Speech at the United Nations HQ, New York in January 2013

Venue: UN Building Annex, New York, NGO Committee for ECOSOC consultative status.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and friends from different countries of the world.

ICDV, an NGO from Thailand, is a coming together of Buddhist institutions, scholars, policy makers and the NGO sector to commemorate and celebrate Buddha’s birth date. New academic inputs are received from participants for emulation by others.

At the ICDV annual meetings, exchange of ideas and experiences brings new ideas and focus for implementing Buddhist teaching in different walks of life.

I went to an expo in USA to check about the existence of any Museum for human values. The record keeper checked up and said we have so many museums on a variety of animals and thousands of other subjects but none for what you are looking for.

Most people are ignorant about this subject of Spirituality. We are taught about physics, chemistry biology but that teaches us only to earn money. Not about how to train my own mental faculties. So who is to evolve such a curriculum?

All of us here and I included are ignorant of how to cope with ourselves. I cannot deal with my own mind. We have no system of drawing on our ancient wisdom traditions and converge them with the latest developments in biofeedback and psychology. We have to develop proper biofeedback tools by calling together scientists and spiritual masters to develop the relevant curriculum.

Schools do not wish to get dragged into religion. Nobody wants to introduce a curricular that is non-secular. So we need to develop secular curricular for introducing spirituality as a subject in schools. So who is to introduce such things for the children of tomorrow, who needs to build these bridges? Obviously this requires a lot of inputs from academicians.

It will not come from the page three type of people, it will come from people who are very reserved, who are really not the conference variety. We need to proactively seek them out and drag them to do this kind of work. Based on my body system, probably a machine could give me a feedback as to how I should be breathing right so that I develop a state of calmness and relaxation and thereby raise my productivity and creativity. The field of biofeedback based on spirituality and medical science is a vast, still largely unexplored area.

I took a taxi today morning. I had a usual good morning with the driver and later, after a while he became very upset and abusive. I started to think what is the stimulus that I triggered in him? Why did he have a violent reaction. I am sure all of you have had similar experiences.

All of us are also aware of the violent incidents in schools and with women. What is it that triggers such violence, what are the thoughts in an individual that can create so much grief in millions of people worldwide? How to curb such thinking by giving proper physiological feedback and training with scientifically developed instruments developed in consultation with psychologists, spiritual masters, neurologists and physiologists. We have to move towards these objectives and involve people from these disciplines.

I recently purchased a machine which induces me to go into meditation by balancing my Delta and Theta waves. I also acquired equipment which enables me to check my level of stress through skin conductance measured through sensors fixed on my fingers. I can actually get a reading of what I can improve in terms of breathing so that my stress levels can come down. But we need to focus a lot on such kind of efforts. This kind of synergy needs to be developed between science and spirituality.

Q. Overseas delegation question 1:  Suppose your organization gets accreditation, what all activities will the organization do in the future to meet the United Nations objectives and how your affiliation will help the UN?

Ans): Security of the world is a big issue. We need to work in cooperation with medical science to help keep our responses in control, in check.

This is a multidisciplinary task. It requires inputs from academicians, medical scientists, psychologists and the spiritual masters. The United Nations WHO’s charter has a special clause inserted in 1969 which talks of holistic health. But somehow not much work has been done in this regard. We would like to carry on with this kind of work and be at the cutting edge of knowledge in this domain.

Q. Overseas delegation question 2:  How is your organization getting funds to organize the Vesak events?

Ans): Regarding the budget for the funding to execute our projects, I have to inform you that 90 countries of the world participate in the events held each year. When these events are held, it is not difficult to procure support for objectives that are of importance and which can have a lasting impact on people of different countries. So, the funding is done on a collaborative basis.

Q. Overseas delegation question 3:   From where will you get the funding to execute all the projects of your organization and how will you spend the budget?

Ans): The United Nations has made a provision that Day of Vesak should be celebrated in different parts of the world. Since the celebrations take place at the UN venue itself, so the UN system itself is involved in the preparation of the budget and how it is spent.

So, there is not much problem in organization of these events as the UN itself is involved. The Resolution passed by the United Nations also clearly says that if the United Nations is not incurring any expenditure in organizing the Day of Vesak events, it is ready to support the celebrations. So, this is the system that we are following and we do not put any burden on the United Nations itself.

(The delegates having received the answers from Umesh Mathur, the Chairman of the Committee encouraged him by saying Thank you for your “comprehensive answers”. He was pleased at the end of his speaking time and upon receiving approval from the ECOSOC NGO Committee, the members congratulated him for receiving a quick approval.)