Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00367)

Tuesday, October 23, 2001


Dear Friends:

As far as I can determine no war is entirely justified.

I can only visualize a resistance to iniquity in which we lay OUR
LIVES on the line in front of oppressors has any lasting value
that might restore true humane values to the bewildered minds of
those who oppress or seek revenge. One can see this exemplified
in the reincarnation stories of the Buddha: the Jataka stories.

I know well that in The SECRET DOCTRINE several very ancient and
great racial wars are mentioned in their historical context. The
reasons for these seem to relate to vast aspects of Karma and
never are they reduced to the actions and plight of individuals.
I have often wondered why that is so.

But UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD does not seem, to me to provide
justification for retaliation, revenge, or an attempt to take the
work of KARMA into our imperfect brains and hands to wreck
suffering and woe on vast numbers of persons whose direct
connection with terrible and ferocious acts that only intelligent
animals might devise who have no concept of IMMORTALITY or of an
environment in which all matters "good" or "bad" are taken into
account.

I am well aware that this is not satisfactory to many. But being
more horrible than the original, or more revengeful and terrible
than the original evil deed, does not prove anything except that
we have equaled their baseness and cruelty. Perhaps being
technologically more advanced all we demonstrate (as in the STAR
WARS trilogy) that we cannot totally eliminate old horrors while
perpetuating the vengeful aspect of things.

No war ever built spirituality, although the consequent
migrations of peoples and tribes (also traced to some extent in
The SECRET DOCTRINE ) may have preserved some of the physical
aspects of an heredity necessary for Nature's purposes -- the
preserving of the necessary physiological links for Immortal Egos
to eventually reincarnate into under the laws of their Individual
progress and Karma.

But this in no way validates or justifies any torture of the
week, the poor, the needy, of women, children or men of a smaller
or weaker tribe or religion. No nation or any national
government is given the seal of universal justification, when,
through exercise of FORCE on others in near or far situations,
are made the victims of its anger or resentment.

Killing others is not their re-education. If they have performed
acts that are crude, rude and entirely despicable, how can they
be brought to see another view, perhaps one that includes
REINCARNATION -- if they are dead?

Who says that death is the ultimate punishment? Who says that
life in this body is to be treasured above all things? What
justification is there for setting this range of values? We
need, all of us, to think these things out.

Only among those who know nothing of their own immortality and
that of all others, as well as, the bonds of common Karma -- that
produce the reincarnation sequence of all human mind/souls can
the concept of death and dismemberment hold any value. Only the
MORE TERRIBLE vanquish the "merely terrible." History records
many such events -- but, who learns from history?

Nor does this stand in any way as a justification of terrorism.
No aspect of tyranny or oppressive government of the unwilling
victims in any country or place or time is ever justified. One
need only look back into the accounts of the Inquisition and the
conquest of North, Central and South America to see how tyranny
and horrors are mentally justified without their being
JUSTIFIABLE under Karma.

What Karma are we creating for ourselves?

But for whom do these views have value?
If we think we can hang guilt and opprobrium on a tribe, a
religion, a nation, etc... we are not engaging in an
understanding of human nature, but we are broadly painting by
means of a label attributes that are not uniformly true.
If we wish to know about the Muslims and the Koran we ought to
get a translation and read it, and we will find that there are a
number of controversial statements to choose from. In a general
way, one could say that Muhammed in his duty as a Prophet was a
reformer. He came to desert tribes which had fallen into
licentiousness and brought a degree of reform to them. When this
has been exaggerated, we have the terrible rules of custom and
tradition which no longer apply totally in the context of today's
world. However those who have been isolated from the last 3 or
400 years of change, find themselves now far opposed to our newly
developed customary mores.
But reading a version of Koran will help us escape from the broad
and inaccurate characterizations that are current and which truly
do not have accurate meaning. Incidentally we need always to
recollect that any version translated into English will carry
inherent to it the prejudices and views of the translator. So it
may not be totally the accurate version and intention of the
prophet.

Best wishes,

Dallas

========================




-----Original Message-----
From: K---a H------k
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 6:58 AM
To:
Subject: This war & it's cause

> > This is really getting tiresome. I will try again
> though.
> > Have I said anything to defend any Islamic nation?
Bart:
> No. But you have judged the United States and implied
> that the behavior
> of the United States somehow justified the attacks, and
> caused hatred of
> the United States by the Islamic nations.

Well, I certainly did not mean to justify the attacks. If I
gave anybody that impression, I sincerely apologize.
Nothing can excuse such an action as deliberately flying an
airplane into a building. That is very simple. So simple
that I did not repeat that statement (or even start with
it), because I felt that to be self-evident. And that is
quite reasonable too, because however most Muslims feel
about the USA, most also agree that flying those airplanes
into those buildings was a horrendous act, and there is no
excuse.

CUT