Part 2 of 2: The Attacks on NY & Washington

[Guest guest]

> THE DEEPER WOUND By Deepak Chopra

>

> As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off 45

> minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in Detroit,

> chaos had broken out. When I grasped the fact that American security had

> broken down so tragically, I couldn't respond at first. My wife and son were

> also in the air on separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to San Diego. My

> body went absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about was their

> safety, and it took several hours before I found out that their flights had

> been diverted and both were safe.

>

> Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit by

> a truck. Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that

> reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands

> who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. And I asked

> myself, Why didn't I feel this way last week? Why didn't my body go stiff

> during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia? Around the world my horror and worry are

> experienced every day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, civilians are bombed

> mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland. Why did I

> not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it?

 

Again, these questions come from the view that begins with God, Spirit,

Consciousness instead of humble human experience. From the latter

perspective, the answer is obvious and pedestrian. Deepak, baby, you're a

mere human being! You're embodied, which means you're affected ‹ physically,

cognitively, and emotionally ‹ more by events closer to you than events that

are more remote. This is news only to someone like Deepak, who is so caught

up in the language of God, Spirit, Consciousness that he ignores basic human

facts. Of course, if our true identity is Cosmic Consciousness, then it is

quite a puzzle why we're so parochial. But that puzzle is created by getting

things ass-backwards in the first place. We don't START with God, we END

with God after going through the hard, pedestrian work of dealing with our

humble, embodied condition. Deepak's language, like a lot of Realization.org

writing is trying to get to God on the cheap by by-passing the humble facts

of human existence.

>

> One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for America.

> Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the world?

>

Deepak asks this question as if it just occurred to him and will take a

conference of deep thinkers to answer. In fact, the minimally informed

already knows the answer. We were singled out because:

 

1) We sided with Israel against the Arabs

 

2) We are the economic and military leaders of a culture that terrorists see

as threatening their culture

 

3) We are inhabited by enough muddled thinkers like Deepak that terrorists

(wrongly) think we're an easy mark. Japan, Germany, the Soviet Union, Saddam

Hussein all made this mistake.

 

Enlightenment is not just a matter of spirit, but also of critical

intelligence, of which the spiritual-religious community seems in its usual

short supply. But then why should they be different from any other

identifiable group?

 

Gary Schouborg

Performance Consulting

Walnut Creek, CA

garyscho

 

Publications and professional services:

http://home.att.net/~garyscho

[Guest guest]

Dear Gary,

 

> We are inhabited by enough muddled thinkers

> like Deepak that terrorists

> (wrongly) think we're an easy mark. Japan,

> Germany, the Soviet Union, Saddam

> Hussein all made this mistake.

 

Oh come on Gary, this isn't fair. Only a minuscule

fraction of Americans hold views like Deepak's.

That can't be the explanation.

 

Our enemies think we're an easy mark because in

fact we have been an easy mark, and that's because

we're a democracy, and democracies are soft except

when driven by exceptional circumstances to the

brink of disaster.

 

Then, thank God, they become harder than any

depotism. America does, at any rate.

 

Who in America called for an invasion of Afganistan

in 1998, when Clinton was blowing up tents and

aspirin factories with cruise missiles? Our ineffectual

(and immoral) response was like pinning a " kick me "

sign to our chest.

 

Democracies appease until the villains

have grown so violent that the damage is unbearable.

Then, when it is almost too late, they wake up.

 

Let us hope that the alarm clock has gone off in

time, because there is nobody here to save

us, as we were there for Europe and China in

the 1940s.

 

I fear that right this minute, there is a nuclear

warhead in a warehouse in Los Angeles or on

a barge in New York harbor.

 

The hair on my neck stood up today while I watched

them sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic at the

National Cathedral. This must be what happened here

in 1941. We are going to see it again, I think.

 

Your fellow believer in the reality of the quotidian,

 

Rob

 

P.S. Do you read www.stratfor.com? They seem

to have made the site free for the time being.