All Humanity Unified by Love

by Chariji, July 9, 2003, Paris, France

Well, let me say how happy I am to be with you all. I'm grateful to all of you for welcoming me. I'm grateful to my sister, Marie-Christine Cottin, for her efforts in getting me a visa, and to a friend of Krishna whom I have not met. Mr. Liogier, I think, is his name. He was also instrumental in helping us to get the visa. And of course to my Master for permitting me to come here. You know, I am at a stage in my physical and spiritual life when I like to pretend that everything I say and I do must be with the approval of my Master. So my gratitude to Him, and you should also be grateful to Him.

He used to dream of one humanity. That was His purpose in life, and the direction His work was taking through Sahaj Marg, which I know was only one way of His work. Il a à Sa disponibilité beaucoup de chemins [He has many paths available to Him] et nous avons connaissance de seulement un chemin [and we know of only one path]. Yes I'm sorry (laughs). But I realize more and more how His universal work was made perceptible and visible to us through the Mission and Sahaj Marg. In the spiritual realm, there is work going on to make humanity into one solid, living system. Our work in Sahaj Marg should be to crystallize that effort, and make the physical human life as one system. And, you know, only the hearts can bring that about, not the heads. With the intellect we can only create division, disparity, differences. With the heart we can create unity, fraternity, amity, things like that amity, friendship. That is why Sahaj Marg concentrates all its work through the heart, on the heart, by the heart.

In my visit to Europe this time, and later on in America, the effort will be to unify Europe in a spiritual way, in a human way, so that we have humanity in Europe, not Europeans. We have human beings, not Frenchmen, not Germans, not Belgians, not Indians-no, not like that. Those of you who are really spiritually inclined, and who believe in what my Master taught, regarding for instance samskara- why we are what we are, why we are where we are, and why we are how we are-it's all an accident. You are French people by accident, I am an Indian by accident, we are Jews, and Christians and Muslims and Hindus by accident, the accident having been caused by our own stupidity, through thoughts and actions, which were unnecessary. There's no question of vice and virtue, no question of sin, in Sahaj Marg. But there is this very vital aspect that when we don't think and act in a way that is spiritually evolutionary, we end up on one of these big catherine wheels going round and round and round. And you know, like children enjoy it, but with a very definite element of fear at one stage, as adults we are also enjoying with fear. The fear is real, the enjoyment is a fallacy. There is no such thing as joie de vivre. There is only existence, consciousness, possibility of bliss-not happiness. Happiness is not bliss. Bliss is a perfectly balanced state, where there is no happiness and sorrow, there is no good and bad, there is no past, present and future. And that is the only state where we exist without the need for the brain and the intellect.

So, you see, we have to bring about a common interest in Europe in our assembly here. I don' t want to think of this property that the Mission will acquire in the Cardinal Lemoine nearby, as if it is for Paris or the French, or even for Europe. It is for human beings who care to come to it. You know, the great religious centres in this world, whether it is the Vatican or Jerusalem or Mecca-they should not be restricted to people of one religion. If it is a place of worship, it is a place of God. And human beings cannot divide God into mine and yours. We have schools where people study without difference of caste, color, creed, religion. So why can't we worship in places without considerations of religion, and culture and language? Sahaj Marg is aiming at such a future. And, you know, the future cannot be created in the future; it must be created in the present. And if you don' t have the love for humanity to create such a future for yourself, your children and their children will suffer the consequences, of a society divided against itself, human beings hating and killing each other, lies being told by politicians, by religious leaders, by everybody.

Only this morning, you read in the newspaper that President George Bush of America has accepted that Iraq was not buying atomic secrets or whatever from Africa. He said his information was wrong. But, you know, one war took place because of that. What was at that time a definite lie, is today offered as information missing, or mistaken. So lies become mistakes of information, wars become mistakes in judgment, and mass murder becomes what? Something we are sorry for. "We apologize."

So I give you a very definite warning today, and so, please don't take it lightly. You know, I have never issued a warning before. I don't believe in warnings and threats and all that sort of thing. But my heart says, "Warn them, that if they continue in this divisive way-health and happiness only for the rich, health and happiness only for the selected few, God only as a personal possession of a few people, of a few communities in this world, God will not tolerate it."

So if you want happiness, harmony and peace in your lives, it is no use saying "There's one God". You must feel it, you must practice it, and you must offer it as a reality. Not saying, "Yes, yes, but my God is the real God. There is only one God, but that is my God." That's a lie and a crime against humanity, and against God Himself. In our ashrams, in our meditation halls, whether they are our own or whether they are hired, like this place, I aspire to carry this message of my Master for unification of humanity, by saying that my God is in me, in every one of us. And He has no name, He has no form, He has no attributes, and it would be a definite mistake to say, "But Chari, He has my form, my name and my attributes." That is an insult to God. But if you are able to say, "I shall assume His name, and His form and His attributes," which are nothing, nothing, nothing, that will be the truth. That is why Sahaj Marg says towards that nothingness we must proceed. Our goal is not to become "nothing", but to become "nothingness".

