The Earth Quake and Tsunami of December 26 2004
My Dear Friends
What can I say to you in your anguish as you feel the grief you felt when you saw the grief of those who were hit by quake and tsunami? What can I say to you who stayed and watched the tv, inspite of seeing images of grief and more grief?
Yesterday at noon I went pass KFC which is the end shop in my block of shophouses where my clinic is located. It was full of people having a family feast in the last few days of the school holidays. It was a happy crowd, oblivious of the tragedy that happened and is still unfolding a few hundres miles away. This was how they must have been I thought, happy holidaying families on the beach, oblivious of the killer waves travelling towards them at great speed, reaching them before they had time to flee, people hit by wave upon wave, dashed against rocks, sent spinning and sprawling and drowning...
When there is a disaster of this magnitude, one of the first things I do is pray. Pray for the well being of the souls who were suddenly sent to their bodiless state, in great shock with great suddenness and I pray for those left behind, who were still alive but had suffered losses..loss of family members, loss of belongings , maimed and injured I pray for their peace of mind, I pray for their fortitude , I pray for their patience and I pray for those in a position to go and help them to do so . I make sure I send money at least since I could not take off and see the victims due to my job commitments. I send out e-mail to as many lists as I can here and overseas asking for them to send funds to those in need and I take the time to count my blessings.
It is as if I then look at the comforts I have with new eyes and as I walk on this ground, in this peaceful orderly place that I am in with the people shopping laughing and going about their business in great ease, as if it is a great privilege . a great blessing which I have to be grateful for and have to prostrate myself and thank God for it again and again and again.
Why are there natural disasters of this magnitude? Why does the earth suddenly shift and rumble and send the sea raging mad washing everything it smashes against , sending carefully made dwellings and infrastructure tumbling down , totally destroyed?
Renewal I thought, a renewal! God's view is not my view . I see what my limited vision sees, God sees and knows beyond my limited vision. What is destroyed will rebuild and regenerate. Ya Muhyi, Ya Muid. Oh Life giver, Oh Regenerator ! Thy holy names comfort me!
I remember a hadith of the Prophet where distraught parents of drowned children asked the Prophet to pray that their lifeless children be brought back to life. The Prophet did pray but then he told the parents, that the children were in a more beautiful place and were very happy where they were and did not want to come back.
Many of the people who died were among the poorest of the poor. They lived from hand to mouth , with very little comforts.
Were they now in a better place, happier , more at peace, in bliss? I pray so!
As for the victims who are left behind and suffering various losses. We who are not the victims are here for them. We are God's representative on this earth and all those who are suffering are our responsibility, we who have the power to help in one way or another.
Use your power, be it the power of the word, the power of your money and worldly goods, or the power of your hands lips and tongues to give aid , to comfort, to console , to rebuild
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Prophet Issa - Resist Not Evil
That is a saying of the Prophet Issa(saw);in my opinion it would mean what you resist persists. Sort of like making war for peace.
Perhaps ultimately what is coming at you is coming from you as it
said.
My thoughts:
Here is my understanding of what it means , besides what Hazrat Inayat Khan said.
Do you notice that pointing out and correcting people or criticising almost never results in something postive because the person reacts to what is said by persisting in doing what was said against?
Another example I can think of is when dealing with delinquent children.
Telling them what they do is wrong and then punishing them harshly
makes them more delinquent.
What seems to be a better solution is to use firm kindness,
Even in situations where punsihment is necessary , it should not come from a position of resisting evil ie getting angry over the evil deed.
It should come from a position of love.
A hadith about Ali blessings upon him is that he was about to kill a person in a war situation . The person spat at his face and he stopped the action and let the man go. The man was surprised and asked why and Ali replied, "I was about to kill you *in the way of Allah* until you spat in my face and then I got angry and I was afraid I would then kill you out of anger."
I was watching the new King Arthur , very different from the romantic musical I saw previously and another version some time ago. In this version it was made more realistic and I m not sure if it is a historically more correct version. Does not matter though , the point is that for the first time I could watch a movie with savage killing and not flinch or close my eyes.
I think it is because I finally came to realise that war and fighting is a human condition.It is I think the most difficult test of our humanity and it is a time when we really have to resist evil and if we do not,we will join that evil . The character in the film that was Arthur did this, he resisted evil while fighting in a war and earned the respect of friend and foe.( In this version Arthur was a leader of a small band of knights forced to fight for the Romans in the name of the church . The Romans finally abandoned Britain when the Saxons started to invade and Arthur with the help of local natives won against the Saxons against all odds and that was the beginning of his Kingship.)
