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September 2001

Making sense of Terror

A Personal View by Gandharvika Devi Dasi

From the Mrdanga, ISKCON South-West UK Newsletter

Many years ago I read a leaflet entitled "Exploding the myth of the innocent citizen" by Dhrystyadyumna Swami and was shocked to find that I was also culpable in the world's tragedies. With every bar of chocolate, every cup of coffee consumed, someone, somewhere on this small planet is denied his basic meal because of my greed, not need. We cannot usually see the chain of karmic consequences that we weave, but even if the inhabitants of America, home of the McDonald burger can't see the link in the chain of devastation, have they forgotten their country was immediately desecrated by almost effective genocide of the Red Indian race?

We may not like the idea of collective karma but the sins of the fathers are upon us as we have benefited from all the looting and pillaging of the past. Why else are we the top, well-heeled, wasteful echelon of the population? So the boomerang hits the Land of the Free-if you have money, otherwise get to the ghetto. The pompous query "How dare they attack us?" speaks volumes in itself considering the dubious activities of the U.S. in so many tragic countries across the globe: - Korea, Palestine, Vietnam, El Salvador, Iran, Iraq; the list is endless and sadly the point still hasn't hit home, but the first few karmic pigeons have.

Srila Prabhupada said the knowledge is there but people simply are not taking advantage. At times like this we are tested in the belief that Lord Krishna never does anything that is not for the ultimate good of every living entity, not that Lord Krishna is responsible, anymore than the judge who gives the sentence to the criminal.

But all glories to the fire-fighters of New York City who gave their lives performing their duty. Surely they will achieve due reward for self-sacrifice, but will we also grieve for the Afghanis in their mud huts "nuked" to bits, or is it less easy to identify with those culturally different?

How can two wrongs make a right, by killing more people who may not be Americans but still have the right to life? Lord Jesus would not be pleased with such an unChristian attitude. The mishandling of foot and mouth disease cost thousands of cow lives to provide "disease-free" meat (if such a thing exists considering the astronomical rise in intestinal and bowel cancer in the last 50 years) for American and European gourmands. This was despite the Nepali Government offering to ship all infected ones out there at their expense to save them from unnecessary slaughter; sadly, the British Government preferred their own "solution". Lord Krishna will not tolerate even the killing of an ant what to speak of a highly evolved creature like a cow whose next birth will be human.

Prabhupada said whist ever their is meat-eating there will be war. There are many bewildered people looking for answers at the moment. Please direct them towards the Bhagavad Gita.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Mahatma Gandhi.

"The knowledge is there, but people are simply not taking advantage." Srila Prabhupada, who mercifully came to give that knowledge to America 36 years ago almost to the day the destruction happened. "They do not know what is to be done and what is not to be done"

"The demoniac, lost to themselves and who have no intelligence, engage in unbenificial, horrible works meant to destroy the world". Bhagavad Gita 16.9.

"We living entities are all sons of God, but we have forgotten this and therefore we are fighting... if we become God conscious the fighting in the world will come to an end." I am American", "I am Indian, Russian, etc. - all these nonsensical designations will be finished... If everyone is a child of God, everyone has the right to use the property of the father. That right does not belong only to the human beings, rather according to Bhagavad Gita it belongs to all living entities, regardless of whether they are in the bodies of human beings, animals, trees, birds, beasts, insects, whatever... In Krishna consciousness we do not think" My brother is good, and I am good, but all others are bad. That narrow, crippled consciousness we reject... The humble sage sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater."B.G.5.18.

"Take for example a big skyscraper manifested from the earth. When it is dismantled, the manifestation again becomes unmanifest... then what cause is there for lamentation... somehow or other, even in the unmanifest state things are not lost... If we accept the Vedic conclusion as stated in the Bhagavad Gita that these material bodies are perishable in due course off time, but the soul is eternal, then we must remember always that the body is like a dress, so why lament the changing of a dress the material body has no factual existence in relation to the eternal soul. It is something like a dream... B.G. 2.29. "A sober person is not bewildered by such a change" B.G. 2.13

Many people are very bewildered and fearful at what is taking place beyond our control, Srila Prabhupada also said that we should chant as if a nuclear bomb was hanging over our heads and that only the chanting of the Holy Name was keeping it at bay so now is the time to renew our efforts in that regard, if you don't have much time then sing the Name as you go about your work for your own benefit and for the rest of creation, its really the only thing we can do.

I do feel that something needs to be said otherwise it s kind of an insult to those people who died to talk trivia at a time when the world is holding its breath as we hover on the brink. Only God knows, it could be the last Mrdanga, I'd like to go down spouting.

Your servant, Gandharvika.d.d.