Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00148)

Oct 18 2002

Terrorism and Karma -- Why not learn from History?

Dear Mic:

Lets put it this way. If we were only aware (if not convinced) that
only the body is killed and the Spirit/Soul, being immortal,
reincarnates, the meaning of terrorism, murder, torture, violence, and
war would disappear.

If in addition the law of karma were grasped as a universal fact, the
fear of only augmenting our own sorrow and suffering for the future
would prevent any sane individual from feuding.

Brotherhood would then acquire real meaning. Placing blame on others,
or seeking revenge on a group, a creed or a race is fruitless, as no
one can find in such a "release" a justification for becoming more
terrible that the terrorists.

Of course there is no excuse for terrorism or any kind of violence
where others are hurt or their life made into a hell. But the
response to such a situation is critical. How best to deal with such
situations is a very difficult question for us to answer. Arresting
it or preventing it, is even more difficult. Do all countries become
armed states under the siege of some unknown but clever actives?
Does the yapping dog frighten the elephant? (Old Hindu proverb)

We are all sorrowing that the world has turned to a kind of
anarchism -- sporadic and indiscriminate bombings are not the mark of
sanity. And, I would add that the response by officialdom in the U S
is not exactly "sane. One can cast one's mind back to the attempt of
the Hitlerian Reich to dominate Europe and compel obedience and the
production of war materials-- sabotage and the secret opposition in
all countries which showed itself as "terrorism" to the Nazi
occupiers.

Now is it right to place the entire "terrorism" blame at the door of
ISLAM ( means "Peace !"). And unfortunately there are fanatics in all
religions, but in Islam there are those who seem particularly open to
being imposed on -- so as to commit suicide and murder on innocents.

Have a look at this: It will give you an idea of the history of early
terrorism. One might wonder why H P B bothered writing this over 100
years ago

------------------------------------

THE AHKOOND OF SWAT
THE FOUNDER OF MANY MYSTICAL SOCIETIES.

[From the New York Echo, 1878.]

OF the many remarkable characters of this century, Ghafur was one of
the most conspicuous.
If there be truth in the Eastern doctrine that souls, powerful whether
for good or bad, who had not time in one existence to work out their
plans, are reincarnated, the fierceness of their yearnings to continue
on earth thrusting them back into the current of their attractions,
then Ghafur was a rebirth of that Felice Peretti, who is known in
history as Pope Sixtus V., of crafty and odious memory. Both were born
in the lowest class of society, being ignorant peasant boys and
beginning life as herdsmen. Both reached the apex of power through
craft and stealth and by imposing upon the superstitions of the
masses. Sixtus, author of mystical books and himself a practitioner of
the forbidden sciences to satisfy his lust for power and ensure
impunity, became Inquisitor-General. Made Pope, he hurled his
anathemas alike against Elizabeth of England, the King of Navarre, and
other important personages.

Abdul Ghafur, endowed with an iron will, had educated himself without
colleges or professors except through association with the "wise men"
of Khuttuk. He was as well versed in the Arabic and Persian literature
of alchemy and astronomy as Sixtus was in Aristotle, and like him knew
how to fabricate mesmerized talismans and amulets containing either
life or death for those to whom they were presented. Each held
millions of devotees under the subjection of their psychological
influence, though both were more dreaded than beloved.

Ghafur had been a warrior and an ambitious leader of fanatics, but
becoming a dervish and finally a pope, so to say, his blessing or
curse made him as effectually the master of the Ameers and other
Mussulmans as Sixtus was of the Catholic potentates of Europe.

Only the salient features of his career are known to Christendom.
Watched, as he may have been, his private life, ambitions, aspirations
for temporal as well as religious power, are almost a sealed book. But
the one certain thing is, that he was the founder and chief of nearly
every secret society worth speaking of among Mussulmans, and the
dominant spirit in all the rest.

