Devi is everywhere !!

May 29, 2008

As I continue to read all the exchanges between our two honourable

member srinivasrao and chandra_hari18, I am suddenly reminded of a

post by DB long time ago when he posted the Photo of the Week series.

He posted a pic of a young girl injured in a bomb blast lies in a

hospital in Varanasi,India, after explosions rocked a packed railway

station and a crowded Hindu temple.

A member of SS group then asked:

" You display a child and wrote there devi is everywhere. Nice but the

gal is sufferening. So, what message you want to bring. I dont

understand is the devi saved the gal or devi caused this gal to

suffer or she suffer cause of her own "

And I thought DB response to this message is really a classic, I

would like to share it with everybody here today ....

Devi Bhakta wrote :

Since it was I who posted the pic, I guess the least I can do is add

my two cents on my thought process in doing so:

You see, my real problem is with the people who blow things up,

destroy things, kill living creatures in order to win attention for

their cause or to make a political or social point.

However right or wrong their cause may be, at this point it no longer

matters: These people have completely lost their way -- they have

allowed their ideology (i.e., their various theories about what life

is and/or should be) to trump life itself. Their love for their own

particular ideas about and perceptions of the world has eclipsed

their ability to love the world as it is. These people can no longer

see what actually is; they can see only what they have decided to

see. And that is the darkest depth of Maya.

That is not a partisan statement either: I refer as much to George W

Bush's assault on Iraq as to Bin Laden's assault on the WTC and

Pentagon. I refer equally to the Israeli soldier who unnecessarily

kills a rock-throwing Palestinian child, as to the Palestinean

suicide bomber who walks into a disco full of Israeli teenagers.

And thus we come to the little girl in the photo. She is too young to

have formed any social or political ideas. Such things are irrelevant

in her reality. She -- like any child her age -- simply is. And for

no particular reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong

time, she got hurt by the ideologist's bomb blast.

The next day, like clockwork, of course the outraged Hindu fundies

came out waving saffron flags and shouting for revenge against the

Muslims, while elsewhere the righteously infuriated Muslim fundies

celebrated the Hindus getting their come-uppance.

But let us always keep in mind -- as Kochu pointed out here a few

months ago -- that there is no person on earth who is

less " spiritual " than a fundamentalist of any faith.

The truly spiritual people are the ones who are cleaning up the

messes the ideological fundies leave behind. They are the ones

working in the hospitals, extracting shrapnel from soft tissue,

sewing and repairing damaged human meat; they are the counselors,

psychologically aiding children who lost parents, parents who lost

children, wives who lost husbands, husbands who lost wives, passers-

by who lost legs and eyes -- all to help the ideologists make their

point.

Yes; as pointed out in the New York Times article I posted yesterday,

the truly spiritual are the ones praying in the temples and mosques

and churches while their fundamentalist brethren are out " protesting "

for the TV cameras in the street.

And that's why I posted the picture. Because regardless of the

ideological " meaning " of the bombs, this little girl is the reality

of their impact. Whatever motivation or cause the ideologists may

claim, this girl is the undeniable effect. All theories and

justifications aside, she is the unalloyed Truth of the act. So let

her image stand on our splash page for a while as a silent witness to

Truth.

A long time ago, someone told me the story of a very serious sadhak

who was sitting at a shrine, trying to win a vision of Devi. He was

very deeply involved in this great ritual, carefully keeping track to

ensure he did the proper amount of japa on the proper mantras, that

he made all the right offerings of the right items in the right

order. But he kept getting bothering by some old stray dog who was

nosing about, disturbing him. Again and again, he slapped the dog

away, finally chasing it off with a stick so that he could return to

the serious work of seeking his vision of Devi.

And when finally She appeared to him, She too was beaten about the

face and marked with angry welts from the sticks. Every blow to the

dog's body was a blow to Devi. Any violence done to our fellow souls

in this world is violence done to Devi. Long-time visitors to this

group know that we post a lot of happy, joyful, beautiful photos over

this caption, " Devi is Everywhere! " Because She is everywhere. And

this young girl is there to show us, if only we dare to look, exactly

what we do to Devi when we place our ideology above the reality of

living, breathing souls.

May 29, 2008

Thank you Nora.

Without wading into the battle you simply quote another member and make the

point with deafening quietude.

Namaste

Nadananda

-

NMadasamy

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 10:37 PM