|
Guest Columnist The following article was submitted to the Pie of Knowledge to offer an alternative perception of the war in Iraq to that expressed in the "What is the Deal?" column of March 30, 2003. April 6, 2003 Seven Truths - Perceiving this War Differently Robert Elias Najemy An American Living Abroad * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Natural Feelings and Questions Regardless of our beliefs about whether it is right or justified, it is natural to be affected by the tension, pain, sorrow and anger around it. It is natural to feel the pain of those being bombed and losing their loved ones whether they be Iraqis or American or British families losing their precious spouses and children. It is natural for many to feel angry about America’s choice to ignore the UN and cause the death of so many innocent people including its own. And equally natural for those who think about Saddam Hussein’s reign-of-terror to see him as a threat to world peace. Some may see all this as a senseless waste of human life, not to mention so much money and human energy, that could be used for health and education programs in the USA and around the world and thus - eliminating all our enemies with love, food and education - rather than with weapons. Some people, depending on their beliefs and programmings, might wonder: * Why do these people - Iraqi and Coalition - have to go through this pain and loss? * Why do these people have to be bombed? * Why has Saddam Hussein killed so many of his people? * Why doesn't he leave so his people are not killed? * How has America become so self-righteous and oblivious to others’ beliefs, rights and dignity? * What has happened to truth? * When will we live in peace and love? * How long will we create pain for ourselves? Many of us feel so helpless and unable to do something about it. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Seven Truths In our previous issue we have mentioned Seven Steps that each of us can take towards making a difference. In this issue, I would like to briefly mention a few philosophical thoughts that might help us perceive this differently. 1. One spiritual truth is that all is happening within and being controlled by certain cosmic laws. That these laws do not allow anything to happen which is not exactly what we need for our next evolutionary step. As St. Paul has said, "Not a hair can move on a person’s head without God allowing it." This applies to this war in Iraq and Sept 11th and every other horrible event that has occurred and of course the beautiful ones too. Thus, it seems that there must be some higher spiritual reason for this horrible, painful and hate-and-fear-creating this war. This is not to say that we will always need war. Neither does it mean that we should not do every we can to stop it if we believe that it is wrong or simply not the solution to the problem. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2. The second concept is that all events and situations have the sole function of provoking our inner learning process. Thus we each need to look inwardly to see what we can learn from this situation. What might be some possible lessons? a. Some may need to learn to use power more wisely and not for personal benefit. b. Many will need to learn forgiveness and understanding. c. Others will need to learn to feel God’s presence even in the midst of bombs, pain and the loss of loved ones. d. Certainly one main lesson for all of us is to transcend our narrow identification with our personal country, religion or political beliefs and experience unity with and interest in all beings regardless of where they live and what they believe. e. Another lesson is to put ourselves in the others’ position and imagine how they our "enemies" feel and realize that they are human beings like us with families, children, fears and needs. f. Still another is to free ourselves from any hate towards any being and see all as expressions of the divine. g. And perhaps the most important is to remove from ourselves those characteristics which lead to such situations. We are being asked to see where we ourselves misuse power, where we lie to ourselves and others in order to serve our needs and where we are indifferent to others and their needs. Especially our indifference to those to who belong to "other" groups, nationalities, religions political systems. In order to heal ourselves from this illness of alienation, which enables those in power to separate us for their own benefits, we will need realize and put in practice our unity with all. Then they will have no power. As long as we favor one person, group, religion or nation over another, we are not experiencing unity, and we are contributing to the problem. It is important that we free ourselves from limiting ourselves with these superficial temporary roles as Americans, Iraqis, Israelis, Moslems, Christians or Jews and realize that we are all immortal souls playing these temporary roles in order to discover our true divine nature and inherent unity in God. