A Spiritual Publication
|
Issue # 8
Oct - DEC
2001
Mebane, NC
Editor’s
Welcome
God Bless America! This
simple prayer, has never been more important than now.
In this issue we will be focused
on the tragedies we've recently felt as a nation, and hopefully provided
you some tools to put this all into its Universal and spiritual perspective.
Our pain and loss aside, we live in incredible times. So incredible
that several thousand souls would allow themselves to be sacrificed
(Given unto God) for the greater good of what this change in world thinking
will become. So dear friends with prayer and reverence I welcome
you and ask you to join me in asking the Lord our God, God Bless America,
God Bless us all.
Love and Light
Jeffrey
Diane’s
Welcome
This has been a difficult
time for everyone across the globe. This attack has affected all
of humanity and my love goes to everyone. We have all been affected
emotionally and will go through different stages of this emotion.
It has caused a lot of confusion, anger and sorrow. For the friends
and families of parished loved ones our prayers and support are with you.
As a whole we require processing emotions as you will see in the Serione'
message. Also, there has been a lot of revenge taken out on people
of diverse ethnic backgrounds who live in America. Please open up
your hearts and see that stereotyping is not the answer. These people
have not done anything to harm anyone. We are all independent of
each other. Imagine being accused of Timothy McVay's crime?
I would ask that you send love to these people who are filled with hatred
and ask for wisdom to comprise their being. On page 3 we have listed
different organizations to send your donations to. I personally am
going to donate 10% of my earnings thru the end of the year, if not longer
between the organizations listed.
Congratulations to Joan
Stets, who won the fifty dollar gift certificate to Darryl's :-).
Please look at November's special and the change in making appointments
on page 2. In closing, I wish you Happy Holidays and to be
filled with peace, joy, understanding and love.
With Love,..Diane
|
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self the country
loved And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy
gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
(4th verse
of "America the Beautiful by: Katherine Lee Bates)
|
 |
With
Love, From Spirit
Your world
has experienced much trepidation. Those who gave their lives are
honored and revered for their precious gift to humanity. For the
first time on your planet, you will witness a coming together of the heads
of union and the love of each other. Dear Ones, each of you have
the capacity to love one another, regardless of who you consider a friend,
family, stranger or enemy. This wage of War manifested externally
the signs of struggle within each individual. Each moment in each
day your external events will show what you harbor and protect internally.
Your brothers and sisters in all countries are a part of this mass changing
upon your earth. The time in which this freedom war last is dependent
on every one of you. You see, your creation is before you in
a way that has never been examined before on your earth. Your everyday
feelings of hate, struggles and judgment are in front of you.
As you harbor these emotions, they can be likened to the volcanos on your
earth, which build up with explosive capacity and release themselves in
devastation. Have you ever wondered why so many catastrophies are upon
you? We ask that you recognize this time in all of its vulnerability
as one of positive growth in changing human kind. This change lends
itself to the gift of internal freedom causing external peace as you extend
your hand in love to each other and your neighbor. Begin to see,
that the depth of the majority of your belief systems has been the
cause of much destruction. Many beliefs are no different than your
perceived enemies. The true enemy is fought from within.
The ones who place blame outside of themselves are unwilling to process
and release the root cause of their own emotions. Be willing to reconcile
this part of you that is feared the most. As each individual on your
planet begins this transformation of their true identity, love will break
the chains of bondage and create a freedom and peace unknown to your world.
We wish
you ease and grace in this grand transformation...Serione'
Forget injuries,
never forget kindness'.
-- Chinese Proverb
Spiritual
Chapel of Inner Light
In the creation story of Adam and Eve, God allowed them the freedom to
defy him. I think this is significant because I believe God not only
expected the outcome of that temptation, and in fact created for us the
beginning of the journey back to God. This journey anointed by the
creator is filled with many incarnations and eons of human struggle.
The goal of this journey is that we may, of our own free (God given) will,
do the work to find our way back to our creator.
This is the first greatest freedom, given by our Mother/Father God.
It is this freedom and its many branches, which we experience in our daily
lives, that is at the core of the lesson before us now, the lesson which
began Sept 11th , 2001.
This lesson is not about revenge or mere patriotism, but is about something
way larger. It is part of our course work for graduation from the
race called Homo Sapien, into its next phase, Homo Spiritus.
In Spiritual Science there are no accidents, and as prophecy indicates
by its very existence, there are some things set up for us humans as possible
futures. This implies a Divine plan, a plan for the spiritual growth
of individuals and the race as a whole. As a practitioner of Spiritual
Science, I see the roles our world’s religions play in this Divine plan.
I see the beauty and wisdom in all these religious expressions of our want
to be with God, and also I see the hand of base human nature in them as
well.
