World ignorance and universal light
To our sorrow, most human beings are satisfied with a life of darkness, limitation and bondage. They aspire not to see a higher existence-reality and to live a more fulfilling life. Yet these very individuals find fault with the United Nations day in and day out, in season and out of season. But they must remember that as they themselves are not perfect, neither are the human beings who are offering their service-light to the United Nations. Again, it is the human in us that sees imperfections in others. The divine in us sees only the perfection of the Creator in His creation.The wisdom-light of the Pilot supreme of the United Nations knows the necessity of world understanding for and world support of the UN’s vision and reality. The capacities and potentialities, as well as the limitations, of the world organisation must be brought into the full view of individuals and their nations.
But to the eyeless critics of the world organisation, the Secretary-General says:
"Critics of the United Nations often demand, What do we get out of it? The answer is a great deal, but I would prefer that you should ask the questions, What can we put into it? and What can we do to make the world organisation more effective as a guarantor of peace and human advancement?"
It is an unfortunate mistake to try to judge the United Nations by what the United Nations has or has not achieved. What is of paramount importance is whether we claim the United Nations as our very own. Indeed, if we can feel that we are part and parcel of this world-body, and if we can increase our own aspiration and dedication in abundant measure, then we can one day illumine the mind and heart of the entire world.
Clearly the Secretary-General sees the urgency and necessity of illumining the world-mind and world-heart:
"Governments may be more inclined to support and to use the United Nations and to implement its recommendations if there is strong public opinion in favour of the Organisation. The people themselves therefore have a crucial say in world affairs. Support and realistic appraisal by the public could be the razor’s edge between war and peace."
Ignorance is man’s worst enemy, yet surprisingly man has formed a long-standing friendship with ignorance. The peerless Pilot of the United Nations speaks out against world-ignorance:
"Of all the evils which have beset mankind in its recent history, that of ignorance is perhaps the worst. For out of ignorance there comes intolerance; out of intolerance there comes hostility; and out of hostility there comes conflict. In our interdependent world it is dangerous to be ignorant of other nations, other faiths, other ideologies, other interests, other ambitions, other hopes. From knowledge of these you will learn how it may be possible for the world" — your world — to practise tolerance and live together in peace.
The Light of the Supreme can alone disperse our age-old darkness. Here our best friend, according to Kurt Waldheim, is the universal light offered by education:
"Every school and every university has the duty to ensure that young people are trained to comprehend the new realities, and to realise that, of all the curses of the past, ignorance has been the most terrible of all. With knowledge comes tolerance; and tolerance is the essential basis not only for detente, but for the much wider peace and security which we are seeking for ourselves and for future generations."
Never must we surrender to ignorance, fear, doubt, anxieties and worries. Each obstacle we face is a divine opportunity to muster and strengthen our inner resources. We must know that if the United Nations reflects the human qualities of mankind, so also it reflects the divine potentialities of man. Our Secretary-General sees the divine as far outshining the human in this comity of nations:
"At root, the United Nations represents a striving after great human goals which are common to all peoples... The United Nations certainly reflects many human deficiencies, and it is as capable of error and misjudgement as any other human institution. But I also know that it reflects the great human qualities, of which integrity, perseverance, patience, and compassion are, I believe, the most important."
As fate would have it, ignorance quite often doubts God’s Compassion-Light that operates in and through the service-light of the United Nations, in spite of the Himalayan efforts of world-lovers to serve humanity. Here the Secretary-General voices the emotions that often fill the hearts of world-servers:
"There are occasions, looking at the world as it is, and conscious of what it should be, when a compassionate person is dominated by emotions of despair. The problems are so vast, so intractable, so profound! How can we hope to resolve them, to fulfil the noble ideals of the Charter and the Universal Declaration?"
Yet man must always reach for the transcendental Peace and Harmony. “While admitting failures and disappointments,” continues Mr Waldheim, “we must never lose sight of the ideal. If we abandon that ideal — a world living in harmony, in which true equality exists — we will all lose something in ourselves, we will have abandoned our faith, and we will have betrayed our trust. For we are Trustees for all humanity.”