His apparent antagonism to the Wahabees was but a mask, and the
murderous hand that struck Lord Mayo was certainly guided by the old
Abdul. The Biktashee Dervishes* and the howling, dancing, and other
Moslem religious mendicants recognize his supremacy as far above that
of the Sheik-ul-Islam of the faithful. Hardly a political order of any
importance issued from Constantinople or Teheran-heretics though the
Persians are-without his having a finger in the pie directly or
indirectly. As fanatical as Sixtus, but more cunning yet, if possible,
instead of giving direct orders for the extermination of the Huguenots
of Islam, the Wahabees, he directed his curses and pointed his finger
only at those among them whom he found in his way, keeping on the
best, though secret, terms with the rest.

The title of Nasr-ed-Din (defender of the faith) he impartially
applied to both the Sultan and the Shah, though one is a Sunnite and
the other a Shiah. He sweetened the stronger religious intolerance of
the Osman dynasty by adding to the old title of Nasr-ed-Din those of
Saif-ed-Din (scimitar of faith) and Emir-el-Mumminiah (prince of the
faithful). Every Emir-el-Sourey, or leader of the sacred caravan of
pilgrims to Mekka, brought or sent messages to, and received advice
and instructions from, Abdul, the latter in the shape of mysterious
oracles, for which was left the full equivalent in money, presents and
other offerings, as the Catholic pilgrims have recently done at Rome.

In 1847-8 the Prince Mirza, uncle of the young Shah and ex-governor of
a great province in Persia, appeared in Tiflis, seeking Russian
protection at the hands of Prince Woronzof, Viceroy of the Caucasus.
Having helped himself to the crown jewels and ready money in the
treasury, he had run away from the jurisdiction of his loving nephew,
who was anxious to put out his eyes. Popular rumour asserted that his
reason for what he had done was that the great dervish, Ahkoond, had
thrice appeared to him in dreams, prompting him to take what he had
and share his booty with the protectors of the faith of his principal
wife (he brought twelve with him to Tiflis), a native of Cabul. The
secret, though, perhaps, indirect influence he exercised on the Begum
of Bhopal, during the Sepoy rebellion of 1857 was a mystery only to
the English, whom the old schemer knew so well how to hoodwink.

During his long career of Macchiavellism, friendly with the British,
and yet striking them constantly in secret; venerated as a new prophet
by millions of orthodox, as well as heretic Mussulmans; managing to
preserve his influence over friend and foe, the old "Teacher" had one
enemy whom he feared, for he knew that no amount of craft would ever
win it over to his side.

This enemy was the once mighty nation of the Sikhs, ex-sovereign
rulers of the Punjab and masters of the Peshawur Valley. Reduced from
their high estate, this warrior people are now under the rule of a
single Maharajah-Puttiala-who is himself the helpless vassal of the
British.

>From the beginning the Ahkoond had continually encountered the Sikhs
in his path. Scarce would he feel himself conqueror over one obstacle,
before his hereditary enemy would appear between him and the
realization of his hopes. If the Sikhs remained faithful to the
British in 1857, it was not through hearty loyalty or political
convictions, so much as through sheer opposition to the Mohammedans,
whom they knew to be secretly prompted by the Ahkoond.

Since the days of the great Nanak, of the Kshattriya caste, founder of
the Sikh Brotherhood in the second half of the fifteenth century,
these brave and warlike tribes have ever been the thorn in the side of
the Mogul dynasty, the terror of the Moslems of India. Originating, as
we may say, in a religious Brotherhood, whose object was to make away
alike with Islamism, Brāhmanism, and other isms, including later
Christianity, this sect evolved a pure monotheism in the abstract idea
of an ever unknown Principle, and elaborated it into the doctrine of
the "Brotherhood of Man." In their view, we have but one Father-Mother
Principle, with "neither form, shape, nor colour," and we ought all to
be, if we are not, brothers irrespective of distinctions of race or
colour.

