The message below is from the Dalai Lama.
Dear
friends around the world,
The
events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily
lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger
questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life,
but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we
have created it-and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate
ourselves anew as a human species, so that we will never treat each
other this way again. The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the
highest level our most extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are.
There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first
comes from love, the second from fear.
If
we come from fear we may panic and do things-as individuals and as
nations-that could only cause further damage. If we come from love
we
will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others.This
is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What
you teach at this time, through your every word and action right now,
will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those
whose lives you touch, both now, and for years to come. We will set
the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment. Let
us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause.
Unless
we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will
never remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we
will forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human
family who feel aggrieved, and, likewise, seek retribution from them.
To us the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human
lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have
not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have
not been listening to God, and because we have not, we watch ourselves
do ungodly things.
The
message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one.
That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this
truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember
is simple: Love, this and every moment.
If
we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand
why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we
meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack,
what then will be the outcome?
These
are the questions that are placed before the human race today.
They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of
years. Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer
them at all.
If
we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be
experienced by our children and our children's children, we will have
to become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that
to
happen. We must choose to be at cause in the matter.
So,
talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for
insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom.
Ask
God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that
will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people
around the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the
Light that dispels all fear.
That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person
today. Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to
preserve the beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the
anger and hatred-and the disparity that inevitably causes it - in
that
part of the world which I touch?
Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence
that is You. What can you do TODAY...this very moment?
A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish
to
experience, provide for another.
Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience-in your own life,
and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be
the
source of that.
If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.
If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that
they
are safe.
If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things,
help another to better understand.
If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the
sadness or anger of another.
Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for
guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding,
and
for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for
love.
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Dalai Lama
