=kit125p1.txt

THE WORLD CRISIS - THE SPIRITUAL APPROACH

This doc follows KIT 125 om Kaivan's listing 
-- www.centrum-universel.de
But does not have a KIT number

It is evidently a response, presumably in Sept. '01, to the
destruction of the Twin Towers of the Manhattan World Trade
Center.

N.B. -- In the Kaivan KIT's I find no KIT numbers:
126 , 127, 128, 129, 130, nor 131         
The KIT following this one is KIT 132


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Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan:
THE WORLD CRISIS - THE SPIRITUAL APPROACH

How can we deal with the outrage?
Is there anything that we can do?
What can we do?

We are all emotionally shocked and outraged by the incredible
cruelty, the horror, of what has happened: the voice of despair
reaching us from the air, "Oh my God! Oh my God!" as brain-washed
kamikazes transformed passenger aircraft into lethal bombs loaded
with human lives, wreaking heartless human atrocity upon innocent
people. The mass destruction will resonate through history as a
portent of the vulnerability of the constructs of our affluent
sophisticated civilizations in the hands of a few brainwashed lost
souls, acting on a faulty interpretation of their religion, who
have never heard of the pursuit of 
"the awakening of humanity to the divinity of the human status;
the awakening of conscience."
(phrase quoted from HIK, I preusme)

How could a human being ever conceive of inflicting such heartless
atrocity on fellow beings? Imagine people jumping to their death
out the window in despair, being surrounded by flames and smoke,
roasted alive, unable to flee. We could never assess the degree of
the wanton destruction of what has been built by so much care and
dedicated work and skill! An affront to civilization! And now: the
alarming prospect of the millions of innocent people who may be
sacrificed for the retribution. Yet we cannot responsibly allow
this diabolical abomination to reoccur.

In the present crisis, in our dismay at a disturbed, faltering
world teetering at the edge of disaster (or is it being afflicted
by exceedingly pernicious and hazardous birth pangs announcing a
brave new world?) as we quiver at the threat of wreaking further
unimaginable escalating havoc upon our erstwhile beautiful planet
and killing or causing excruciating pain upon millions, perhaps
billions, of innocent people, our spiritual values are at stake.
We are tested as to whether to retaliate for the atrocious cruelty
to people going about their daily work. Is it helpful to kill
masses of other innocent people who are not responsible for the
barbaric act of terror to assuage our outrage - as vindication?
This would be slipping into primitive feuds, vendettas, where it
was customary that an insult could only be atoned by revenge to
indemnify one's honor.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"A person has a natural tendency that if he is insulted, he thinks
that the proper way of answering is to insult the other person
still more. Yet he gets a momentary satisfaction to have given a
good answer."
(HIK)

Umpteen numbers of lives have been forsaken in past wars motivated
by retribution when they could have been spared by a more
civilized sense of honor. Moreover it rebounds upon the avenger.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"A fire thus starts in that mind that had been peaceful and by
reacting it too participates in this fire which will burn oneself.
It is giving fuel to the fire that rises for destruction and
causes further destruction.... By giving way to disharmony, one
causes disharmony to multiply."
(HIK)

Thus, spurred by our wounded emotion, we tend to react out of
anger with bravado rather than act in a concentrated way to
control the situation. Let us recall an incident in the life of
Hazrat Ali who released an enemy who spat at his face. Whereupon
the enemy asked him why he did not kill him. Hazrat Ali said: "I
did not wish to react in anger."

Christ's teaching "resist not evil" is a hint not to participate
in and be guilty of the same evil. Christ's time honored
announcement on the Mount of Olives, valiantly and bravely
challenging the vituperations of the Pharisees marked a radical
turning point in the course of history from the law of retaliation
to the ideal of love. Kabalists had aptly spelled the cosmic
antinomy by opposing Chesed (magnanimity) and Din (the law) in the
Sephirotic tree - Ya Rahman and Ya Wali.

"You have heard that it was said: an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth. But I say to you: do not resist an evil doer....You
have heard: you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But
I say love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you so that
ye may be children of your father in heaven." 
(Soi_disant (sa) 'New Testament'), Matthew 6 - 38,43 
(quoting Jesus of Natzereth, possibly Jesus the Nazerine (sa))

This is the ultimate exhortation - admittedly difficult to follow.

GANDHI:
"It is non-violence when we love those who hate us. I know how
difficult it is to follow this grand law of love. But are not all
great and good things difficult to do? The objective should not be
to punish the opponent or to inflict injury upon him. We must make
him feel that in us he has a friend. It is a means to secure the
cooperation of the opponent consistent with truth and justice."

How can we be the friend of a ruthless, brutal killer?

CHRIST:
"They do not know what they do."

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The wise understands; for he knows that the others are drunk and
he cannot expect better of them."
(HIK) Vol. 6, Alchemy of Happiness, Life a Continual Battle (2)

"During the battle it is an intoxication; [one] is battling but he
does not know where he is going, and at the end of the battle,
even if he is victorious, he will find that his victory is a
loss."
(HIK)  VOL. 6, ALCHEMY OF HAPPINESS, LIFE A CONTINUAL BATTLE (1)

But we cannot allow them to perpetrate their deadly harm upon
innocent people or besmear the sacredness of our ideal. Therefore
we need to intervene with might as a knight.

"And having made a whip out of cords, he chased them out of the
Temple." 
(New Testament) St. John's Gospel

{ Footnote kit126_1 (sa) }

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Love for a devil should be to wish him to become better, but
enduring his mischief is like giving him a hold upon us.

