Good evening, Peace!
On this special day we give homage to the victims of the terrorist attack in Barcelona. It was a great shock for me to see spilled blood in the place where I am used to seeing roses and happiness on the day of St. Jordi. In the 12 days the days after the tragedy, I went often to the Ramblas and stood on the corner saying “Good morning Peace” in my mind, focused from my heart, just imagining pure bright white light from the Earth, from all sides, spreading its purity. This is the divine white light in which all the problems we see on the earth today can be dissolved. After the terrorist attack and violence, I imagined the imbalance melting away into white light. I kept seeing a golden light representing consciousness, and I felt the consciousness of all people on earth now reaching the innocent victims and letting them go in peace. I imagined the level of consciousness of the entire planet increasing, could feel the prayers and abundant care for all of those injured or killed, and for the people living with fear as I gave thanks to the universe and repeated “Peace on earth, peace in Barcelona, peace in Cambrils”, “this is the first and the last – we feel safe, secure and protected”.
Now, when I wake up every morning, I see that the same Barcelona where I have lived for 30 years, has changed. I am reflecting on the way that our perception of events is so different. Different people see the same incident from different perspectives and experience it differently. I come from India, and I can imagine an example. The porter who lifts heavy luggage in the train or bus station, may have a self-dialogue that says ‘why are these people carrying such heavy weight”? He is so angry. At the same time, a weight lifter who is lifting heavy weights becomes stronger every day and says to himself “my muscles are getting better and I feel good”. The porter who feels sweat trickling down his body thinks he is toiling like a donkey and the weight lifter sees the perspiration as a positive thing, and that each drop of sweat counts. “As I sweat I am building up my stamina, tomorrow I will generate more sweat and let my toxins out”, and he feels happy. Its the same weight, but two different people think from different perspectives.
Another example could be Ravi, a child whose shoes were worn and broken, and who angrily asked me for new ones. In those days I couldn’t afford them, so I calmly took him to a nearby temple where there was a young boy with no legs who earned a few coins by looking after the shoes of people who were visiting the temple. I told Ravi, “you were angry at me because you have old shoes, but look at this boy and be thankful to God that he gave you a healthy body with strong legs and feet”. Some years later when he was 18 years old, he came to see me off at the airport. I noticed that he was wearing old, worn out shoes, and I asked him why he hadn’t told me so that I could have bought him new ones. He answered, “I am happy that God blessed me with a healthy body, shoes are secondary! Do you remember mummy, you told me this when I was small?” I hugged him and thanked him, and when I reached Mumbai I bought him two pairs of good shoes and sent them to him.
This is how we perceive things. Either we fight for things we do not have, or we have to be grateful for what we have. It is so important when we come across such situations in life to ask ourselves positive, empowering questions. For me this is good, but for another person the other situation is good. Instead putting labels on the situation, let us accept that everybody can choose their own way because our aim is collective consciousness, and what we all need is peace. We need peace in our everyday lives, and to achieve that goal, we need to feel peace physically, mentally, emotionally, and try to strengthen that feeling and spread it all around the planet.
Today, the day of Deepawali, also represents Ram killing the evil Ravana. For me, the evil is in each of us. The 10 heads of Ravana represent darkness; negative thoughts, hatred, judgement, criticism, jealousy, holding all the anger from the past, aggressivity, ego, and finally destroying the happiness of others. In a way, we destroy our own peace and happiness.
Captivity
I tell you often that we are carrying a lot of incidents that happened in our past. We hold them in the present for many years, and instead of forgiving, we punish ourselves and end up with making ourselves ill. I can tell you an example of a boy named Gopal who came to me when he had just finished school and was ready to go to the university. We helped him to go on for higher studies, and now finally he has a degree in computer engineering and is really well-off. However, he’s always sad. One day I asked him to come and tell me what had happened to him. He explained that when he was in the 12th grade his father passed away in a village in Chennapatna. He went to the village for his father’s funeral, and then went back immediately to take his exams. Even though this tragedy had happened, he did very well on his exams with a score of 96%. He applied for medical school and was admitted, and he was so happy that he went running to tell his brother in the village. When his brother heard the amount he would have to pay for admission to medical school, he refused, saying, “From where will I get the money?” Gopal told him, “I will give you my share of our father’s property and you can give me the money”. The brother refused. Gopal tried asking the doctor who taught at the school to give him a special credit that he could pay back once he got his degree, but even the doctor refused. His brother had cheated him by having him innocently sign a paper that turned everything over to him without realizing it. Gopal was really angry at them and came to us for help, so we did everything we could. We sent him to college, but couldn’t afford the medical school, so he studied computer science. As he told me his story, he said that every night when he goes to bed he remembers this incident and relives it and is angry and frustrated, even now that his brother is so poor he has to help him. He’s helping his brother but he’s still very angry. Every day he has to take sleeping tablets. This is the same as all of us who carry our old hurts. We have to decide if we want to live as a free being or as a prisoner. I told Gopal, that the choice was his, whether he wants to live as a captive of his own thoughts, or if he wants to be free from all this. Of course, immediately he realized that he had become really very negative and frustrated and it was affecting his health, his job, everything in his life, and he changed. Now he is completely different, and he has started a new life.
I think that awareness is very important for all of us, and we have to kill our own Ravana, or evil, destroy the negativity, our negative self-dialogue, and remember that our goal is to give proper direction to the flow of the mind, body, intellect and consciousness. If this flows all around the planet, we can bless the planet and have peace. Every bad thing that is happening on this earth can be stopped. The only thing required of us all is to come out of illusionary thought. We are responsible for everything happening on their earth, all the earthquakes, catastrophes, famines, and terrorism, and we have the power to change. We have to really think of our beautiful planet and send light, love, right action, happiness, joy, and peace. This flame within each of us is shining at this moment.
Thank you all, Peace!
Didi/MAA
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