by Flemming Funch
Our world was suddenly changed today, by the horrifying and tragic events in New York and Washington. What it means in the long run is impossible to say at this point.
But what is certain is that, depending on how we individually respond to this, now and in the coming time, we have the opportunity to shape the world that will emerge from this. However devastating this seemed, we have the opportunity to participate in creating a better world from this, or despite of this.
Affirm to yourself that we ARE building a better world, no matter what might point in any other direction. The vast majority of all of us on this planet want us to succeed. And there are many, many of us. Use this as motivation to commit yourself more deeply to the growing of a peaceful world for ALL of us. Don't just sit and wait for it to happen. YOUR piece of the greater puzzle is essential.
Many messages about meditations, calls for healing, rumors, news, personal stories, etc. have gone out today. I include a few selected messages and excerpts below.
Suggestions for healing community meetings, from an e-mail from Fred Cook:
"..... I spent part of the day checking in with and supporting various leaders in our community around efforts to set
up community meetings in which people could acknowledge and share their awful feelings (grieve) and try to bring some heart-opening and spiritual perspective. I also was concerned about the political ramifications and encouraged and cooperated around the organizing of a low-key demonstration (turned out to be a candle light vigil) "For Peace and Against Violence".
Some of the wise input I've gotten for the community grieving meetings is to start with unifying and focusing rituals, such as lighting candles, encouraging people to take a few deep breaths together and share the space of our common humanity and vulnerability. Although not everyone will be ready for it, people can be invited to settle into the weight of their bodies and connection to the earth, settle into the feelings in their hearts, and bring to mind images which for them symbolize love, innocence, beauty.
There may be a meditation or prayer - depending on the group's traditions.
There should be time for people to take turns listening and being listened to with acceptance and not judgement or interuption for a while as unfreeze from, denial, numbness, etc. and they work through their feelings of anger, hurt, rage, desire for revenge, old losses and griefs which get triggered by such critical incidents, etc. The more people can relate their emotions to what they are actually feeling in their bodies and talk the language of the heart, the less they'll tend to get LOST from their own center. People need to be able to express whatever they're really FEELING and be supported to maintain, or at least regain their center, or a community of support, or a higher power . . .depending on what is real for that person."
From Michael Benner:
"We all share the hurt, fear, and outrage at this morning's horrible attack. Whenever we're hurt, our "fight or flight" survival system kicks in and we react mindlessly ... like swatting a bug that bites you. And so in the media and from our friends and associates we will see, hear, and feel angry, fear-based reactions and calls for revenge.
As especially sensitive humans, I am appealing to you to substitute calm, well chosen responses in place of emotional reactions. It is a time for slow, deep breathing. It is a time for prayer and reflection. It is a time to respond to this assault on civilization by drawing upon the highest, divine qualities within us.
The archetype (universal symbol) for emotions is water. In your meditations, today and in the days to come, please visualize stormy seas becoming calm, peaceful pools of water. Remind yourselves, that in spite of the appearances of separateness and partisanship, we are one world and one people. We must choose to respond to violence and the fear and anger it produces with love and peace as the great spiritual masters have taught us. To react emotionally is to become like the evil perpetrators of this morning's violence.
There is an enormous need for conscious people to use their wisdom, their magic, and their awareness of the ultimate unity of all life to stabilize the astral (emotional) nature of humanity and reaffirm our determination to learn to live in peace and harmony.
Please find your love and peace within and emanate it out into the world. Love your "enemies," now more than ever."
Message from Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson, James Twyman, James Redfield, Doreen Virtue, and Gordon Banta:
Dear friends around the world
The events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it-and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate ourselves anew as a human species, so that we will never treat each other this way again.
The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the highest level our most extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are.
There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first comes from love, the second from fear.
If we come from fear we may panic and do things-as individuals and as nations-that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others.
This is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What you teach at this time, through your every word and action right now, will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose lives you touch, both now, and for years to come.
We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment.
Let us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause.
Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will never remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we will forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family who feel aggrieved, and, likewise, seek retribution from them.
To us the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have not been listening to God, and because we have not, we watch ourselves do ungodly things.
The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is simple: Love, this and every moment.
If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome?
These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at
all.
If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be experienced by our children and our children's children, we will have to become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that to happen. We must choose to be at cause in the matter.
So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people around the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the Light that dispells all fear.
That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today. Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and hatred-and the disparity that inevitably causes it - in that part of the world which I touch?
Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence that is You.
What can you do TODAY...this very moment?
A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to experience, provide for another.
Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience-in your own life, and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the source of that.
If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.
If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they are safe.
If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help another to better understand.
If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another.
Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and
for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for love.
We love you, and we send you our deepest thoughts of peace.
Neale, Marianne, James, James and Doreen and Gordon
From Paul von Ward:
".... We now must recognize that the world is one place, that all humans are one family, that no country can be independent of others, and that when the world is finally safe for one it will be safe for all. The academic discussions of interdependence has now been made real; everyone in the world is within two or three relationships of at least one person who lives or works in New York City or Washington, DC. When some of us are harmed all of us are hurt. The new direction the world takes must deal with this reality. Conscious humans everywhere will work to keep this reality in our full awareness.
As we seek justice, as we seek understanding, as we seek revenge, as we seek forgiveness, and as we seek the path to a better future, let us remember that whatever we do consciously and energetically will come back to us manyfold. As we do unto others, so we do unto ourselves. That which we reap one day is the result of that which we have sown on a previous day. May we be filled with love and compassion for all those who were wounded or died, and for their famiiles, for giving us another opportunity to make a different choice for our collective future than we have exercised in the past....."
A call for dialogue, from Heiner Benking:
"... as tonight the planes crashed into the EMPIRE STATE Building in Washington and New York I want to express my deepest concern that we need to sit at one table and share - instead of bombing, exploding and fighting. We tried so much in soo many countries, please visit [link] to continue to listen, share and trust - know, want and dare for common not for insular interests! Please let us gain the strength to keep the spirits up and see some common good and ground. I hope the links will provide some direction and perspective. "
Call for prayer, from PlanetNews:
At 9pm EST, 6pm west coast time, from September 11 to 18, simply feel the presence of millions around the world who are praying for all violence to cease. Spend ten minutes in silence each night knowing that we are creating a new world based upon the laws of compassion and peace.
This is a few words and brief performance by Sting this afternoon in Italy, of the song "Fragile":
[link]
If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence
and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star
Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are
How fragile we are
A healing response from Children of Light in New York:
[link]
Unverified rumors:
[link]
Emergency Contact Information:
[link]
|
|