The sacerdotal Brāhman, fanatical in his observance of dead-letter
forms, thus became in the opinion of the Sikh as much the enemy of
truth as the Mussulman wallowing in a sensual heaven with his houris,
the joss-worshipping Buddhist grinding out prayers at his wheel, or
yet the Roman Catholic adoring his jeweled Madonnas, whose complexion
the priests change from white to brown and black to suit climates and
prejudices.

Later on, Arjuna, son of Ramdas, the fourth in the succession after
Nanak, gathering together the doctrines of the founder and his son
Angad, brought out a sacred volume, called Adi-garunth, and largely
supplemented it with selections from forty-five Sūtras of the Jains.
While adopting equally the religious figures of the Vedas and Koran,
after sifting them and explaining their symbolism, the Ādi-garunth yet
presents a greater similarity of ideas respecting the most elaborate
metaphysical conceptions with those of the Jain school of Gurus.

The notions of Astrology, or the influence of the starry spheres upon
ourselves, were evidently adopted from that most prominent school of
antiquity. This will be readily ascertained by comparing the
commentaries of Abhayadeva Surī upon the original forty-five Sūtras in
the Magadhi or Balabasha language† with the Ādi-garunth.

An old Jain Guru, who is said to have drawn the horoscope of Runjeet
Singh, at the time of his greatest power, had foretold the downfall of
the kingdom of Lahore. It was the learned Arjuna who retired into
Amritsir, changed the sect into a politico-religious community, and
instituted within the same another and more esoteric body of Gurus,
scholars and metaphysicians, of which he became sole chief. He died in
prison, under torture, by the order of Aurungzebe, into whose hands he
had fallen, at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

His son Govinda, a Guru (religious teacher) of great renown, vowed
revenge against the race of his father's murderers, and after various
changes of fortune the Afghans were finally driven from the Punjab by
the Sikhs in 1764. This triumph only made their hatred more bitter
still, and from that moment until the death of Runjeet Singh, in 1839,
we find them constantly aiming their blows at the Moslems.

Mahā Singh, the father of Runjeet, had set off the Sikhs into twelve
mizals or divisions, each having its own chief (Sirdar), whose secret
Council of State consisted of learned Gurus. Among these were Masters
in spiritual Science, and they might, if they had had a mind, have
exhibited as astonishing "miracles" and divine legerdemain as the old
Mussulman Ahkoond. He knew it well, and for this reason dreaded them
even more than he hated them for his defeat and that of his Ameer by
Runjeet Singh.

One highly dramatic incident in the life of the "Pope of Sydoo" is the
following well-authenticated case, which was much commented upon in
his part of India about twenty years ago. One day, in 1858, when the
Ahkoond, squatting on his carpet, was distributing amulets, blessings
and prophecies among his pious congregation of pilgrims, a tall Hindū,
who had silently approached and mingled in the crowd without having
been noticed, suddenly addressed him thus:

"Tell me, prophet, thou who prophesiest so well for others, whether
thou knowest what will be thine own fate, and that of the 'Defender of
the Faith,' thy Sultan of Stamboul, twenty years hence?"

The old Ghafur, overcome with violent surprise, stared at his
interlocutor, but no answer came. In recognizing the Sikh he seemed to
have lost all power of speech, and the crowd was under a spell.

"If not," continued the intruder, "then I will tell thee. Twenty years
more and your 'Prince of the Faithful' will fall by the hand of an
assassin of his own house. Two old men, one the Dalai Lama of the
Christians, the other the great prophet of the Moslems-thyself-will be
simultaneously crushed under the heel of death. Then, the first hour
will strike of the downfall of those twin foes of truth-Christianity
and Islam. The first, as the more powerful, will survive the second,
but both will soon crumble into fragmentary sects, which will mutually
exterminate each other's faith. See, thy followers are powerless, and
I might kill thee now, but thou art in the hands of Destiny, and that
knows its own hour."

