Details are as follows: Tuesday, April 8, 2003 6: 30 Kasr El Dobara Church - Tahrir Square, Cairo http://www.praiseteamegypt.com/Praise.html#i

Actually they are praying that people may not only praise God but get to know Him more and have fellowship with Him more than ever before, this is our aim from this praise gathering. So please even if you are not free to join Praise Team or not living in Egypt, just pray for gathering and that people may decide to have praise as their life style.

As for The Egypt Praise Team news: This month they went to some Egyptian States (Mohafazat) for praise services like Menia (Maghagha), Helwan, Zaqaziq and Assiut (Dayrout). I will share only one of them quickly: On Friday March 17, they went as whole Praise Team to Dayrout Assuit, an Egyptian state: It was great, actually it was much more than they ever expected, it was one of large services they utside Cairo; audience according to administrators there were 1,700.

Since space was limited, they performed twice in same evening so that people could attend one of services (not both), so people who attended first service could not attend second.

First service people went out from one door and second service audience entered from another.

People were on three floors, all of them full and outside doors, staircase, corridors,etc. everywhere was packed with people.

Twilight in America

This morning I was reading ‘a treasury of sublime instructions’ from a high Tibetan lama. America contains symbol ‘Ah’, which sounds unborn nature of truth. It’s also symbol at throat chakra. Sometimes when I sit and visualize colors according to my Buddhist practice, I think of American flag and how uncanny it is that they are same. I sit and pray for liberation from physical, verbal and mental afflictions. And yet country I was born into is rocking itself into hell realm. Blood soaked terrain propels more blood soaking and cycle continues; there seems to be no choice. Propelled by afflictions.

In contemplating sufferings of cyclic life in general, they can be broken down into six sufferings. Life is uncertain. We can never find a sense of satisfaction. We have to shed our bodies over and over again. We are born over and over again. What goes up must come down. And we do this alone. We may think we have companions but we die alone. Period.

There are more than 5 billion humans on planet now and few study dharma. It’s a precious jewel more hidden than seen. As Hummer cruises down freeway, with wheels that afford a very high panorama, I pass another SUV smashed in on side, and debris everywhere. Do people see, do they know? They just drive around in their Hummers, with bullet proof shadowy glass protecting bodies that are bound to disintegrate some day. They are bouncing above it all in what some referred to as ‘god’ realm here…Los Angeles. Sunny days, wealth, oceans of offerings to yourself. And only yourself. Accumulate, borrow, accumulate more.

I cried at lunch yesterday as a friend told me about a CEO of a well-known movie studio and how much he makes a day; how much he spent to redecorate his office that he doesn’t use. How he also had a quadruple by pass. And my mind flashes abruptly to begging bowls penetrating stone fences of Bodhgaya. $10,000 a day to sit in a soft malleable chair and bark at your employees could feed whole of Bodhgaya for half a year! "It’s out of whack", she said. And so do astrologers, psychics, New Age yogis. Yet there’s no visible awareness of samsara and how it all goes round and round. It isn’t just about living a comfortable happy existence this lifetime, people. It’s your own future life at stake. Call it Catholic sin appreciation time. It works for them. You reap what you sow. And so…and so, if you had a clue about fact that your warmongering would take you straight to lowest hell in Dante’s inferno, and you really knew this - it wasn’t just an antiquated Italian classic - you might really think or realize you are thinking?

I came back from India with an upper respiratory infection. When I finally saw my doctor weeks later, she told me I probably had had walking pneumonia; this was before media people coined SARS. I had been in poorest state of India, Bihar, and air there is notorious, a disease den. People walk streets with surgical face masks. You pick your nose and goop is dark. TB floats through air freely. And people die. Lots of them. It’s not on news. It happens every year. It’s foggy, it’s cold, air is damp and so get lungs. I laid in my guest house bed every day wondering if I would get worse or better. I took my Cipro. I didn’t even feel strong enough to go doctor’s. My dharma friends said if I died there in Bodhgaya, it would be a real blessing. In midst of high lamas and especially His Holiness Dalai Lama. Yes, illness is looked at differently. It’s seen as a purification of past deeds, negative karma popping off. All stored in body. And yet, I come back here and this new mysterious illness is a news breaker. Some Western people have caught disease and are dying. It’s news and it’s plummetting airline ticket sales. That’s news. But that TB kills thousands a year from all over Asia. Is that news?

We live in a land of Costcos, of sterilized supermarkets with pasturized milk, genetically engineered beef, plastic containers, rubber gloves. The supermarkets here don’t smell. They freeze you. You should probably wear a ski suit to shop at Ralphs or Vons. We drive Hummers to prevent death. We pull skin taught on our faces to avoid looking at aging process. We think we can defy death. We think that our minds our so powerful. But mind that is contaminated is only as powerful as its contaminates. It can’t see. It can only see through its own dirty lens.

I watch TV and see talking shriveled up American men in suits. I think of invention of suit and tie. Clothing symbols of achievement. Wow. We became stiff. A few years back I would take photos of these talking men and sew them into crotch of my warn out underwear. It was part of my art work at time. They were down there. They still are. But they feel old and gasping. I watched Rumsfeld deliver a speech on TV. He could hardly get a breath. They were short heaves and his chest seemed hard and I thought, "that man is suffering so much". And has no idea. As a yoga teacher, I see physical structural ailments much more now. The caved in chest, sagging shoulders, color of skin. Not even a suit or a tummy tuck can hide what’s really going on.