The necessity-height of the United Nations

“I know that the world cannot do without the United Nations.”

This soulful and fruitful declaration of the Secretary-General inspires and illumines our searching minds and aspiring hearts. Again he affirms: “I firmly believe that, for all its shortcomings and frustrations, the United Nations is an indispensable institution.”

The Secretary-General sees the United Nations as essentially a great and unique human experiment. As such, it is open to all the human shortcomings and weaknesses. But it is because it is a human organisation, served by individual human beings from every continent, that its strength and relevance derives.

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Change of nature, either in human life or in any phase of life itself, has proved to be a most difficult task. When the ascending aspiration-flames from below and the descending Compassion-Sun from above meet together, the seemingly impossible task of nature’s change, either in an individual life or in a country’s life, can both surprisingly and satisfactorily take place. Nature’s change has always been slow, steady, but unerring. With regard to the nature’s transformation of a State, what the United Nations can unmistakably and will convincingly do is most illuminingly expressed by its supreme Pilot, Kurt Waldheim:

"When States become members of the United Nations, they do not suddenly and miraculously change their nature... But if the United Nations was not meant to initiate a fundamental transformation of the nature of world politics, the Organisation does provide the framework and the machinery for channelling national actions into more constructive directions..."

Each dedicated action of the United Nations is not only an experiment of man but an experience of God in the world and for the world. Truth to tell, the United Nations aspiration for brotherhood and peace is divinely indispensable in the eternal march of world-evolution. What could be greater than the hope that the heart and soul of this world family offer mankind? The all-seeing hope and vision of the United Nations will lead humanity to the highest Peace, Light and Bliss for the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

To quote the late Secretary-General U Thant, who was one with his successor Kurt Waldheim in his realisation of the indispensability of this world institution:

"Humanity has reached the point of no return. Acceptance of the community of interest has become a requirement of human survival on this planet. It can no longer be dismissed as an idealistic concept, unrelated to realities. The traditional sovereign state is no longer a viable guarantee of a nation’s security or economic prosperity, nor even a guarantee of national survival. More and more men of science and scholarship, as well as business leaders and public administrators, have come to grasp this underlying fact of interdependence today."

To our Secretary-General, the divine reason and purpose of the World Organisation are supremely self-evident:

"The world does not need a new political cataclysm to provoke such an alliance. Poverty, hunger, the lack of proper education, health and shelter, and the new problems of the environment and of our endangered seas, waters and atmosphere are big enough problems to justify the co-operation of all forces in the United Nations."

Countless are the problems when we live in the unlit and doubting mind. But there is only one problem — absolutely one and not two — when we live in the awakened life and the oneness-loving heart, and that problem is the problem of survival and prosperity of all men. How do we divinely survive and supremely prosper? Here is the irrevocable proclamation offered to the world by our Secretary-General:

"As we now consider the choices before us, we must realise we are not faced with many separate problems, but with different aspects of a single over-all problem: the survival and prosperity of all men and women and their harmonious development, physical as well as spiritual, in peace, with each other and with nature. This is the solution we must seek. It is within our power to find it."

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The United Nations offers to seekers and lovers of the world a divine hope and promise, as the truth-seeker and harmony-seeker in Kurt Waldheim so clearly sees:

"The instrument is here, created under the impact of the horrors of the Second World War. It is universal in scope and almost universal in membership. All that is needed is for the leaders of today to use it, support it and meet on the solid basis of its charter."

Sri Chinmoy, A Soulful Tribute to The Secretary-General: The Pilot Supreme of The United Nations, Agni Press, New York, 1978

The Sri Chinmoy Library

The necessity-height of the United Nations