Before a hand could be lifted the speaker had disappeared. This
incident of itself sufficiently proves that the Sikhs might have
assassinated Abdul Ghafur at any time had they chosen so to do. And it
may be that The Mayfair Gazette, which in June, 1877, prophetically
observed that the rival pontiffs of Rome and Swat might die
simultaneously, had heard from some "old Indian" this story, which the
writer also heard from an informant at Lahore.

H. P. BLAVATSKY.


* To this day, no Biktashee would be recognized as such unless he
could claim possession of a certain medal with the seal of this "
high-pontiff" of all the Dervishes, whether they belong to one sect or
the other.

† This valuable work is now being republished by Ookerdhabhoy Shewgee,
and has been received by the Theosophical Society from the Editor
through the President of the Bombay branch. When finished it will be
the first edition of the Jain Bible, Sūtra-Sangraha or Vihiva Punnuttī
Sūtra, in existence, as all their sacred books are kept in secret by
the Jains.

-------------------------------------

Separately the AQUARIAN THEOSOPHIST will be publishing and old letter
written by a ?Turkish Effendi" it is also worth a read.

Best wishes,

Dallas

cc: Jerome (Ed. of A T) re "Turkish Effendi"

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



-----Original Message-----
From: Mic F
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 6:03 PM
To
Subject: Theos-World Australia's karma



I am deeply saddened to see that it has all come to
this. Our greatest fears have come true and we are now
definitely involved in this whole terrorism nonesense.
But a country such as Australia that has traditionally
viewed ourselves as isolated and free from the
turmoils that we so often witness on our television
sets is now no longer seperate from the pain and
suffering our brothers in other parts of the world
have had to endure.

But how did this state of affairs come about? The
closest Australia has come to international turmoil in
the past was during WWII when the Japanese bombed
Darwin or even earlier in the 19th Century when it was
believed the Russians would invade our shores. Yes it
is true that the horrors of last weekend were not on
our soil but Bali is a place where Australians go and
have a good time. That two thirds of the victims in
the blast were Australian is testimony to this,
although we should never forget the others that also
lost their lives. But why would anyone want to attack
a country that supposedly advocates tolerance,
multiculturalism and freedom? Some people have said
that the bombing was a response, albeit rather late,
to Australia's role in East Timor. Although it is more
than likely that it is a response to Australia's
support for the United States and its so called war on
terrorism. Therefore the attack should be seen as an
attack on that ideology rather than a direct attack on
Australia itself.

This being the case should Australia take the American
attitude and bomb the crap out of Indonesia until the
terrorists relent? I am afraid that this is the sort
of action that the Australian government would favour
and would find ready support from the US and most
likely the UK. Although seemingly a proactive course
of action, appeasing those unfortunate souls who have
lost loved ones in the bombing, it can only lead to
one thing: more death. Not only will there be innocent
lives lost in the search for the terrorists but there
will be further ramifications, some of them not as
obvious and quite indirect. For instance, there is the
inevitable cost incurred in taking a war action and we
the people of Australia will have to incur this cost.
Yet, to some people, this is a small price to pay for
justice.

But if Australia is going to solve the root cause of
this problem it has to address the root cause of the
problem. And the root cause is this: Australia is
supporting a murderous, hypercritic, unjust regime
that is George Bush and the United States government.
The sooner Australians denounce this tyrant and his
selfish goals of making America the most superior
military cohort, with the nearest challenger merely
holding spears, the sooner we can extablish peace in
our region and among our brothers. The sooner
Australians realise that George Bush and the current
US government are perpetuating the problem, not
solving it, the sooner we can find peace. The sooner
Australians realise that George Bush is just a dumb,
ignorant, naive, idiotic, reincarnation of Hitler the
sooner we can again be at ease.

I doubt that this realisation will occur any time in
the near future. Hopefully my children's generation
can look back and see what is really happening in our
world today and learn from our mistakes. But I'm
afraid that what we saw in Bali on the weekend, and in
New York last year, is merely the beginning and it is
only going to get worse.