Friday 8 January 2010

Wednesday 16 September 2009

9-11 Lesson: We Can't Fight Fire with Fire


By Sarva Dasa for The Houston Chronicle on 10 Sep 2009

On September 11th, 2001, I was in England, and that day I happened to drop off a fellow from my faith at London's Heathrow Airport. At the curb in front of the terminal, a concerned Brit detected my accent and said, "Hey mate: Are you an American? You'd better go inside and see what's on the telly!"

Leaving my car parked illegally at the curb, I ran in and joined a crowd that was transfixed, watching a BBC or CNN live report. In front of our eyes, the Twin Towers were going up in flames! It seemed unreal; but no, it was real. What was especially shocking to me as an American was that the same sort of violence which happened frequently in the Middle East was hitting America, which had seemed somehow to be impervious to such things.

When the news of the attack went out internationally, a wave of sympathy and well-wishes came to Americans from our neighbors all around the world. They assured us we are all in this together. For a short time, it seemed that 9-11 brought us together, and more importantly, it helped us understand that whether we like it or not, we are part of a complex, interrelated world. We not above it, or separate from it.

After the initial shock and humility, of course, America's military response was to attack Afghanistan then later Iraq, and our nation's soldiers are still engaged in difficult wars in those two countries, trying to quell the terrorists who were behind 9-11. While it is true that right after 9-11 some Americans vented their frustrations on people of non-mainstream faiths, especially Muslims, most of our countrymen did not react small-mindedly with increased hate, "fighting fire with more fire." And today, on September 11, 2009, we don't find that most Americans are more reactionary or close-minded about religions other than their own than they were before the Twin Towers were hit. As Lisa Miller recently wrote in Newsweek:

According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life"-including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone... Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great-and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."

In other words, seven years after the 9-11 attacks in New York, Americans were found to be statistically more tolerant and accepting of other faiths than ever before. This is an important development.

While America has still not found its notorious external enemy Osama Bin Laden, India's Bhagavad-gita clarifies who the real enemy actually is, and where the greatest enemy is lurching:

It is kama or lust - selfish personal desire - ... which is the sinful, all-devouring enemy of this world [and which is] ...never satisfied, and which burns like fire. The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this selfish desire.
(Bhagavad-gita 3.37-40)

If a house is on fire, what do the fire-fighters do? Do they get out a flame thrower and attack the flames with hotter ones? Do they pour gasoline on the flames? No, they put water on the fire.

On Sunday, September 13th, members of my congregation will be celebrating World Holy Name Day by chanting the great prayer for peace, the Hare Krishna mantra, at the Houston Zoo in Herman Park from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 in the understanding that glorifying the names of God helps to purify the hearts of the chanters and listeners of the subtle contaminations - our real enemies - which cause us to act aggressively and unkindly to our neighbor. Such sincere efforts to cool the fire of this world can only help. Please feel free to join us, or to help create a better world in your own way.

What do you think is a good way to counteract the fire of hate and violence in the world
?

Sunday 13 September 2009

Krishna Consciousness - A Philosophy for Everyone


The philosophy of the Hare Krsna movement is a non-sectarian monotheistic tradition. It may be summarized in the following eight points:
1) By sincerely cultivating an authentic spiritual science, we can become free from anxiety and achieve a state of pure, unending, blissful consciousness.
2) Each one of us is not the material body but an eternal spirit soul, part and parcel of God (Krsna). As such, we are all interrelated through Krsna, our common father.
3) Krsna is eternal, all-knowing, omnipresent, all-powerful and all-attractive. He is the seed-giving father of all living beings and the sustaining energy of the universe. He is the source of all incarnations of God.
4) The Vedas are the oldest scriptures in the world. The essence of the Vedas is found in the Bhagavad gita, a literal record of Krsna's words spoken 5,000 years ago in India. The goal of Vedic knowledge--and of all theistic religions-- is to achieve love of God.
5) We can perfectly understand the knowledge of self-realization through the instructions of a genuine spiritual master--one who is free from selfish motives and whose mind is firmly fixed in meditation on Krsna.
6) All that we eat should first be offered to Krsna with a prayer. In this way Krsna accepts the offering and blesses it for our purification.
7) Rather than living in a self-centered way, we should act for the pleasure of Krsna. This is known as bhakti-yoga, the science of devotional service.
8) The most effective means for achieving God consciousness in this age is to chant the holy names of Lord:
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare HareHare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare