Deborah Savran
  • Home

Peace is Not our Goal

11/24/2012

1 Comment

 
It is interesting in this age of Facebook to see the varied responses of my friends and family to what is happening in Israel and Gaza.  They certainly run the gamut, from staunchly anti-Israeli or anti-Palestinian/Arab sentiments, to strongly pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian sentiments, some middle grounders, and many cries for peace.  I feel both the hurt these separative ideas and beliefs create, and sorrow for the death and loss - tragic consequences of the recently exasperated patterns of violence between the people in Gaza and Israel.  Out of this, I have begun to ponder on the meaning of peace.  

Peace - such a sought after state.  We pray ‘may there be peace on Earth’ but if we look at global and personal patterns we see that peace comes as ‘a moment of peace’ or a ‘time of peace’.  It has a transient quality to it.  What does peace truly mean?  Is it really our goal?  We can understand peace as a most important step to take, such as in the case of the urgent cease-fire agreed upon last Wednesday between the Israeli government and Hamas which, if honored, momentarily ends violence and save lives.  This step towards establishing peace is critical, but this is clearly not the finish line or destination, for out of peace, conflict and war can and do arise again.  Is it possible that through understanding the limitations of making peace our goal, we support our evolution as human beings?  What does it mean when we pacify ourselves, another person, a group or a nation?  Here is a standard definition:

            pac·i·fy/ˈpasəˌfī/

Verb:

1.       Quell the anger, agitation, or excitement of.

2.       Bring peace to (a country or warring factions), esp. by the use or threatened use of military force.

Synonyms:  appease - calm - soothe - placate - mollify – lull

When we further consider the meaning of quell - ‘to suppress, or to put down forcibly,’ to pacify is therefore to suppress or forcibly put down anger and agitation.   If we can honestly feel into our own life experience we will instantly know that we have been calmed, soothed, and quelled momentarily over and over again, but has this offered us a lasting true harmony within ourselves, or in our relationships with others?  For me the answer is a clear no.   In the inner state of pacification, there is no real change in the state of being..  The smallest of triggers can set off the anger and agitation that had been quelled.  Is it possible that a significant problem in calling peace the goal is that when we have some semblance of it, we think we have achieved our objective and then cease to seek for complete healing of the momentarily pacified situation?  If we clearly and energetically understood peace as a mere stepping stone to our goal, would we be more likely to continue to seek to return to that which brings real change in our state of being?  If peace is not our goal, what is? 

Our goal is harmony.  How is harmony different from peace?  Harmony is not merely a pacification of harmful emotions and thoughts towards oneself and others.  Harmony is a state of true healing, a true change in the state of our being to one in which there is no conflict within, nor expressed outward. 

“Our goal is to be harmonious within, that is, in full harmony with self.  If this is achieved, no other can arouse any form of insecurity or fear.  The latter two are the ingredients for bigotry, racism and prejudices.  To be harmonious, is to find the stillness within and to allow that stillness to impulse forth the life that is to be lived.” ~Serge Benhayon

When we are in harmony, there is no war inside us, or between us.  We no longer need to cling to that which separates us from each other, such as nationality, religion, or culture, nor to the many ideals and beliefs that separate us from ourselves.  This brings me back to Facebook and two recent posts I saw there. In the first, there was a quote from Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel.  The quote was, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children.  We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children…..we will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” Below it was an image of a young Palestinian child with explosives strapped to his body, suggesting his being ‘prepared’ to be a suicide bomber.  While I agree without hesitation that this is certainly not an expression of love towards the child, I can find numerous photos online of Israeli fathers with an arsenal of weapons in front of them, teaching their child how to use these weapons.  I state without hesitation that this is also not an expression of love towards the child.  One may be arguably ‘defensive’ and the other ‘offensive’, yet in either position, the child can only be at war with himself.  On the second Facebook post, this truth was stated beautifully by the Dalai Lama.  He was asked why he didn’t fight back against the Chinese, and I conclude with his reply, which reflects a true understanding of inner-harmony:

“Well, war is obsolete, you know ….Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back...but the heart, the heart would never understand.   Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you.”  

1 Comment

A poem for the day

11/22/2012

0 Comments

 
'Thanksgiving is sweeter than bounty itself.
One who cherishes gratitude does not cling to the gift!
Thanksgiving is the true meat of God’s bounty;
the bounty is its shell,
For thanksgiving carries you to the hearth of the Beloved.
Abundance alone brings heedlessness,
thanksgiving gives birth to alertness…
The bounty of thanksgiving will satisfy and elevate you,
and you will bestow a hundred bounties in return.
Eat your fill of God’s delicacies,
and you will be freed from hunger and begging.'

- Jalaluddin Rumi

0 Comments

let it snow!

11/12/2012

1 Comment

 
Looking out the window of my room this morning I see the first
real snowfall of the season. Autumn here in Minneapolis has been amazingly beautiful and mild this year, but something that always seems to draw my attention away from this season of falling leaves, crisp air and subtle beauty, is the demon I have carried in me named ‘dread-of-winter’. My children in late October start praying for it to snow, and I groan in response, saying ‘not until December, please!’ Yet every year the same thing happens. When it does begin to snow, I am completely delighted!  It is the most enchanting and transformational thing that can happen to my surroundings.  Crystals falling from the sky - an instant fairy-land right in my yard.  

This year I am noticing more deeply other aspects of what snow reflects
to us, and one word keeps coming up, and it is STILLNESS.  
In pondering on the stillness of a snowy land, I feel both completely exposed, and also completely supported. 

Why am I exposed? 
If I choose to allow the appearance and conditions of the world around me make me feel better or worse, this reveals the illusion I have fallen into.  How can our surroundings dictate how we feel when we consider the truth that we are magnificent beings of Love?   To feel and live the truth of our inner-beauty depletes neediness, including the need for the outer world to provide this beauty for us.  I have lived in and traveled to some of the most strikingly beautiful places on the planet and I now understand that this can be yet another distraction from discovering the great beauty within.  We admire grand beauty that is outside of us while falsely believing that it is more than that which lies inside us.  Through love of self and humanity I know that, even in the most horrible and depressingly ugly (from the outside) slums on Earth, there is still the greatest beauty, in the people.
Picture
Why am I supported? 
I am supported as I affirm a new meaning of what winter’s stillness can
represent.  Rather than dreading this season with old ideas of it as a harsh, bleak time of year, I now sense how the beautiful, silent light of snow can become a reminder to return to the living stillness in our body ~ to re-connect to the inner hub, our center, rather than be caught up in the spokes of the spinning wheel of an outward seeking form of existence. At the hub we can remember who we are.  

Photo credit: Nita Jatar Kulkarni -  http://www.stockpicturesforeveryone.com/
1 Comment
    Heart-Felt Expressions | Deborah Savran
    Subscribe to Heart-felt Expressions - Deborah Savran LLC - Blog by Email

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Breaking Illusion
    Freedom
    Fun Loving
    Love As A Way Of Living
    Non-Violence
    Poems
    Truth

    Archives

    January 2018
    October 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    November 2013
    May 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home