This was precisely the issue I discussed with Noor as the Nazi
cannons were approaching our house. "We have paid lip-service to
the Message of unity, respect of all religions, all races, the
sacredness of life. Are these just words? Now comes the acid test:
this ideal is being violated and obstructed - what are we prepared
to do for it?" We decided to volunteer, to engage in the struggle
heart and soul at the cost of our lives, but without killing, to
save the victims of this violation of the values we stand for. We
abandoned our home, our security, but held our heads high.

GANDHI:
"I do not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer; but I
mean the pitting of one's whole soul against the will of the
tyrant. I do believe that where there is a choice between
cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... But I believe
that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness
is more manly than punishment. Strength does not come from
physical capacity; it comes from an indomitable will."

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when
the other person is in a temper will win in the end....But in
order to stand firm against this disharmony that comes from
without, one must first practice to stand firm against the
disharmony that comes from within. For one's soul is more
difficult to control that the others. And when one fails to
control oneself, it is most difficult to stand against the
disharmony without."

So what are we to do? Are we just to sit back, stick together as a
family and listen passively to the news? Fret about the danger or
hardships that could befall us? Try to heal the wounds in our
souls? Or are we simply to preach the unity of religions to people
blinded and deafened by despair? This was precisely what Noor and
I were discussing.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Suffering is our first call."

There could be more suffering in store, much more suffering of
innocent people. Are we prepared to help those victims of the
situation in whatever way we can? There will be a need for food
against mass starvation, for clothing and medicines. There will be
a need to welcome and adopt distant and unknown friends, to show
love and understanding - as do the Red Cross, the Red Crescent,
Amnesty International, rescue operations....

Let us laud our heroes: the policemen, the firemen, and the rescue
workers who sacrificed their lives in the brunt of the
catastrophe.

We are living the crux of the human drama right here and now. The
issue is what are our values? And are we prepared to uphold them?
Rather than fretting over the sword of Damocles hovering over our
own heads or fleeing it to save our lives, we need to involve
ourselves by offering a helping hand, to maintain order against
abuse with authority but without hate, to affirm authority by our
solidarity in service to our cherished ideal of a civilized people
inspired by the divine ideal.

Notwithstanding, let our distress not overshadow our faith in a
better world and our joy of contributing to it each in our way.

REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING:
"We must make the pledge that we shall march together.... We
cannot turn back.... No, no! We will not be satisfied until
justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty
stream. "

 
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COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:

Footnote kit126_1 (sa)
Really, Christians should not have been allowed to write about
Jesus, they take everything out of context.

As for chasing the money_changers out of the Temple -- I should
say they were in accord with halacha, and biblical (as distinct
from rabinic) halacha at that -- Tzdusees, the written Torah,
Torah sh'b' ktav, as distinc from Perushim ('Pharisees') who held
by the 'oral', the rabbinic, torah -- 

The money_changers ae at the Temple because the Bible stipulates
that all (male, of course; women are free to stay home and take
care of the babies) Jews must appear at the Temple three times a
year, at the three Harvest Festivals (Pesach, Shavuot, Sukot) and
bring a sacrifice; but if the way is too long for them to bring a
sacrifice, they can bring money to buy one.  I presume that there
were different currencies in use among the Jewish people at the
time, hence the need for money changers as close to the
sacrificial place of the Temple as possible.  The Temple grounds
were arranged in degrees of sanctity -- the outer area were open
to non_Jews, then to Jewish women, then to Jewish men (Israelites,
then I suppose only to the Levites and Cohenim, and finally, only
to the High Priest and to him only on Yom Kippur -- the so_called
'Holy of Holies'.

So in short, I find nothing wrong, and much right, in having money
changers, and for that matter livestock_sellers, on the grounds of
the Temple Mount.

Jesus action then would seem justified only if he took the
militantly civil_disobedient position -- and not even a nonviolent
position, -- that animal sacrifice ought to be abolished.

For that he surely deserved a whipping, the usual punishment in
those days.
PVK often speaks of Jesus having been 'tortured', which conjures
up visions of the old rack & thumbscrews that the Brits
contributed to western civilization a millenium and a half later -
- but I have seen no suggestion that they did more than whip him.
"Scourged", as the King James has it.
And Jewish religious law, at least as codified in Talmud and I
think before that in Mishna, put strict limits on how much a man
could be whipped "lest he become loathsome in your sight" as the
Bible puts it.

Crucifixtion was terminal torture of course, but that was a Roman
not a Jewish form of capital punishment; the usual Jewish form was
stoning, which is probably about as humane as you can get, though
no particular pleasure either. 

The usual thing we say is that it was the Romans who killed Jesus,
presumably because they deemed him an insurrectionist, presumably
because he did not deny that he was the Messiah -- who, as
understood in Jewish tradition, is not merely annointed by G_d,
but, more practically, is to be the Ruler of the Jewish people --
a job for which there were already quite a number of contenders,
since it did carry quite a few fringe benefits.  Eg the right to
bleed the country dry by taxes.

But if Jesus was deemed to have attempted, however symbolically
some may have deemed it -- though there's nothing unduly symbolic
about a strong tall guy from the hills in the prime of life
whipping a bunch of old money_changers -- to have attempted to
abolish animal sacrifice at the Temple, then that would have been
the most severe crime imaginable to the Jewish people, -- even
when they later besieged the Temple , the Romans enabled animal
sacrifice to continue, at an exhorbitant price -- they would lower
down a basket of gold, and the Romans would put a baby goat in the
basket -- then that might have merited capital punishment, though
such a decision would have required considerable deliberation,
since it was not imagined in the Bible -- 

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