Twilight in America

Written by Julie Adler


Continued from page 1

I apologize to myself for this disturbing piece. I am disturbed by what I am living in now. But I am also seeing new strains of protest for peace. For a world without killing and violence. Because we all know how unpleasant it is. What we fail to see is how it all works; that if, for example, you kill, you will be killed at some other time, in some other way. If you get furious, your fury will vanquish your happiness. Your pain inrepparttar butt boss will keep yelling at you if you keep yelling back. You first, asrepparttar 126970 anger congeals inrepparttar 126971 veins, hardens those arteries. Then that tension unleashes itself on everyone around. And so it goes. That’s why there are 10 Commandments or Lifetime vows, to keep us in check. Not some guilt trip but rather a way to stay a course that leads to more pleasant circumstances. Karma is simple. You commit a good deed, you get a pleasant response. You commit a negative deed, something that is unpleasant, you get an unpleasant response. There is no judge. No one upstairs making a decision. It’s scientific. So when Richard Gere was askingrepparttar 126972 audience to have compassion forrepparttar 126973 guys who plunged planes intorepparttar 126974 World Trade Center (he proceeded to get booed), it was because their actions would plunge them into a state more disturbing than what you were witnessing on TV or in person. It’s awful. And can’t we feel how awful it is? Even just one bomb dropped by a pilot on Baghdad is awful and yes, as we have compassion for innocent civilians atrepparttar 126975 mercy of flying destruction, we also have to have compassion forrepparttar 126976 pilot. His pushing ofrepparttar 126977 button, no matterrepparttar 126978 intention will have a result. How long do we want to keep living with what is awful? How can we just accept what is awful? Oh well it’s human nature, I hear.

It is often said thatrepparttar 126979 birth of a human is more rare than a turtle that swims inrepparttar 126980 ocean and only surfaces every hundred years, putting its head through a golden hoop which has been tossed around onrepparttar 126981 waves and driven by wind. By contrast,repparttar 126982 Buddha taught thatrepparttar 126983 number of beings in hell equalsrepparttar 126984 number of atomic particles inrepparttar 126985 galaxy.

Human birth is precious and rare. You haverepparttar 126986 capacity to reach nirvana (liberation from all mental afflictions), or Buddhahood (total enlightenment forrepparttar 126987 sake of all beings) from here. In other words, you haverepparttar 126988 capacity to transformrepparttar 126989 awful-ness in you and around you and reach for something beautiful, pain free, forrepparttar 126990 sake of all beings, hell, animal, hungry ghost, semi-god, god as well as human. But as one of my teachers lamented in retreat,repparttar 126991 Buddha taughtrepparttar 126992 8 fold path,repparttar 126993 way out, over 4,000 years ago and still people haven’t learned, still they are doingrepparttar 126994 same awful things.

Some say it’s enough to noticerepparttar 126995 breath. Acceptrepparttar 126996 breath. But there’s more. Understand how you got to be breathing inrepparttar 126997 first place. Understand how we all breath. How interdependent our breath is. Your SARS breath out is my breath in. It may or may not kill me. It’s not aboutrepparttar 126998 SARS breath then, is it? Think about this. Use it as a koan, traverserepparttar 126999 breath and those streets. Seerepparttar 127000 swaying masses onrepparttar 127001 streets writhing, darting. See Bush breathing. Andrepparttar 127002 guy withrepparttar 127003 quadruple by pass. The hot-headed Marine. And know as well that your last breath is your death at this juncture. Your last breath in this life isrepparttar 127004 last breath of countless beings, countless times. Andrepparttar 127005 beginning of another cycle of life and breath. Then, howrepparttar 127006 red might berepparttar 127007 blood you’re swimming in orrepparttar 127008 thin streak inrepparttar 127009 sky of a new beautiful dawn,repparttar 127010 white might berepparttar 127011 frozen ice ofrepparttar 127012 coldest hell orrepparttar 127013 most intense stream of bliss, and howrepparttar 127014 blue might berepparttar 127015 darkest pool of hot tar orrepparttar 127016 lapis lazuli sky ofrepparttar 127017 Pure land.