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 3. Wisdom also tells us that our leaders are simply symbols or manifestations of our collective consciousness and that they reflect our own personal human qualities in this particular case - alienation, arrogance, misuse of power and indifference towards those not in our circle of identification. These leaders are simply playing their cosmic role by expressing those same aspects within each of us. * We have all misused power with our children, spouses, employees and others. * We have all been indifferent to others’ pain when focused only on what we need. * We are all egotistical to some degree. * We all lie when it suits us. * We are all alienated in our own particular religious, national and political groups. Thus, our leaders are playing out a cosmic drama showing to us our present level of consciousness. Such leaders could not be in power if we did not deserve them and if they did not represent our ways of thinking and acting. So many millions have prayed for these individuals to open to the light and act for the benefit of humanity. These prayers have great power and without doubt have reached their goal. Wisdom tells me that since, in spite of all these prayers, they continue in this way, that this, unfortunately and sadly, must be what actually "needs to happen". Wisdom says that these prayers have had their affect and this is the cosmic answer we need this chaos and pain for our evolution. Let us make friends with Moslems, Christian and Jews. Let us become one and let the power mongers know that they cannot fool us into believing that the others are our enemies or that we are in danger from them. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 4. The most important truth is that love rather than hate is a the solution. By hating Saddam Hussein or President Bush or the Iraqis, the Americans, the Taliban, Osama Bin laden, the Jews or the Palestinians, we are simply adding to the hate-vibration of the world. By hating, we are increasing the negative energy of the universe and adding to the problem. On the other hand, being indifferent and doing nothing is equally adding to the problem. When we hate we are doing the same as the others. We need to become activists of love and wage peace rather than war. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 5. We need to become peace. To wage peace, we ourselves need to become peaceful. We need to find that place of peace and love within which hates no one and sees all beings as expressions of God - the divine consciousness behind all that exists. When we can stand assertively with love for what we believe, we have found the balance between power and peace. Shouting slogans with hate and destroying cars will not bring peace. Sitting silently in masses with candles, holding signs, chanting and emanating peace will be much more powerful. Some people have peace but no power. Other have the power but do not use it for peace. We need both. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 6. Prayer and positive visualization has the power to affect the situation. We can pray and send love and light to our leaders and to all of the world that we might all realize the divine within and around us and learn through this experience. We can imagine these leaders enveloped in a ray of divine light that permeates their bodies and «minds» aligning them with their higher selves and the divine within them, guiding them to ever wiser thoughts, words and actions. Daily, let us open our hearts to them and feel love for them - imagining them embracing as a symbol for the resolution of these conflicting human characteristics in all of humanity. We are all being called to heal ourselves and the world with our prayers, self-transformation and our actions. By visualizing peace and harmony but also by acting towards it. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 7. We are all evolving expressions on one divine consciousness - including these leaders. This one universal divine consciousness, which we usually call God, is like the light at the movie theater which passes through the film creating all the images on the screen. This light is omnipresent in all the beings, objects and events appearing on the screen. In the same way we are observing one consciousness, which is manifesting as these leaders and all Americans, Iraqis, Israelis and Palestinians, and all the world, planets and universe. All one being. All a play - a drama for our purpose of our spiritual learning process. This realization does allow us to ignore what is happening and say it is their karma or our karma. What is happening is exactly what needs to be happening and is all within the Divine Consciousness but it is up to us to transform and evolve this material world so that it aligns itself with our inner spiritual reality. We need this war in order to learn how to think, live and behave so as to not need wars. If we do not learn this personally and globally we will always have wars and there will always be the perpetrators and the victims. And in the larger scale of time today’s perpetrators will become tomorrow’s victims and on and on until we learn. "We have meet the enemy and he is within." Let us meet, love and heal this enemy within us. Thank you for being there for me to share with you. Love and Peace, Robert Elias Najemy --- Send feedback on this article. The "What is the Deal?" column will appear weekly on the Pie of Knowledge website. Guest submissions are welcome and encouraged. To submit an article to "What is the Deal?" clickhere. To receive an email notification whenever a new "What is the Deal?" column has been posted, click here. The Pie of Knowledge will never, ever divulge email addresses to any third party for any reason unless so ordered by a court of law. Contributions to the Pie of Knowledge are greatly appreciated. 
|
