The whole world is discussing, what took place on the September 11th 2001, in New York City and in Washington D.C. and there is tremendous fear that such catastrophes may take place in other areas. There are people with such intense egos and these people label themselves with religious designations to gather support and plunder the innocent people on the basis of such faith.
God teaches us how to purify our heart. However in the name of God, we see great cruelty and demoniac behavior. What is this born of? It’s not just people that do the things, it’s the envy in the heart that drives them to do these things, it’s the hatred in the heart. We are taught to love the soul, but to hate the disease that is causing a person to forget the beauty of the soul. How many ever social reforms, how many ever prison houses we create, how many ever wars we declare, these catastrophes, these sufferings will keep coming as long as there is envy, pride, lust, anger, greed and illusion in people’s hearts. These are the enemies that are dropping bombs, these are the enemies that are creating the concentration camps and torturing and murdering innocent people who have nothing to do with war or threat, whatsoever. These are the enemies that are crashing planes into buildings, causing terror, fear, bloodshed, death and sorrow.
So yes, one should be compassionate and cultivate feeling of sadness upon seeing others suffer and pray for them without discrimination. In fact, using our military, we can bomb and we can kill, and sometimes that is necessary for the protection of the citizens. However, unless we kill these enemies within our hearts, it will happen again and again. Actually, the people responsible for these tragedies are really just like you and me, they have two arms, they have two eyes, a nose, they speak with their mouths, they walk with their feet, they hear with their ears, they have passion, desires and they are eternal pure spirit souls. However, somehow or other they are so much covered by these enemies and their desires based on hatred, envy, pride and greed are so powerful that they are able to create such an immense devastation. It is very sad. So, we not only feel compassion for the dead, the people mourning, but we also pray for their souls. Real compassion is to pray in such a way that their souls can be freed from the shackles of these materialistic qualities, so that they can actually live in harmony, harmony with nature.
by Radhanath Swami