Take if you will the religion of Islam. Its name is derived from
the letters S-L-M. These letters have also been rooted into the words
Salem, and Shalom, and appropriately so, since Islam is an Abrahamic religion,
related to Judaism and thus Christianity. The meaning of SLM is peace
or surrender, but its full connotation is the peace that comes from the
surrender of ones life to God.
Islam is a beautiful religion and by far the most proscribed (of the
major religions) in its ritual and teachings of how to worship, and how
to live a religious life. These proscriptions go a long way to focusing
on ones connection to the Divine and developing self discipline.
Unfortunately, some have used those strengths to bolster a very wrong
headed fringe belief that only those who are observe their own austere
version of the “Laws of God”, are the true people of God. Such selfish
artificial division of the family of man has occurred in every major religion,
only now we are seeing the deadly results of such fanaticism, born of anger
and separatism not of Gods love and not of true Islam.
Islam has born the beautiful fruits of wisdom and light we see in Sufism.
Living a life so focused and devoted to religious and spiritual discipline
allowed for the evolution of this sect (or off shoot) of Islam represented
by Luminaries such as Rumi,. From Sufism, I have taken what I consider
my own best affirmation of what I consider true religion. It is the
very controversial (to the narrower conservative Muslim view) declaration
of Ibn Arabi:
“My Heart has opened unto every form. It is a pasture for gazelles,
a cloister for Christian monks, a Temple for idols, the Ka’ba of the pilgrim,
the tablets of the Torah, and the book of the Koran. I practice the
religion of Love; In whatsoever directions its caravans advance, the religion
of love shall be my religion and my faith.”
Many Sufi’s have paid a price for their perceived blasphemy of going
beyond the written law of the Koran, and are not accepted by some of those
who consider themselves “true Muslims” But this is for many a part
of the journey to a higher spirituality. Just ask a practicing Sikh,
why among the five sacred things they must wear, there is a ceremonial
dagger or knife (it is for defense, Sikhism was born in a dangerous time
stuck between Islamic Pakistan and Hindu India).
Which brings us back to the nature of this lesson, whose tuition fee
was the unimaginable price of thousands of human lives. We, the human
race are coming together to learn about true freedom. Freedom from
the chains of outward oppressions, but also freedom from our own more dangerous
inner chains.
Freedom from persecution, of others but also freedom from our own judgment
and how it closes our minds. Freedom from old habits, again narrowing
our view of the world. Freedom from tyranny, including our internal
petty tyrant, fear. We are, as a world, learning that true freedom
is born of love, just as a loving God gave his creation free will, knowing
all along that we would eventually see the light of truth, and choose to
return to him. That we would freely choose Love, over possessions,
Love over fear, Love over “being right”. That we would choose Love,
light and God, over all.
It will take work, to overcome our baser human nature, but work is
the expression of what we truly believe in. Talk is cheap, now is
the time to put our spiritual money where our mouth is. Do the Work
of Love, pray, volunteer, be kind to all. Love your Enemy, love your neighbor
as you love yourself, , and love God above all. Join me light workers,
it is a glorious task before us, let us under take it joyfully.NAMASTE.
Angels
at Work
(received via internet-author unknown)
My name is Usman Farman and I graduated from Bentley with a
Finance degree last May. I am 21 years old, turning 22 in October; I am
Pakistani, and I am Muslim. Until September 10th 2001, I used to work at
the World Trade Center in building #7. I had friends and acquaintances
who worked in tower #1 right across from me. Some made it out, and
some are still unaccounted for. I survived this horrible event. I'd like
to share with you what I went through that awful day, with the hopes that
we can all stay strong together; through this tragedy of yet untold proportions.
As I found out, regardless of who we are, and where we come from, we only
have each other. II commute into the city every morning on the train from
New Jersey. Rather, I used to. I still can't believe what is happening.
That morning I woke up and crawled out of bed. I was thinking about
flaking out on the train and catching the late one, I remember telling
myself that I just had to get to work on time. I ended up catching
the 7:48 train, which put me in Hoboken at 8:20 am. When I got there
I thought about getting something to eat, I decided against it and took
the PATH train to the World Trade Center. I arrived at the World Trade
at 8:40 in the morning. I walked into the lobby of building 7 at 8:45,
that's > when the first plane hit. Had I taken the late train, or gotten
a bite to eat, I would have been 5 minutes late and walking over the crosswalk.
