My Peace Education Life

A Talk by Sri Chinmoy

I wish to offer my heartfelt gratitude to the many faculty, staff and students who have worked so hard for the success of this evening’s programme. Highly esteemed Senior Vice-President Livingston, I am extremely grateful to you for your very kind and gracious introduction, as well as for the blessingful letter of welcome which you wrote to me last month. Your entire life has been consecrated to inspiring and encouraging your fellow professors and students at the University of Texas and worldwide. Therefore, I feel specially honoured and prayerfully moved by your soul-stirring words.
I would like to offer my heart’s deepest appreciation to Professor Lester Kurtz, Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies and an enthusiastic pioneer of peace studies through the Ad Hoc Committee on Peace and Conflict Studies. Your tireless vision for a world of non-violence and peace has taken you to the four corners of the globe, including my homeland, India, and my heart is all gratitude to you for your kind invitation to your august University. I shall deeply treasure the “Peace Educator Award” which you have just bestowed upon my devoted head and aspiring heart.

May I also thank my student-friends of the Distinguished Speakers Committee for their wholehearted enthusiasm and support for my visit tonight.

My Peace-Education-Life

Peace I find when I am lost inside God’s Compassion-Eye.
Peace I become when I am lost inside God’s Forgiveness-Feet.

Mine is a mind-jungle totally empty of peace.
Mine is a heart-garden flooded with peace.

The divine in us embraces peace.
The human in us longs for peace.
The animal in us destroys peace.

President Gorbachev, the peace-dreamer, peace-bringer and peace-server of this century, has urged again and again:

“What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.”

I heave a sigh when my mind becomes a victim to searing conflicts.
I become a singing bird when my life becomes the breath of peace.

My heart’s God-love-beauty has peace.
My life’s God-surrender-fragrance is peace.

The dream-flooded and soul-stirring words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ring forth:

“I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed.”

Devotedly I chant the Name of my Beloved Lord Supreme.
Bountifully my Beloved Lord Supreme enchants my life.

My soul’s peace-smiles and my heart’s peace-tears together cover endless miles unobstructed.

Infinity is the Source of my soul’s peace-smiles.
Eternity is the Source of my heart’s peace-tears.

Peace is infinitely more than the birthless and deathless promises of my mind.
Peace is in the ever-blossoming hopes of my heart.

I wish to cite the momentous utterance of U Thant, the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, who was widely revered for his innate spirituality and deep wisdom. He said:

“There is no peace in the world today because there is no peace in the minds of men.”

God comes to me, compassionately and unconditionally, and gives me Peace.
Man comes to me, immediately and ruthlessly, and takes away all my peace.

God comes and man comes.
When God comes, I swim in the ocean of infinite Delight.
When man comes, my very earth-existence is devoured by the unquenchable thirst and insatiable hunger of sorrows.

But love mankind I must, for mankind is unmistakably an extension of my own reality-existence. The lofty realisation of Mother Teresa, the twentieth century’s unparalleled server of bleeding humanity, echoes and re-echoes in the inmost recesses of my heart: “Works of love are works of peace.”

I ask God,
“My Lord, is there any way I can embody
and treasure Your Peace forever and forever?”

God says,
“My child, there is a way.
Just illumine your mind more, infinitely more.
Feed your heart more, infinitely more.
Energise your life more, infinitely more.
Lo, in you My Infinity’s Peace has found its Eternity’s Abode.”

Peace is today’s soul-seed-world.
Peace is tomorrow’s life-tree-world.

But the peace of tomorrow must be built upon the solid foundations of today. What are those foundations? President Woodrow Wilson, the champion of the League of Nations, has a most significant message for the world-community in this connection. He advises us that lasting peace can never be the fruit of a war where one side defeats the other. “It must be a peace without victory,” he proclaims.

O world, you will not be happy and satisfied if you come and visit God’s omnipotent Power-Head, but you will be completely happy and supremely satisfied if you come and visit God’s omnipresent Peace-Feet.

Man thinks his mind’s love for world power and his heart’s love for world peace can live together. Indeed, this is the height of man’s stupidity.

Up until now, God has been pleading with the human mind to study the world peace course. But now God is forcing the human mind to study the world peace course.

The moment the division-mind desires to live in the heart of oneness-peace-world, God will immediately declare His supreme Victory on earth.

One minute of world peace is ten hours with God.

– Sri Chinmoy

June 25th, 1998
University of Texas at Austin
After receiving the Peace Educator Award