Journey to Enlightenment Part 01

SR No.: 006996
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Chitrabhanu, Chetana Catherine Florida, Nirmala Hanke, Raksha Penni Helsene
Publisher: Create Space
Publication Year: 2008
Total Pages: 142
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 4 MB

Page 55

September 11, 2001: God Bless the World
Dear Lighthouse Members and Friends,
God Bless Humanity and bless all of you with love, patience and tolerance.
“911" or September 11, 2001 will be remembered by Americans and everyone around the world. We who are alive now are living through one of the darkest times in the history of the United States. In generations to come it will be written about in our history books, just as Pearl Harbor was written about in 1941.
I was talking to my mother-in-law and she said she has cried three times over our country - once when Pearl Harbor was bombed, once when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, and for the third time when the hijacked suicide planes hit the World Trade Center in New Your and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. I was only six months old at the time of Pearl Harbor but I do remember the shock, sadness and deep sorrow I felt when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. And I am still filled with shock and disbelief and deep anguish and sorrow for the atrocities of September 11th. I have heard that the Taliban talks with many coded words and gestures, and I believe with my whole heart that September 11, 2001 was picked as the destruction date because we use 911 as our emergency number.
It is at times like this that I understand more deeply, the value of being on a spiritual path. When President Kennedy was shot and killed, I was not a meditator so I carried very different views of life. As I said I was shocked and saddened when I first heard about the president, then my sadness turned to anger, a very deep anger that I could not release at the time, nor did I seek to release it.
I started meditating in 1973, almost 30 years ago. During all those years because of meditation, I have not become stagnant in my thinking, in my views of the world. When September 11th came and the World Trade Center was destroyed, and the thousands of people who worked there were killed, and so many rescue workers who tried to save them were lost, I saw and felt the anguish that was experienced throughout the nation and the world.
But I also saw and felt the love, the courage, the reaching out to help that kept emerging all over the United States. Yesterday's stranger became today's friend. From detachment and intolerance came caring and love for others. The terrorist's actions were supposed to separate and destroy us as a nation; instead, we as people have become more open to experience the love that we are and have always been.
Now it is very important not to let the love we are become divided by anger, fear, hate for the enemies of our country. There are just a few who have chosen ruthless, wicked actions, and so many of us who can grow together in love until the evil actions of misguided minds come to an end.
56 - Journey to Enlightenment