In
the late seventies I decided to write a book for my children, telling
some of the most important lessons I had learned in my life of war and
peace. It was published under the title Most of All, They Taught Me
Happiness, Doubleday in 1978 and was shortly thereafter translated into
German. The Austrian publisher, Helmut von Loebell, invited me to the
Frankfurt annual bookfair for the launching of the German edition.
When I arrived in Frankfurt and we walked together to the Fair, I saw
him bend once in a while, pick up trash and put it into a bag. I
looked at him and asked him why he was doing that. He answered:
"Because some months ago I heard the speech of an Austrian monk,
Brother Steindl-Rast who told the audience how he had met a United
Nations official who was picking up trash along his way to the train
station in order to ensure and enjoy the cleanest mile on Earth." He
smiled at me, and added, "I got interested in you and decided to
publish your book in German."
After my retirement from the UN, fate did not want me to return to my
beloved Alsace-Lorraine, but decided that I should be the first
one-dollar-a-year Chancellor of the first University for Peace on Earth
in one of the first demilitarized countries, Costa Rica. The
University is located in a marvelous area of preserved tropical
forests, on a sacred hill, Mount Rasur, from which, according to a
local indigenous prophecy, a civilization of peace will extend to the
entire world.
Next to the University a beautiful farmland was for sale. I loved to
walk on it and to dream that if I were younger I would buy it. Then
one day I read this text I had written a few days before my retirement
from the UN:
"I dream that someday as a sort of elder of the United Nations I will
live on a hill with a breathtaking view and spend my last days writing
the beautiful stories of my life, and my visions for a better world."
Well, that was a signal from fate. One must never miss fulfilling
one's dreams. I bought the farm, live on it, have a breathtaking view,
and am writing the stories of my life and my visions for a better
world. Every day I walk from it to the University for Peace, ensuring
that it is the cleanest mile on Earth. And here again the tourists are
looking at me with curiosity and doubt that I will ever win.
My dear, beloved wife, Margarita, alas has left this Earth. I visit
her tomb often, reporting to her and asking for her help from the world
of the spirits. I noticed that the cemetery has also a good amount of
trash. So I decided to make it the cleanest cemetery on Earth. And I
have succeeded too.
There is one major duty where I have not succeeded, alas. When
visiting the Hopi people in Arizona, a Hopi woman asked me if she could
give me a better name than Robert Muller (Red Beard the Miller). It is
women who have the task of giving names. I accepted and she gave me
the name Kogyun Deyo. I asked her what it meant. "It means Spider
Boy. Your task will be to make a vast spider web, to catch in it all
evil on Earth and then to throw it far away into the universe."
On that task I have not succeeded, although I cannot complain about the
many positive results I have obtained during my forty years at the
United Nations. And I continue to try relentlessly and against all
odds. I am writing this story at dawn in my little farmhouse with a
breathtaking view on Mount Rasur, triggered off by the publisher of a
nice magazine of good stories, Heron Dance, who liked my book Most of
All They Taught Me Happiness. Since the 11th of July of last year,
when the countdown to the year 2000 began, I have also been writing a
compendium of Two Thousand Ideas for a Better World: Perhaps each of
them will not represent more than one little mile on Earth. But if
each of the 5.6 billion people on this planet would take care of a
little mile, there would not be enough miles to clean for all. The
peace, the cleanliness, the beauty and the happiness of all on this
magnificent planet begin in the mind, the heart and in the hands of
each of us.
