Address to the Students at Model United Nations Conference, New Delhi
22/Nov/2008 : New Delhi
Ignited Minds: The Power of the Planet Earth
Small aim is crime
I am delighted to participate in the inauguration of Model United Nations Conference DPS - MUN 2008. I am happy that DPS MUN recognizes the importance of United Nations as a forum of International opinion. This meeting will also give the participants an opportunity to understand multi-cultural view of world affairs, debating skills and learn the art of negotiation. In globalized world, it will establish the phenomena of cooperative competition. I congratulate DPS society for hosting this event. Now I would like to share with you, the youth vision of UN 2025.
Youth vision of UN 2025
(1) UN would transform into a world institution that will enter into early stages of conflict between nations and resolve them through bilateral conciliation. (2) UN will ensure a world free of wars. (3) UN Security Council will get transformed into World Citizen’s Security Council through proportional representation. (4) UN leadership will make the institution independent and will have the world philanthropic support from all willing nations. (5) UN will undertake a unique mission to transform the world community with enlightened citizens through a three dimensional approach: (a) Value based education (b) Religion transforming into spirituality and (c) Poverty eradication through aggressive economic development.
My greetings to the participants of this conference hailing from different parts of the world.
While I am with you, I would like to talk on the topic “Ignited Minds: The Power of the Planet Earth”. During the last few years, I have visited and interacted with over 5 million youth of my country and 25 foreign countries. During these visits, I found that all these youth have common aspiration. They all desire to be a citizen of a prosperous, happy and peaceful country and the peaceful world. They are enthusiastic and they would like to work for a peaceful and harmonious world.
My experience in Greece
Friends, let me share with you a beautiful experience when I visited Greece in April 2007. I was negotiating and climbing towards Acropolis mountain top in Athens and came across a group of 150 Greek students. They threw a spontaneous smile on me, the teachers came forward and introduced the students. They said, they were very happy to see the Indian president and that the children would like to hear from him few words. My mind at that time was thinking about the great personalities, the land of Greece had given to the world: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The words of Plato were ringing in my mind when I saw the young students. Plato brings out that “Our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole”, 2400 years ago.
Similarly, around the same period Tamil poet Saint Thiruvalluvar said,
That is, "the important elements that constitute a nation are: being disease free; high earning capacity; high productivity; harmonious living and strong defence". We have to find how we can provide all these elements to the citizens of every nation on an equitable basis for happiness for all.
With these thoughts, I made up my mind, of what to say to the students and the youth of Greece. I slowly repeated line by line, a hymn which I normally hear in Indian spiritual centers.
Righteousness Where there is righteousness in the heart There is beauty in the character. When there is beauty in the character, There is harmony in the home. When there is harmony in the home. There is an order in the nation. When there is order in the nation, There is peace in the world.
When the students and the youth repeated with me, the tourists around at the Acropolis also repeated and there was all round ovations. Then I realized how people from multiple nations, young and experienced were influenced by the thought of righteousness in the heart irrespective of their nationality. You can see how the righteousness in the heart generates beauty in the character in the human beings and beauty in the character leads to harmony in the home. Harmony in the home in an integrated way generates order in the nation. Of course the order in the nation finally blossoms peace in the world. The righteousness in the heart is the starting point for great individual, great family and great nation and ultimately great planet earth.
Now the question is: How do we inculcate the righteousness in the heart. In my opinion, there are three sources which can build a youth with righteousness in the heart. One is mother, second is father and the third and the most important is the teacher, particularly primary school teacher. Also to provide righteousness in the heart to the young minds, we should have an environment of great education and a spiritual way of life and spiritual environment. Apart from righteousness, the youth have to equipped with creativity and courage.
Creativity “Learning gives creativity Creativity leads to thinking Thinking provides knowledge Knowledge makes you great”
Another component is courage, which is characterized by:
Courage Courage to think different, Courage to invent, Courage to travel into an unexplored path, Courage to discover the impossible, Courage to combat the problems and succeed, Are the unique qualities of the youth. As a youth of the world, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all the missions of planet earth.
Combination of creativity + righteousness + courage is knowledge. How will you acquire the knowledge up to the age of seventeen? You can certainly acquire knowledge from home, good books, teachers and teaching environment.
Youth Power
Ignited minds of the youth is the most powerful resource on the earth, above the earth and under the earth. I am convinced that the youth power, if properly directed and controlled, could bring about transformational changes in humanity for its progress, meeting its challenges and bring peace and prosperity. Let us now consider the Vision for the Nations. A forum like United Nations should have a vision of transforming the world into a developed world where every citizen has a good quality of life with equal employment opportunity and empowerment with skill or education.
Keeping this vision in mind, the ten point oath given to the youth of our nation conveys that the youth can make difference to the society where they are living in the areas of literacy, environment, social justice, minimizing rural urban divide, and work for the national development, while working hard for an individual goal. I insist that small aim is a crime. I see the youth development has multiple dimensions: The youth working hard improving his knowledge with a career goal, can serve the family, can serve the society, can serve the nation to which he or she belongs and can serve the humanity as a whole. All are complimentary. Keeping this in view, I have designed a nine point oath for the youth assembled here. We will jointly take the oath shortly.
