Healing and Embracing the Divine Memory

It is just as important to focus on the paths to healing as it is to focus on the 'fact' or the 'event' in the case of tragedy. It is to be applauded that some news agencies world-wide are broadcasting the gathering of persons from Virginia Tech and their representatives from various religious communities on campus...I only hope that the live tele-cast is repeated as oft as the graphic and horrific scenes that occurred during what took place. Words of wisdom from all faiths and backgrounds were spoken and the moments of silence gathered together will instigate a healing process most definitely. This is what is most noble in man at the moment - the unanimous call of all faiths (this includes athiests & scientists - for they oft have more faith in their perceived reality than many a 'believer') for resisting the urge to hate and instead fostering an unshakeable strength to carry on living with noble values in the face of strife.

We cannot come to terms with such 'events' and 'facts' from a purely rational angle - unless one is of a highly advanced self-realized state; where one 'cries/weeps not for the living nor for the dead' (as paraphrased from Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita 2:11). Hence, it is of the utmost importance to find the balance between coming together to reflect upon ourselves and the world and what is beyond both. The gathering ended with a great charismatic lady speaker shaking things up with the "Let's Go Hokies!" chant...it is in times like these where group chanting can uplift so much of the existential burden put on our hearts when we are carried by the 'events' and 'facts' of this world. Every human lost is one less representation or expression of the Divine upon the world...unique in every way...their perceptions, their dreams, their pain, their joy...cannot even be suggested at through mere words or the recounting of 'events' and 'facts' of their souls departure from the bodily temple - the 'golden cage' as the poetic mystic saint Rabindranath Tagore once referred to it (the body) in ecstatic epiphany.

Swami Chinmayananda once said that to find the source of a river you must go against the current...go upstream to the source...It is not an easy journey and those lost along the way would only want us to continue on whilst we are still embodied in these blessings in disguise - our golden cages.

The Great Spirit teaches us in a mysterious way...on the way home I look upon what trees there are left here...the birds that fly and call out to one another and to the heavens...I hear the voice that says, "Wherever there is a bird flying...Wherever there is the wind in the trees...Wherever the light shines from the sky...That is where the beauty of the Native Spirit is..."

Innumerable tragedies have plagued this Mother Earth...She is the Eternal Witness to our deeds and actions...The Sun and Moon have seen many a horrific deed and battle...They urge us on...for everything will continue anyway...

Senseless though all tragedy seems to be...we must not only try and 'make sense of the insensible' through our limited reality tunnel, but broaden our vision and honour the Spirit which never dies...

"Never was there a time when I did not exist, or you, or these kings,
nor shall any of us cease to exist hereafter"
-Sri Krishna (Bhagavad Gita, 2:12)