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 in butt boss will keep yelling at you if you keep yelling back. You first, as anger congeals in 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 asking audience to have compassion for guys who plunged planes into 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 at mercy of flying destruction, we also have to have compassion for pilot. His pushing of button, no matter 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 that birth of a human is more rare than a turtle that swims in ocean and only surfaces every hundred years, putting its head through a golden hoop which has been tossed around on waves and driven by wind. By contrast, Buddha taught that number of beings in hell equals number of atomic particles in galaxy.

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

Some say it’s enough to notice breath. Accept breath. But there’s more. Understand how you got to be breathing in 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 about SARS breath then, is it? Think about this. Use it as a koan, traverse breath and those streets. See swaying masses on streets writhing, darting. See Bush breathing. And guy with 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 is last breath of countless beings, countless times. And beginning of another cycle of life and breath. Then, how red might be blood you’re swimming in or thin streak in sky of a new beautiful dawn, white might be frozen ice of coldest hell or most intense stream of bliss, and how blue might be darkest pool of hot tar or lapis lazuli sky of 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? By dawns’ early light…what so proudly we hail as twilight’s last gleaming?

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 to light and act for 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 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 power mongers know that they cannot fool us into believing that 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 solution.

By hating Saddam Hussein or President Bush or Iraqis, Americans, Taliban, Osama Bin laden, Jews or Palestinians, we are simply adding to hate-vibration of world.

By hating, we are increasing negative energy of universe and adding to problem.

On other hand, being indifferent and doing nothing is equally adding to problem.

When we hate we are doing same as 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 - divine consciousness behind all that exists.

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

6. Prayer and positive visualization has power to affect situation.

We can pray and send love and light to our leaders and to all of world that we might all realize 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 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 resolution of these conflicting human characteristics in all of humanity.

We are all being called to heal ourselves and 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 light at movie theater which passes through film creating all images on screen. This light is omnipresent in all beings, objects and events appearing on screen. In same way we are observing one consciousness, which is manifesting as these leaders and all Americans, Iraqis, Israelis and Palestinians, and all 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 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 perpetrators and victims.

And in larger scale of time today’s perpetrators will become tomorrow’s victims and on and on until we learn. «We have meet 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