3. Proclamation of The President:
For his contribution to the promotion of world peace,for the development of relations
between the peoples of Mongolia and India,
for contributions to the fields of culture, education and
humanitarian assistance to the people of Mongolia,
the leader of The Peace Meditation at the United Nations,
Sri Chinmoy Ghose, is herewith awarded the Medal of Friendship
by the President of Mongolia, Nambaryn Enkhbayar.
President Nambaryn Enkhbayar: [speaking in English, after pinning a medallion to Sri Chinmoy's garment and presenting him with a plaque]: Congratulations!
Sri Chinmoy: My most highly esteemed President Enkhbayar, I am offering you gratitude from the inmost recesses of my heart. You are so kind to allow me to be in your blessingful presence, and I shall treasure this most coveted award given by you. I shall cherish it in the very depths of my heart.
President Enkhbayar: (speaking in English): First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you for your visit to Mongolia with your followers and friends. In Mongolia you are quite a well-known person because of your noble deeds and the achievements you have shown all your life to promote peace and friendship among nations and peoples, and the bringing together of all the different cultures. Here I think you also have a group of followers, Mongolians who study very deeply your works and follow your activities.
We hope that this visit will also be a very important one, and that it will contribute to the development of good relations between Mongolia and India, and also that it will be a good promotion to support peace and friendship among different nations and different cultures.
From the Mongolian side, I have here the chief of the Presidential administration, my social policy advisor, and another very famous composer and diplomat. They are also greatly contributing towards making Mongolia more known to the world and towards building good bridges to different cultures and to famous people like yourself who do your best to promote peace, friendship and good understanding among different peoples and between different cultures.
So, thank you for your visit, and I hope that you will enjoy your stay here and find Mongolia a very interesting country. We are in the period when we can say that the transition towards democracy and market-oriented economies is almost over. Now we are at the beginning of this intensive development phase of our life. We hope that not only economic but also spiritual values will be very much a part of this new society. Sometimes, unfortunately, we find out that money is playing more of a role than is necessary.
We think that you also are contributing to help Mongolians, specially young people, become interested in spiritual values and to study those values. We hope that during your stay here you will have a chance to have meetings with the young people of Mongolia and to bring that message to the audience. Thank you.
Sri Chinmoy: My beloved President, I have come here to be of service to you personally and also to your beloved country. The very name 'Mongolia' gives me enormous joy and delight. I come from India. Even in India, when I read about Mongolia, I was deeply impressed and inspired, although I did not have the slightest idea in those days that I would be able to come and visit your country. But God, the Author of all Good, has now given me the greatest opportunity to be here and to be in your blessingful presence and offer my humble service to your country.
I have been here for the last three days. During these three days, people have been so kind to me in every possible way. Mongolia has a very deep connection with my aspiring heart. My heart's aspiration and my life's dedication I wish to offer to the soul, heart and life of Mongolia.
It is so kind of you to say such generous words, which I do not deserve. I am a student of peace and you are also, I am sure. I know it, I feel it – you are also a man of peace. We are sailing in the same boat, towards the same destination.
This country, Mongolia, has the boundless Compassion from the Lord Buddha. I come from India and I have the deepest admiration, adoration and devotion for the Lord Buddha. In this connection, I wish to tell you about the late United Nations Secretary-General U Thant. U Thant was Burmese and he was a very devout Buddhist. It was in 1970, out of his infinite bounty, that he invited me to come and serve the United Nations, to pray and meditate to help bring about world peace. On Tuesdays and Fridays I offer meditations there.
So now, my beloved President, I have a special request to make. At the very outset, you have blessed me with your special Medallion of Friendship. Now, I beg of you to grant me the opportunity, before I leave Mongolia, to offer you a very special award which has been accepted by the late Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, President Gorbachev, President Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and others. This is a peace award I have established to perpetuate the memory of the third Secretary-General, U Thant.
Any day I am at your service, if you would allow me. I shall be extremely, extremely grateful to you if you could accept our award for peace, world peace, universal peace. You are a man of peace, so if you could kindly allow me, before I leave Mongolia I wish to offer it to you.
