“We shall be able to witness and hear events – the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle – just as though we were present.”
Nikola Tesla (vegetarian) was not only an inventor of extraordinary genius, but also a visionary who made several remarkable predictions about the future, many of which have come to pass or are actively being pursued.
A vegetarian, Tesla had a profound understanding of the interconnectedness of humans, animal-people, and the natural world. Therefore, it should be no surprise to learn that he was an animal-person lover. During his later years in New York City, he developed the habit of feeding thousands of pigeon-people, often during his midnight walks around Bryant Park, the New York Public Library, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He was so devoted, that even when a car accident left him unable to feed them, he hired someone to continue the daily feeding for six months.
Partially due to his many avian friends, Tesla had to move many times and finally settled at the Hotel New Yorker. His biographer, John J. O’Neill, vividly described a scene he witnessed when he found Tesla, instead of attending a prestigious event in his honor, standing amidst his feathered companions.
“In the center of a large thin circle of observers stood the imposing figure of Tesla, wearing a crown of two pigeons on his head, his shoulders and arms festooned with a dozen more, their white or pale-blue bodies making strong contrast with his black suit and black hair, even in the dusk. On either of his outstretched hands was another bird, while seemingly hundreds more made a living carpet on the ground in front of him, hopping about and pecking at the bird seed he had been scattering.”
It’s said that Nikola Tesla is the inspiration of the “Central Park pigeon lady” in the 1992 film “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” Tesla cared deeply for the pigeon-person and formed a special bond with one in particular. Tesla spoke of this bond during a conversation with O’Neill.
“But there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white with light gray tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I would know that pigeon anywhere.”
“No matter where I was, that pigeon would find me; when I wanted her, I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. She understood me and I understood her.” “I loved that pigeon.” “Yes,” he replied to an unasked question. “Yes, I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. When she was ill, I knew, and understood; she came to my room and I stayed beside her for days. I nursed her back to health. That pigeon was the joy of my life. If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.”
“Then one night as I was lying in my bed in the dark, solving problems, as usual, she flew in through the open window and stood on my desk. I knew she wanted me; she wanted to tell me something important so I got up and went to her.”
“As I looked at her I knew she wanted to tell me – she was dying. And then, as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes – powerful beams of light.”
“Yes,” he continued, again answering an unasked question, “it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory.”
“When that pigeon died, something went out of my life. Up to that time, I knew with a certainty that I would complete my work, no matter how ambitious my program, but when that something went out of my life, I knew my life’s work was finished.”
Perhaps the pigeon-person was an angelic or higher being in disguise, who came to Earth with a commission to give Nikola Tesla spiritual support that he could not find among his fellow humans. Our Most Beloved Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) revealed the role of the animal friends who are near us.
“(How are these gods able to appear so much like us, like us humans? Do they borrow the appearance and identity of an existing person or do they invent their own appearance?) They can do both of that, can do both of that. It depends on the situation. Or they can manifest as animal(-people) to lead you when you are lost or comfort you and giving you bright ideas through telepathy. (Oh, wow!) They don’t even need to talk to you as a human. They can manifest as bird(-people) or crickets or even a fly, a butterfly, like, just landing on you or sitting next to you and then you suddenly have some idea for your problem. For your problem. (Oh, wow!) Or give you the blessing so that you feel more encouraged, more healthy, or you recover from sickness, anything.
(And they can come from any level?) Yeah, there are thousands of them every day in our lives on Earth to help people. (Wow!) We just don’t know and are not grateful to them, but without them, we’ll be in more mess.”
Nikola Tesla’s sensitive, gentle heart was revealed through his caring actions and bond with the pigeon-person. Perhaps it was one of the qualities he inherited from his mother. Tesla credited his eidetic memory, creativity, and inventive genius to his mother’s influence and inherited talent.
His mother, Đuka Mandić, though not formally educated, was remarkably inventive. She was skilled in crafting household tools and mechanical devices and possessed an exceptional ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. In his book “My Inventions: Autobiography of Nikola Tesla,” he described his mother in these admiring words:
“My mother descended from one of the oldest families in the country and a line of inventors. Both her father and grandfather originated numerous implements for household, agricultural and other uses. She was a truly great woman, of rare skill, courage and fortitude, who had braved the storms of life and passed through many a trying experience. […]
My mother was an inventor of the first order and would, I believe, have achieved great things had she not been so remote from modern life and its multifold opportunities. She invented and constructed all kinds of tools and devices and wove the finest designs from thread which was spun by her. She even planted the seeds, raised the plants and separated the fibers herself. She worked indefatigably, from break of day till late at night, and most of the wearing apparel and furnishings of the home were the product of her hands. When she was past sixty, her fingers were still nimble enough to tie three knots in an eyelash.”
Nikola Tesla turned to his mother’s teachings when he needed to make important decisions in life.
