inner cry. Both God and man have this inner cry. With His inner Cry, God claims us. With our inner cry, we follow God. God’s inner Cry is for our perfection and our outer cry is for God’s satisfaction.

We, the members of the United Nations Meditation Group, are each inner flames, and we are each trying with utmost humility and sincerity to be of service to each member of the United Nations, to the dream of the United Nations, to the pristine purity of the United Nations. Our capacity is very limited, but our willingness, our eagerness to be of service to each member, to each ideal of the United Nations, is sincere. And this sincerity will one day be proved and marked.

Here at the United Nations, all are inner flames. No matter what an individual’s post is, whether he holds the highest post or the lowest, he is undoubtedly an inner flame, for his is the cry which is genuine. Each individual server of the United Nations, irrespective of his nationality or religious and cultural background, is undoubtedly an inner flame. And each flame serves the community of nations according to its capacity and according to its receptivity.

The original and pioneer flame was President Wilson. His dream of the League of Nations has blossomed into the United Nations. Once it was a tiny plant, but now it has grown into a huge banyan tree. It was the plant that embodied the inner flame and now, as a huge banyan tree, it has countless flames.

God and Truth are one and inseparable. Truth and Light are also one and inseparable. Truth, when it starts manifesting itself, takes the form of Light and this Light illumines and fulfils the seeker in us.

The seeker in us always wants to satisfy the little world and the big world. The world that we claim at the beginning of our life — our home, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our relatives — is the little world. But as our vision increases, as we look around and see a bigger world, an unhorizoned world awaiting us, at that time we claim the big world as our very own.

Each individual who has come to serve the United Nations represents his own country, his small world. But when he becomes part and parcel of the United Nations, the big world, at that time he is for all, for the entire humanity. He started his journey with his own country and then he arrived at the goal of goals: universal oneness.

The United Nations wants to solve all the world problems. It is more than eager to solve all the problems that the world could ever imagine. In various ways it is trying to solve the world’s problems lovingly, devotedly, soulfully and unreservedly. A problem indicates confusion, a problem indicates the dance of ego, a problem indicates human weakness. Each problem can be solved and will be solved by only one thing and that is the message of union. This union comes to the fore only when we kindle the inner flame. We, as seekers, know perfectly well that it is the inner flames that are burning inside all the members of the United Nations that are inspiring the members to solve all the problems of the world.

Today’s meeting is honouring the General Assembly. At the General Assembly each individual nation comes to offer its light, truth, willingness-capacity and sense of oneness. Each country embodies truth and light in its own way. But each country feels and knows in the inmost recesses of its heart that the light and truth it embodies cannot be sufficient. Therefore, it tries to accept and receive light from other countries. Similarly, each flame that each individual embodies cannot be sufficient to solve any world problem or to illumine world-ignorance. What is needed is the unification of all the flames that are here, there and everywhere. So all the flames that are here have to be collected so that they can muster their joint strength. At that time, the ignorance-dream that separates one country from another, one man from another, can no longer last. It will be replaced by Wisdom-Reality. And what is Wisdom-Reality? Wisdom-Reality is the song of oneness. This song of oneness is founded only on self-giving, which is nothing short of truth-becoming. And truth-becoming is oneness with the all-embracing, all-loving, all-illumining and all-fulfilling Reality.

The higher reality is the soul in us; the lower reality is the body-consciousness, which we are right now. The lower reality aspires to grow into the higher reality. The higher reality inspires us. A great many individuals think only of the lower reality, the body-reality, as the United Nations building, where thousands of human beings are serving the one cause. The building-reality, the body-reality, of the United Nations immediately captures their minds. The outside world does not easily think of the soul-reality, which is the real reality of the United Nations. But it is the loving souls, the illumining souls of the United Nations that guide the body-reality, or try to guide it. The day will come when the outer world will realise that looming large inside the body-reality is the soul-reality.

We the seekers and members of the United Nations Meditation Group are trying to serve both the soul-reality and the body-reality according to our very limited capacity. Our capacity is very, very limited, but our sincere efforts we place at the Feet of the Inner Pilot of the United Nations. This Inner Pilot is our fate-maker, the Author of all Good, God. It is the Creator in God and the creation-fruit that is all light and life and perfection.