Hosannah sounds a lot like Osama. Saddam sounds a lot like Bomb. Bush sounds a lot like Woosh. Whoosh Osama Bomb. Hosannah Saddam Bush. Oh say can you see? Byrepparttar 127018 dawns’ early light…what so proudly we hail asrepparttar 127019 twilight’s last gleaming?

Born and raised in Los Angeles, attended college at UC Berkeley, Cooper Union (NY) and California Institute of the Arts. Holds degrees in Music, Visual Arts, French, and Economics. Has written articles on Buddhism, yoga, meditation, travel. Currently working on a book about travels in India.


Seven Truths - Perceiving this War Differently

Written by Robert Elias Najemy


Continued from page 1

These leaders are simply playing their cosmic role by expressing those same aspects within each of us.

v We have all misused power with our children, spouses, employees and others.

v We have all been indifferent to others’ pain when focused only on what we need.

v We are all egotistical to some degree.

v We all lie when it suits us.

v 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 torepparttar light and act forrepparttar 126969 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 isrepparttar 126970 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 letrepparttar 126971 power mongers know that they cannot fool us into believing thatrepparttar 126972 others are our enemies or that we are in danger from them.

4. The most important truth is that love rather than hate is arepparttar 126973 solution.

By hating Saddam Hussein or President Bush orrepparttar 126974 Iraqis,repparttar 126975 Americans,repparttar 126976 Taliban, Osama Bin laden,repparttar 126977 Jews orrepparttar 126978 Palestinians, we are simply adding torepparttar 126979 hate-vibration ofrepparttar 126980 world.

By hating, we are increasingrepparttar 126981 negative energy ofrepparttar 126982 universe and adding torepparttar 126983 problem.

Onrepparttar 126984 other hand, being indifferent and doing nothing is equally adding torepparttar 126985 problem.

When we hate we are doingrepparttar 126986 same asrepparttar 126987 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 -repparttar 126988 divine consciousness behind all that exists.

When we can stand assertively with love for what we believe, we have foundrepparttar 126989 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 haverepparttar 126990 power but do not use it for peace. We need both.

6. Prayer and positive visualization hasrepparttar 126991 power to affectrepparttar 126992 situation.

We can pray and send love and light to our leaders and to all ofrepparttar 126993 world that we might all realizerepparttar 126994 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 andrepparttar 126995 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 forrepparttar 126996 resolution of these conflicting human characteristics in all of humanity.

We are all being called to heal ourselves andrepparttar 126997 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 likerepparttar 126998 light atrepparttar 126999 movie theater which passes throughrepparttar 127000 film creating allrepparttar 127001 images onrepparttar 127002 screen. This light is omnipresent in allrepparttar 127003 beings, objects and events appearing onrepparttar 127004 screen. Inrepparttar 127005 same way we are observing one consciousness, which is manifesting as these leaders and all Americans, Iraqis, Israelis and Palestinians, and allrepparttar 127006 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 withinrepparttar 127007 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 berepparttar 127008 perpetrators andrepparttar 127009 victims.

And inrepparttar 127010 larger scale of time today’s perpetrators will become tomorrow’s victims and on and on until we learn. «We have meetrepparttar 127011 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.

I welcome your thoughts about whatever helps you make sense of all this and deal with it more effectively.

Send us your own.

Love and Peace,

Robert Elias Najemy

Robert Elias Najemy is the author of over 600 articles, 400 lecture cassettes on Human Harmony and 20 books, which have sold over 100,000 copies. He is the Founder and director of the Center for Harmonious Living in Greece with 3700 members. His book The Psychology of Happiness; ISBN 0-9710116-0-5 is available at www.amazon.com and http://www.HolisticHarmony.com. where you can view and download FREE articles and e-books.


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