And also I have composed a song in honour of you. It is my soulful song. Would you kindly allow my students to sing the song for you? These students of mine would be very grateful to you if they could get an opportunity to sing the song for you.
President Enkhbayar:: Yes, yes!
Sri Chinmoy: May I read out the words?
President Nambaryn Enkhbayar,
A heart of beauty's Heaven-climbing fire.
Mongolia's Pilot-Father, Brother of Love,
On you descends the Pride-Sun from Above.
Your life is flooded with the Lord Buddha's Grace.
In you blossoms a new Mongolian race.
This is for you. (Sri Chinmoy presented to the President a copy of the words and music.)
Just yesterday I set to music one of your momentous utterances. You said, "My hobby is to surpass and to know my possibilities." Please forgive me for setting this momentous utterance of yours to music. And this is the song which I have composed about Mongolia. Any day if you could allow my students to sing these songs for you, I would be most grateful.
President Enkhbayar:: Thank you. I appreciate this very much. Yes, my hobby is to surpass and to try to know my limits.
Sri Chinmoy: There is no limit, no limit!
President Enkhbayar:: There is no limit, true. But we presume that in our mind we have some limits, so we have to check whether they really exist or not. There is no limit, yes.
Sri Chinmoy: There is no limit, no limit, to your success and progress. There is no limit, no limit! You have such an inner hunger to feed this world, to serve the world. The Lord Buddha, the Lord Himself, will always give you not only the capacities, but also the opportunities. Some people have capacities, but they do not get opportunities in their life. In your case, you have both. Already you are inundated with capacities. Now only opportunities have to knock at your door, and those days are fast approaching.
President Enkhbayar:: Your visit has also coincided with the time when we are celebrating the 2,550th anniversary of Lord Buddha's birth. The 21st of May will be a special day when we will celebrate the birth of Lord Buddha. This whole year is going to be the Lord Buddha's year, so it is very important and I think it is very symbolic that you are visiting us in this year.
We hope that there will be more visits and there will be more students. And everybody will find out, I hope, that there is no limit to developing the human capacity. The limits are surpassed when one searches for peace, for harmony, for friendship. But there are limits to evil things. There should be limits on war and other mistakes or bad things that are sometimes unfortunately occurring in the world. I think that your message will be very clear and very carefully listened to and heard here.
Sri Chinmoy: I have been to Japan eighteen times, mainly for one thing: to visit the Lord Buddha's statue in Kamakura.
President Enkhbayar:: Yes.
Sri Chinmoy: I go there prayerfully. One priest was very, very kind to me. He allowed me to offer my concert right in front of the Lord Buddha's statue.
The award that I would like to offer you has a special connection with the Lord Buddha. Many years ago, I wrote a play entitled Siddhartha Becomes the Buddha. That play was staged in New York and I invited Secretary-General U Thant to come and preside over it. He came and we became very close friends. The award is to perpetuate U Thant's memory. U Thant was a man of peace. He had a universal heart. So if I could offer that particular award to you, I would be extremely, extremely grateful to you.
President Enkhbayar: Thank you. My best wishes, and I hope that there will be, as I said earlier, many more visits.
Sri Chinmoy: I wish to tell you something more. I am an old man! In 1970 I was invited to give a talk at the University of Leeds. At that time, you were perhaps twelve or thirteen years old.
President Enkhbayar:: Yes.
Sri Chinmoy My talk was about the inner teaching, not the outer teaching. Later you became a student at the University of Leeds. So history unites us in a very special way.
President Enkhbayar:: Yes, yes!
Alo Devi: Mr. President, on behalf of all the students of Sri Chinmoy – there are now over four hundred present here in Mongolia – we wish to thank you for your beautiful people. They are so self-giving, so spiritual, so hospitable and so beautiful, inwardly and outwardly. We want to tell you that your country has enchanted us, and we want to thank you very much.
President Enkhbayar:: Thank you, thank you.
Sri Chinmoy: We must meet together once more, please, at your convenience.
[President Enkhbayar nodded several times in agreement. The President and Sri Chinmoy bade each other farewell with folded hands and a handshake.]