Had that happened, I would have been caught under a rain of fire and debris,
I wouldn't be here talking to you. I'd be dead. I was in the lobby, and
I heard the first explosion; it didn't register. They were doing construction
outside and I thought some scaffolding had fallen. I took the elevators
up to my office on the 27th floor. When I walked in, the whole place was
empty. There were no alarms, no sprinklers, nothing. Our offices are, or
rather, were on the south side of building seven. We were close enough
to the North and South Towers, that I could literally throw a stone
from my window and hit the North tower with it. My phone rang and
I spoke with my mother and told her that I was leaving, at that moment
I saw an explosion rip out of the second building. I called my friend in
Boston, waking her up and told her to tell everyone I'm okay, and that
I was leaving. I looked down one last time and saw the square and fountain
that I eat lunch in, was covered in smoldering debris. Apparently,
I was one of the last to leave my building, when I was on the way up in
the elevators; my coworkers from the office were in the stairwells
coming down. When I evacuated, there was no panic. People were calm
and helping each other; a pregnant woman was being carried down the
stairwell. I'll spare the more gruesome details of what I saw, those
are things that no one should ever have to see, and beyond human
decency to describe. Those are things which will haunt me for the rest
of my life, my heart goes out to everyone who lost their lives that day,
and those who survived with the painful reminders of what once was. Acquaintances
of mine who made it out of the towers, only got out because 1000 people
formed a human chain to find their way out of the smoke. Everyone was a
hero that day. We were evacuated to the north side of building 7.
Still only 1 block from the towers. The security people told us to
go north and not to look back. 5 city blocks later I stopped and
turned around to watch. With a thousand people staring, we saw in shock
as the first tower collapsed. No one could believe it was happening, it
is still all too-surreal to imagine. The next thing I remember is
that a dark cloud of glass and debris about 50 stories high came
tumbling towards us. I turned around and ran as fast as possible.
I didn't realize until yesterday that the reason I'm still feeling
so sore was that I fell down trying to get away. What happened next
is why I came here to give this speech. I was on my back, facing
this massive cloud that was approaching, it must have been 600 feet off,
everything was already dark. I normally wear a pendant around my neck,
inscribed with an Arabic prayer for safety; similar to the cross. A Hasidic
Jewish man came up to me and held the pendant in his hand, and looked at
it. He read the Arabic out loud for a second. What he said next, I will
never forget. With a deep Brooklyn accent he said "Brother, if you don't
mind, there is a cloud of glass coming at us, grab my hand, lets get the
hell out of here". He helped me stand up, and we ran for what seemed like
forever without looking back. He was the last person I would ever have
thought, who would help me. If it weren't for him, I probably would
have been engulfed in shattered glass and debris. I finally stopped
about 20 blocks away, and looked in horror as tower #2 came crashing
down. Fear came over me as I realized that some people were evacuated to
the streets below the towers. Like I said before, no one could have thought
those buildings could collapse. We turned around and in shock and
disbelief and began the trek to midtown. It took me 3 hours to get
to my sisters office at 3 avenue and 47th street. Some streets were
completely deserted, completely quiet, no cars, no nothing. just
the distant wail of sirens. I managed to call home and say I was
okay, and get in touch with coworkers and friends whom I feared were
lost. We managed to get a ride to New Jersey. Looking back as I crossed
the George Washington Bridge, I could not see the towers. It had
really happened. As the world continues to reel from this tragedy, people
in the streets are lashing out. Not far from my home, a Pakistani
woman was run over on purpose as she was crossing the parking lot
to put groceries in her car. Her only fault? That she had her head covered
and was wearing the traditional clothing of my homeland. I am afraid
for my family's well being within our community. My older sister
is too scared to take the subway into work now. My 8-year-old sister's
school is under lock down and armed watch by police. Violence
only begets violence, and by lashing out at each other in fear and hatred,
we will become no better than the faceless cowards who committed this atrocity.
If it weren't for that man who helped me get up, I would most likely be
in the hospital right now, if not dead. Help came from the least expected
place, and goes only to show, that we are all in this together . regardless
of race, religion, or ethnicity. Those are principles that this country
was founded on. Please take a moment to look at the people sitting around
you. Friends or strangers, in a time of crisis, you would want the
nearest person to help you if you needed it. My help came from a
man who I would never have thought would normally even speak to me.
Ask yourselves now how you can help those people in New York and
Washington. You can donate blood, you can send clothing, food, and money.
Funds have been setup in the New York area to help the families of fallen
firefighters, policemen, and emergency personnel. The one thing that
won't help, is if we fight amongst ourselves, because it is then that we
are doing exactly what they want us to do, and I know that nobody
here wants to do that. I too have been victimized by this awful tragedy.
The next time you feel angry about this, and perhaps want to retaliate
in your own way, please remember these words: "Brother, if you don't mind,
there is a cloud of glass coming at us, grab my hand, lets get the
hell out of here."
ARCHIVE ISSUE # 1
ARCHIVE ISSUE # 2
ARCHIVE ISSUE # 3
ARCHIVE ISSUE # 4
ARCHIVE ISSUE # 5
ARCHIVE ISSUE # 6
ARCHIVE ISSUE # 7
Home
| Bears Path | Diane's
Page | Submission Policy | Guest
book
URL:http://www.serenityshop.net/index.html
Bear's Path © 1999 Jeffrey
Phillips
WEBMASTER:
Jeffrey Phillips
Revised 10/05/01
