United Nations’ Soul (UNS)
A new kind of United Nations in India
Motto: Exploring & Experiencing the Diviner Attributes of Nations
Purpose
To contribute to the evolution of the International Zone of Auroville into a new kind of United Nations on India’s soil: a formidable international constructive force for the world’s advance towards “broad sunlit uplands”, towards a “fairer, brighter, nobler life for all mankind”.
Explanation
First, two extracts from Sri Aurobindo’s book The Human Cycle
“The soul of man or nation is something more and diviner (than body, life, mind, temperament); it is greater than its instruments and cannot be shut up in a physical, a vital, a mental or a temperamental formula.”
“The primal law and purpose of the individual life is to seek its own self-development. Consciously or half consciously or with an obscure unconscious groping it strives always and rightly strives at self-formulation, — to find itself, to discover within itself the law and power of its own being and to fulfil it. This aim in it is fundamental, right, inevitable because, even after all qualifications have been made and caveats entered, the individual is not merely the ephemeral physical creature, a form of mind and body that aggregates and dissolves, but a being, a living power of the eternal Truth, a self-manifesting spirit. In the same way the primal law and purpose of a society, community or nation is to seek its own self-fulfilment; it strives rightly to find itself, to become aware within itself of the law and power of its own being and to fulfil it as perfectly as possible, to realise all its potentialities, to live its own self-revealing life. The reason is the same; for this too is a being, a living power of the eternal Truth, a self-manifestation of the cosmic Spirit, and it is there to express and fulfil in its own way and to the degree of its capacities the special truth and power and meaning of the cosmic Spirit that is within it. The nation or society, like the individual, has a body, an organic life, a moral and aesthetic temperament, a developing mind and a soul behind all these signs and powers for the sake of which they exist. One may say even that, like the individual, it essentially is a soul rather than has one; it is a group-soul that, once having attained to a separate distinctness, must become more and more self-conscious and find itself more and more fully as it develops its corporate action and mentality and its organic self-expressive life.”
Broadly, the United Nations’ Soul (UNS) will embark on a twofold task:
1. To create body of thought, of perceptions, of insights into the unique traits, essential strengths and identities and qualities of each country of the world. The basic idea and belief is that just in the individual human being the coming forward of the soul or the psychic being is a necessary condition to realise highest potentiality of the individual, similarly, for a nation, the coming forward of the nation soul is the necessary condition for the nation to realise her highest potentialities, and take her rightful place, play her true role, accomplish her true destiny in the world.
For creating such a body of thought, vision and inspiration, UNS will invite intellectuals and poets and scholars and all interested individuals and institutions from various countries of the world. Also, Sri Aurobindo’ and the Mother’s light on the subject, the illuminating articles of one of their foremost disciples Nolini Kant Gupta will be will be fundamentally important resource and reference.
2. To convey and to try to convince
I. The Gov. of India
II. The Gov. of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry
III. Various states governments of India and
IV. The elites of India and elite friends of India abroad
V. The art and cultural organisations of India
of the possibility of a new kind of United Nations in India, and to invite their collaboration. In fact, several times in last 55 years the Gov. of India has presented Auroville to the General Assembly of UNESCO, and each time the UNESCO has unanimously passed resolutions inviting the member states to participate in the development of Auroville. The next logical step then is for the Gov. of India to carry the momentum forward by inviting the UNESCO member states to initiate process for building their unique research-based national pavilions representing the soul of the country in the International Zone of Auroville.
It must be pointed out that these national pavilions will NOT be the museums but the lively experience center of the soul of each country. Secondly, they will NOT be static monuments but headquarters of immense many-sided creativity and projects on international scale, on their own or in mutual collaboration with other pavilions and their governments, universities; cultural, humanitarian, educational, scientific organisations. The UNS could become such formidable
Present status
Just an idea and dream of Aryadeep
(Note: The phrase “broad sunlit uplands” is from one of the WWII speeches by Winston Churchill and “fairer, brighter, nobler life for all mankind” is from Sri Aurobindo’s Independence Day message to India.)