MY RESPONSE TO THE WTC-PENTAGON ATTACK

 

We are all now faced with the upwelling of emotional messages from our inner wounded children, as we watch events of the outer macrocosm around us, reflecting a mirrored image of our inner microcosm. The opportunity is here to choose patience, take a vision quest into the belly of our beast, and heal the separation.

 

 

A pattern has emerged since WWII where the field of battle has continued to be viewed outside ourselves, only now on a global scale. Where the dominant parent is viewed as being in control of the wounded child and justified in the use of punishment to maintain order and make the world safe for democracy. Have the North Koreans, the North Vietnamese, or the South American drug lords learned their lesson and grown up to be responsible and productive members of a global society? What did the “Cold War” achieve for humanity?

 

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and in a decade of fighting Afghan rebels, suffered the loss of 15,000 lives and 400,00 wounded! What was left behind for us to bomb? Towns of rubble, farms destroyed and littered with land mines, no economy to speak of, no food, and millions of widows. The Taliban took over in 1997 and most Afghans are living in terror of Bin Laden, not in support of him. The people are starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, and suffering. If we aren’t willing to listen to our hearts and religious leaders about choosing a loving response, then listen to your reason and ask yourself if it makes sense to ignore the lesson the Soviets already paid for!

 

Will punishing children ever be effective in and of itself? Did you ever respond with enthusiasm when your parents forced you to do something “because I said so?” Without a compassionate and nurturing parent, teacher, or mentor, with a measure of patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, would we have learned more than mere knowledge of the lessons of life and acquired understanding as adults?

 

Can we recognize the wounded child (middle east) lashing out at the dominant parent (USA)? If we choose to name this situation in this way, the next step is to move into our hearts and feel our feelings around this as a global community committed to healing the wounds of separation. There are healthy ways to discharge our negative feelings through breath, movement, sound, meditation, and prayer, etc.  We then can begin to recognize that individuals like Bin Laden have lost their way and forgotten their core essence. I support everyone who chooses a path of compassion at this time and prays and meditates for all the Bin Laden’s and Hitler’s of the world to remember their divinity, their core essence, and quit projecting their inner pain onto the world. Only then will we be part of the solution and able to choose manifesting the creation of world peace and human unity. Will we choose to feed love or fear in our lifetime?

Notable quotes from the last week:

 

Dali Lama: “I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence.”

 

Thich Hhat Hahn: “Jesus never encourages us to respond to acts of violence with violence. His teaching is, instead, to use compassion to deal with violence.”

 

Ian Bain (speaking from the United Arab Emirates): “The vast majority of Arab peoples, however, are hugely sympathetic to the US. They pray that Americans will understand that every society has its extremist elements, its Bin Ladens, its Timothy McVeighs, its Red Brigade. We will all pray for the victims of terrorism, for peace and forgiveness, and for a new world free of fear and injustice.”

 

Yasmine (an American, a New Yorker, an Afghan): … my Dad spoke passionately about the hateful crimes the Taliban was committing against innocent Afghans in the name of Islam, an Islam that my family doesn’t know, an Islam that cannot be found in the pages of the Koran. Bin Laden was behind the first WTC bombing, the bombing of the Cole and the embassies in Africa – ask yourself, how did we not pay attention? Pay attention now!”

 

James DeMeo: “The Wahabbis of old Saudi Arabia (which includes Bin Laden) considered the best thing one could do with an infidel was to immediately kill them. … As discussed in Saharasia (his book), the major motivation for fundamentalist hatred of non-fundamentalists (of any religious background) is the absence of the latter group’s adherence to strict ‘moral codes’ regarding sexuality and the female reproductive functions. … The willingness of young men to commit suicide so readily… (partly) lies in the religious propaganda they are fed: ‘when you die as a martyr, you will go to heaven and be given dozens of virgin women to sleep with.’ … As demonstrated in Reich’s book The Mass Psychology of Fascism, the poison of anti-Semitism is always a hallmark of sex-frustration and racist hatred…Those rulers not only hate Jews, but also consider Americans to be scum, American women to be whores and prostitutes.”

 

Tamin Ansary (Afghani-American writer): “But the Taliban and Bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They’re not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think of Taliban, think Nazis. When you think of Osama Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think ‘the people of Afghanistan’ think ‘Jews in the concentration camps.’ They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. … We’re flirting with a war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that’s Bin Laden’s program. That’s exactly what he wants. That’s why he did this. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he’s got a billion soldiers.”

 

Nikolai Kovalyov (former head of Russia’s Federal Security Service): “…a US attack on Afghanistan would fail to reach bin Laden and would backfire on the United States. In Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain it would take a trainload of explosives to destroy 3 militants, the chances of hitting bin Laden would be zero.” 

 

Yuri Shamanov (Russian Colonel): “If the Americans go to war, I pity those boys, and their mothers and sisters and brothers. It will be 10 times worse than Vietnam. Vietnam will be a picnic by comparison.”

 

Richard Russell (Dow Theory Letters): “For many years the US backed any country, any dictator, any organization that was against Russia and world communism. The US first backed, and than funded the Islamic radicals in the 1980’s. It was part of the US’s campaign to fight the Soviet’s presence in Afghanistan. These are the same Islamic radicals that are now our number one enemies.”

 

Norman Fischer: “People do what they do because they are terrified of confronting the pain and anguish in their own hearts. The violence outside us is an outer projection of the violence and pain we feel inside.”

 

Gary Zukav: “If you hate those who hate you, you become like them. …those who committed these acts of violence were in extreme pain themselves, and were fueled by the violent parts of ourselves. They were our proxy representatives. The remedy for suffering is not to inflict more suffering.”

 

Deepak Chopra: “If you or I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.”

 

Chief Arvol Looking Horse: “We fail to appreciate and honor our Sacred Sites, ripping out the minerals and gifts that lay underneath them, as if Mother Earth were simply a resource, instead of the Source of Life itself. Attacking Nations and having to utilize more resources to carry out the destruction in the name of Peace and elimination is not the answer! In our prophesies it is told that we are now at the Crossroads, either unite Spiritually as a Global Nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases, and tears from our relatives eyes.”

 

Mashhood Rizvi (Editor of Pakistan magazine Educate): “It is not the time to terrorize most of the world by saying: ‘either you are with us or you are against us’. … The onus is on the US and the people of the US to reflect and emerge as real peace loving nation.”

 

Gregg Braden: “I invite you to join me in a prayer empowering our leaders with the wisdom of a greater power, as they implement their choices of response.

Dear God,

In this time of great tragedy, we give thanks for the courage within our leaders to recognize the difference between anger in their minds, the wisdom of their hearts, and the courage to act wisely in their choices.

May each leader have the strength to act for the good of all people, in all nations, and our collective future as a global family.

Through this prayer we claim that peace, democracy, and human life are stronger and more enduring than the buildings that symbolize them. We breathe life into their existence from the dust of hate that is transformed by our soil.

For these blessings in our lives, we give thanks, Amen

 

 

 

 

 

Prepared by:

Mark Clymer

September 20, 2001

Eve of President Bush’s Address to the Nation