“At this time, as at many other times in the past, my thoughts turned towards my Mother’s teaching. The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. My Mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible; therefore I devoted the next few months to the study of this work.”
A true visionary, Nikola Tesla understood the multiple and far-reaching applications and implications of his technologies in transforming people’s lives and the social landscape.
Although Philo Farnsworth was given the title “The father of television,” Nikola Tesla’s inventions laid the essential foundation for its materialization, including the “Tesla Coil” that generates high-frequency currents, wireless transmission, and vacuum tubes, and others.
Tesla envisioned how modern broadcasting, streaming media, and live coverage of global events would give ordinary people instantaneous access to information.
“We shall be able to witness and hear events – the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle – just as though we were present.”
Moreover, he described a small portable communication device that people would carry around in their pockets. Did he foresee the mobile phones of our time?
“We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”
While we have realized some of Tesla’s ideas and inventions, we have yet to catch up with him in others, such as a commercialized flying machine propelled by wireless energy.
“When wireless energy is commercialized, transport and transmission will be revolutionized. Motion pictures will be carried illimitable distances by wireless. Flying machines will be propelled by the same energy. We shall be able to fly from New York to Europe, with perfect safety, in a few short hours. We shall be able to go anywhere in the world – to the highest mountain, to the Arctic, the desert, the jungle – and set up a little equipment that will give us heat to cook with, and light to read by. And we shall be able to carry this equipment in a satchel smaller than the ordinary suitcase.”
Nikola Tesla was fully aware of the deeper and larger impact his technologies could have on how humans see and relate to one another.
“Up to now, individuals and nations never have been able really to come together. Wireless will make that possible. It will largely obliterate international boundaries and harmonize conflicting national interests. It will create understanding and sympathy, where now misunderstanding and antagonism reign.”
Apart from bringing people together, Tesla foresaw that modern technologies would help spread knowledge and enlightenment and do away with ignorance. This would lead to true peace on Earth. He said:
“There can be no doubt that, of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance. Not without reason said that man of wisdom, Buddha: ‘Ignorance is the greatest evil in the world.’ The friction which results from ignorance, and which is greatly increased owing to the numerous languages and nationalities, can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity.”
“I have no doubt that it will prove very efficient in enlightening the masses, particularly in still uncivilized countries and less accessible regions, and that it will add materially to general safety, comfort and convenience, and maintenance of peaceful relations.”
“When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement, we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. [...] Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole?
For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.”
For Tesla, the future of humanity lay not in blocs or treaties but in the social and spiritual transformation of civilization facilitated by technological advancement, which would make the entire world a single, interconnected human family. Only in such a world, he believed, could war finally cease to be a recurring human tragedy.
Fostering friendship and understanding among people and bringing Enlightenment to the masses is also the mission of Supreme Master Television, launched by our Most Beloved Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan).
Supreme Master Television offers programs that inform the public each day about important world news, the arts and cultures of various countries and nationalities, the spiritual teachings of different religions and belief systems, the latest scientific discoveries, the state of planet Earth, and other topics. All the programs have subtitles in up to 26 languages and are offered free of charge by Supreme Master Ching Hai to billions of viewers. Supreme Master Television encompasses the global community in the true spirit of brotherhood. Thus, we can say that it realizes the noble ideal of Nikola Tesla and uses his technologies the way he intended.
“Our TV program encompasses everything, including Catholicism, Taoism, and Buddhism, so that religions can understand each other and stop competing, praising their own religion and criticizing other religions. If we really spend time to research, the teachings of all religions are similar. (Master is very open-minded.) So, we provide information for people to understand and to reduce fighting.”
“Really, the media, all the media, should do what we’re doing! That’s what we’re doing, you see? That’s why I keep telling them they have to find more native speaking programs, yeah? That’s why we have so many subtitles. […]
You have to let people know your country, understand? That’s how we erase war. That’s how we bring peace. People have to respect and love what you have in your country. They have to know it. Not too many people know about other countries’ traditions and beauty. […]
That’s why I keep encouraging all of you to do something. You must speak in your native language. You must get all the world people to get used to with the tongue of your country, you understand, so that one day, they happen to hear it somewhere, they don’t want to make war with that sound, because it sounds familiar, do you understand me? People only fight with strangers or something that they don’t understand. They don’t fight with the thing that they feel familiar with. […]
We have a tool now, we must do it. Okay, understand me? The world must know that we have neighbors, definitely have a neighbor, yeah? […]
Because, I want everybody to understand everyone. I want all the countries to know all the countries, respect each other and love each other and look at each other as an equal partner and a co-inhabitant on this planet. OK? Not superior and inferior, no! Nobody is, on this planet. You understand me? Yeah, it’s just different. Different color maybe, different language maybe, but no difference in anything else.”
