Halloween is just around the corner. Already grotesque images of zombies pop up during commercial breaks in family comedies jarring me with disgust. I’m not into playing scared for fun. I see too much real terror in life to enjoy flirting with it for entertainment’s sake.
Right now, the real news of the world strikes equal notes of terror and horror in my heart.
Most especially, when it’s about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, acronymed ISIS.
Last night I watched the 60 Minutes episode that explained what ISIS is, how they came gross power so quickly, and how they can be stopped. I learned they are self-funding and generate about $6 million everyday. I saw their black flag waving in the desert, the murderous soldiers sporting all black and an image of their leader speaking as the Hitler of our century.
It shook me to my core.
I did not believe that I would ever live in such a time of evil and fear. My naïveté is a byproduct of a wholesome childhood, I suppose. It’s a hard thing to accept. It’s strange to think that while my life is so full of Divine light and love, across the world, half a spin of our globe, people are living in the darkness of a spiritual eclipse. No light at all. Only the deep painful chasm of separation from God.
How can this be? How can we go on?
I remember my first experience of an eclipse. In elementary school I was brought to a field and given an index card with a circle poked out to witness a solar eclipse. I didn’t understand. I was one of the little kids, maybe first grade, and the teachers in their excitement, scared me. Don’t look directly at the sun! It will burn your eyes! And then in another breath, The sun will disappear! It will be dark like night! I waited on the scratchy grass, trembling. I’d never been outside in a field at night. I’d never been out in the dark without my mother. The world without the sun, even for a few minutes, was unfathomable to my fragile spirit.
The memory of my fear is stronger than my memory of the eclipse. The sun was gone for only a moment and not completely. A minute later it the world was light and we were a mass of kids being directed to file back into school in an orderly fashion. It seemed like much ado about nothing. After all, the sun had just played simply game of peekaboo with the moon.
The spiritual eclipse that manifests itself as evil performs the same illusion. But just as the sun never stops shining, Divine Light never ceases to illume. Those who are washed in blackness may not see the light, they may be in complete and utter separation from it, but nevertheless, the light shines endlessly. Inextinguishable.
But what can we do?
I caught a bit of Ken Burn’s latest documentary, The Roosevelts, this week. There is footage of the end of World War II, when Times Square and the Champs-Élysées were overwhelmed with rejoicers cheering and kissing. Wars don’t have finales anymore. There is no definitive cessation of fighting or resumption of peace. I remarked to my husband, It seems like wars don’t ever end these days; they just simmer and flare.
I feel helpless, but I want to stand for good. I don’t want to passively accept evil into the world or ignore it because the geography of my birth proffers me that choice. This is what I do.
It is simple. It is small.
It is magnificent.
It is the only real contribution I can make.
I shift my thoughts and my energy to the spiritual plane, the place where the field of all possibilities, including peace, exists. I do this through daily meditation, and by calling on my heart to seek compassion whenever I notice it falling into the black hole of fear and hate. I take responsibility for the energy I contribute to the world and do my best to make it clean and bright.
This must sound strange to a nonspiritual person.
I believe, I know that we are all connected as Divine consciousness. Because of the symbiotic relationship of the universe, each of our individual energies contributes to the whole. This is why bringing oneself to a state of peace creates a reverberation which extends far greater than our grasp. Terrorists use the same understanding in the opposite way by enacting horror on a few, and letting that fear and hatred infect the collective spirit. Meditation and conscious compassion work to counter that tide.
The meditation I find most powerful for peace is Swami Radha’s Divine Light Incantation. These are the words:
I am created by Divine Light.
I am sustained by Divine Light.
I am protected by Divine Light.
I am surrounded by Divine Light.
I am ever-growing into Divine Light.
Although it is lovely to do it standing in a circle as a group, I usually do it by myself seated on a meditation cushion. I repeat her prayer silently in my mind and visualize beautiful white light showering down and coming inside on me. Once I have a strong sense of that light, I visualize sending to a friend. Then I visualize sending it to a stranger. All the while the prayer is repeated as a mantra.
The hardest part is the end, when I send the light to an enemy, such as the executioners garbed in black in those bone-chilling videos. It is difficult spiritual work to offer something so beautiful and transcendent to a personification of evil, but that is the work of peacemaking. It challenges my heart to true compassion. It requires faith in two beliefs:
Love is stronger than hate.
Light is more powerful than darkness.
I grew up in the Catholic church and I agree with their definition of hell, which is not a fiery brimstone place, but simply a separation from God. When I see people performing such atrocities, I know they are living in hell on earth. I send light not as a pardon, but as an invitation back into the folds of love, light, and God. If we cannot challenge ourselves to find peace and compassion within the confines of our own hearts, what hope is there for peace in our world?
And I have hope, for birds are singing, babies are breathing, jungles are humming, and look up— the sun is shining.
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