And there are many ways, there are many requirements. We have to definitely shed our culture, our addiction to our language, our attachment to our religion, our suspicion about others. Not for nothing Christ said, "Love thy neighbor as thy self." And my neighbour is not just one who is sitting next to me, but everybody is my neighbour, including trees, animals, birds, insects. If you say, "I love my wife," it may not be a lie. But you cannot love your wife and not love everybody else. This light cannot shine only for you. The sun is universal. Air, light, water-God gave to everybody. Essentials of life are free. Love is an essentiality. We cannot live without love. We cannot have been born without love. And if we die without love, that would be a terrible death, a death in isolation, in misery, in hopelessness.

So we cannot exist in any part of life without love. And to be true, it has to be universal love. We have seen science-fiction stories where individuals have oxygen in their space suits or whatever, you see, but they are in situations of profound danger. So, when you seek to individualize only for yourself the good, the essentialities of life, you are in situations of danger. When you universalize it, it is safe. It is safe, because it is there for everybody. If you are in a bubble of oxygen, one prick, and you are dead. But if you are in a world full of oxygen, full of light and full of air, and full of water, you are safe because everybody is safe. You can be happy because everybody is happy. If, in your society, you are the only happy person, yours is the only rich house, you will not exist long.

So my plea to you all is to become initially Europeans, because that is also going to be a difficult job for most of you, not because the job is difficult, but you are the difficulty yourself. But in a selfish world, you have all proved that you can unify yourself when economic considerations become important. The Euro has replaced 20 or 30 other currencies in this continent. Why? Why did you agree to it? Because it is profit. Politically, you are integrating yourself. And whether you know it or not, this is not a very happy integration, because it is a coming together of the nations of Europe with an inner fear, of a new fear. The fear of communist Russia has gone, but there is very much the fear of a capitalist, democratic nation across the oceans, which is already assuming the status of a world leader. There's nothing wrong with world leadership, if it is a loving, benevolent, happy leadership. But if it is a leadership based on the foundations of power, domination, ruthlessness, as it is proving to be, you have only exchanged one devil for a second, potential devil. This fear is surely in the heart of every European, at least the political leaders of the different nations of Europe. So this European unification is fear-based, security-based.

You see it in every airport today-more and more security. For what? "To protect you, the passengers," say the people. "It is for your protection, because you are in an aircraft, and we want to protect you and save your life." Therefore all these indignities you have to suffer before you enter the aircraft. And we pretend we are happy. "Take off your shoes," we take off our shoes. "Put your bag here," you put it. "Passport," you show it, because we are being protected. Protection is very expensive. Protection demeans us, dehumanizes us, makes brothers and sisters enemies, suspicious of each other. See what we have come to!

So, a society which has been unified through fear and temptation, is paralleling the religious domination of the past with a political domination in the present. The instruments used are the same-fear and temptation. How can we overcome? Love, naturally- nothing else. And love has no political frontiers, has no government, has no society, because anything that is universal must have transcended these divisive tendencies, which are ruling our lives today.

I hope that with Sahaj Marg at our disposal, and with the grace of the Masters, we can attempt to build a society which will be unified because of love. In such a society there will be no fear. Where there is no fear there is no need for protection. Where there is no fear and no protection, we are free. You know, yesterday we were talking about some prisons in some country, I think in Sweden, which are made so beautifully, you know, that they are better than houses. And people would prefer to be in jail. They are well looked after, they are fed properly, videos are shown, movies are shown. What is wrong with such a prison? We only forget that today the whole world is a prison like that-full of good living, boutiques, and we think we are free, we are happy. And we are what? "Not afraid of life." But if anyone of you can say, "I'm not afraid of life," that would be a lie. Because as philosophers have said throughout the history of philosophy, it is not death which is frightening, it is life which is frightening.

So, brothers and sisters, I recommend that you think of yourselves as one human element, just one part of life. Because life is not only human beings, life is everywhere. Plants are alive, animals are alive, birds are alive, and I cannot say I will love only human beings. If anyone of us is capable of love, that love must be all-embracing. It must embrace the whole universe. Therefore Babuji said, in such a heart the whole universe will exist.

I pray that you will all have the courage and the love to aspire to such an existence, to build such a heart within yourself, where you can say, "I and the Universe are one." Thank you.