Dear friends, I would like to share with you five unique events that have inspired millions of lives.
Save or better someone life While talking about good deeds, I am reminded of the advice given to Mahatma Gandhiji by his mother. She says,
"Son, in your entire life time, if you can save or better someone's life, your birth as a human being and your life is a success. You have the blessing of the Almighty God".
This advice has made a deep impact in the mind of Gandhiji, which made him to work for the humanity throughout his life.
Remove “I” and “Me” During the year 2003, when I was visiting one of the Indian states, Arunachal Pradesh, I visited a Buddhist monastery at Tawang 3500 m. altitude. I was in the Monastery nearly for a day. I observed a unique situation in all the nearby villages, where young and experienced radiating happiness in spite of severe winter environment. Then, I visited the 400 year old Tawang monastery and there I saw monks of all age groups in a state of serenity. I was asking myself what is the unique feature of Tawang and surrounding villages which makes people and monks to be at peace with themselves. When the time came, I asked the Chief Monk, how in Tawang villages and monastery, I am experiencing peace and happiness being radiated by everyone. There was a pause, the chief monk smiled. He said, "You are the President of India. You will know all about us and the whole nation.” Again, I said, "it is very important for me, please give me your thoughtful analysis".
There was a beautiful golden image of Lord Buddha radiating smile and peace. The Chief Monk assembled nearly 100 young and experienced monks. The Chief Monk and myself were sitting amidst them. The Chief Monk gave a short discourse, which I would like to share with you. Chief Monk said, "In the present world, we have a problem of distrust, unhappiness transforming into violence. This monastery spreads: when you remove “I” and “Me” from your mind, you will eliminate ego; if you get rid of ego, hatred towards fellow human beings will vanish; if the hatred goes out of our mind, the violence in thinking and action will disappear; if violence in our mind is taken away, peace springs in human minds. Then peace and peace and peace alone will blossom in the society". I realized the meaning of beautiful equation for peaceful life, but difficult mission for the individual is how to remove the ethos of “I” and “ME”. For this, we need the education inculcated in the young age as propagated by ancient philosophers.
Forgiveness In my search for evolving a peaceful and prosperous society, I got a part answer. My search for real truth continues. I visited an ancient Christian monastery in Bulgaria, where I had a discussion with highly experienced monks on the message of Tawang. The Monk added that forgiveness is also the foundation of good life.
Giving a trait of happiness Similarly, I had a memorable experience in the birth place of Swami Vivekananda, a youth monk of India who could keep the audience spell bound in eastern and western society with his inspirational messages of spirituality and practical life, I explained the Tawang experience to the disciples and they too felt the Tawang experience indeed is beautiful and they added "Trait of Giving " will add to peace and happiness.
Good deed results in good actions When I visited Ajmeer Sharif where I participated in the Friday Namaz. Here, the Sufi expert told me that Almighty's creation, the man, has been challenged with another powerful creation of Shaitan. Only good deeds lead to good thinking, good thinking results into actions radiating love as commanded by Almighty.
The message from all these and other spiritual thinkers is that there are many ideas and spiritual thoughts which transcend religions, geographies and time. If only we could bridge the spirituality among religions and nations, many of the problems like the gaps between haves and have nots, deprivation causing unrest leading to extremism, the remnants of past animosities and war and several other road blocks to peace and prosperity can be tackled. I am sure the youth of our nation will be able to work on this theme for a safe India that they dream.
Together we will Win Friends, I would like to share with you an inspirational experience, which I came across. At a Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100 mtr race. At the starting signal, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, others except one little boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back......every one of them. One girl with Down's syndrome bent down and kissed him and said, "This will make it better" Then all nine linked their arms together and walked together and finally reached the destination. Everyone in the stadium stood, and the cheering went on for several minutes. People who were there are still telling the story. Why? Because deep down we know this one thing: What matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What matters in this life is helping others win, even if it means slowing down and changing our course. I would say that, you do not have to slow down. Rather by helping difficult areas, the feed back will make you go faster. If you pass this on, we may be able to change our hearts as well as someone else's. "A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle".
Conclusion:
Now I would like to administer an oath for the youth since the planet Earth is facing many conflicts both natural and man-made. As a youth, all of you have a responsibility to work for universal harmony by ironing out all the causes of conflicts. Are you ready to repeat with me?
Oath for the Global Youth
1. I will have a goal and work hard to achieve that goal. I realize that small aim is a crime. 2. I will always be righteous in the heart which leads to beauty in the character, beauty in the character brings harmony in the home, harmony in the home leads to order in the nation and order in the nation leads to peace in the world. 3. I will work with integrity and succeed with integrity. 4. I will be a good citizen, a good member of my family, a good member of the society, a good member of the nation and a good member of the world. 5. I will always try to save or better someone's life. Wherever I am, a thought will always come to my mind. That is “What can I give?” 6. I will always protect and enhance the dignity of every human life. 7. I will always remember that “Let not my winged days, be spent in vain”. 8. I will always work for clean planet Earth and clean energy. 9. As a youth of the Globe, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all my tasks and enjoy the success of others.
My best wishes to all the participants of DPS MUN 2008 who represent the youth of the world success in their mission of igniting the global youth for working towards the cause of global peace and prosperity.