Perhaps ultimately what is coming at you is coming from you as it
said.
My thoughts:
Here is my understanding of what it means , besides what Hazrat Inayat Khan said.
Do you notice that pointing out and correcting people or criticising almost never results in something postive because the person reacts to what is said by persisting in doing what was said against?
Another example I can think of is when dealing with delinquent children.
Telling them what they do is wrong and then punishing them harshly
makes them more delinquent.
What seems to be a better solution is to use firm kindness,
Even in situations where punsihment is necessary , it should not come from a position of resisting evil ie getting angry over the evil deed.
It should come from a position of love.
A hadith about Ali blessings upon him is that he was about to kill a person in a war situation . The person spat at his face and he stopped the action and let the man go. The man was surprised and asked why and Ali replied, "I was about to kill you *in the way of Allah* until you spat in my face and then I got angry and I was afraid I would then kill you out of anger."
I was watching the new King Arthur , very different from the romantic musical I saw previously and another version some time ago. In this version it was made more realistic and I m not sure if it is a historically more correct version. Does not matter though , the point is that for the first time I could watch a movie with savage killing and not flinch or close my eyes.
I think it is because I finally came to realise that war and fighting is a human condition.It is I think the most difficult test of our humanity and it is a time when we really have to resist evil and if we do not,we will join that evil . The character in the film that was Arthur did this, he resisted evil while fighting in a war and earned the respect of friend and foe.( In this version Arthur was a leader of a small band of knights forced to fight for the Romans in the name of the church . The Romans finally abandoned Britain when the Saxons started to invade and Arthur with the help of local natives won against the Saxons against all odds and that was the beginning of his Kingship.)
Healers getting sick
Salam to all,
Murshid Hazrat who was a healer died young. So did Krishamurthy and another great healer, Bruno Groenig.
Bruno's case was rather strange. He was a healer who could heal very big groups of people and his presence at any location brought crowds of people .
This upset the government at that time and a law was passed to stop him from healing. He said that if he was not allowed to healing, he would die. ( the healing energy which needed to be used or it would turn in? I know of a young man who said he needed to give a massage to his friends to avoid getting bodyache and heatiness. )]
Anyway, after he was prevented from healing, he had some lung problem and when they finally did an X Ray he had a tumour and they operated and were shocked to find the extent of the tumour and that he managed to live life almost normally with such an advanced tumour.. The operation killed him
His followers who still do a healing circle claim that his healing energy is available for any who wants to tune in on it.
To know about all this is to understand that there is so much about healing that we do not understand.
One of the most difficult things for me to learn is to understand that sometimes when i feel something, it is not mine and to learn not to react to it but in learning how not to react, I also learned to treat my own experiences in a detached manner ie to step back from one;s own experience and to look at it in a impersonal way.
I think what kills healers is grief. It is one of the most difficult things to be impersonal about and indeed there is so much to grieve in the world of the material
Murshid Hazrat who was a healer died young. So did Krishamurthy and another great healer, Bruno Groenig.
Bruno's case was rather strange. He was a healer who could heal very big groups of people and his presence at any location brought crowds of people .
This upset the government at that time and a law was passed to stop him from healing. He said that if he was not allowed to healing, he would die. ( the healing energy which needed to be used or it would turn in? I know of a young man who said he needed to give a massage to his friends to avoid getting bodyache and heatiness. )]
Anyway, after he was prevented from healing, he had some lung problem and when they finally did an X Ray he had a tumour and they operated and were shocked to find the extent of the tumour and that he managed to live life almost normally with such an advanced tumour.. The operation killed him
His followers who still do a healing circle claim that his healing energy is available for any who wants to tune in on it.
To know about all this is to understand that there is so much about healing that we do not understand.
One of the most difficult things for me to learn is to understand that sometimes when i feel something, it is not mine and to learn not to react to it but in learning how not to react, I also learned to treat my own experiences in a detached manner ie to step back from one;s own experience and to look at it in a impersonal way.
I think what kills healers is grief. It is one of the most difficult things to be impersonal about and indeed there is so much to grieve in the world of the material
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
