Wailing Wall Address

The speech I'd like to - but dare not - deliver at the “Wailing Wall“:

People of Jerusalem! I come to your fair and ancient City, so steeped in traditions, so laden with history, so riddled with bullets - and am immediately struck by two things, neither of which are bullets:

The Dome of the Rock may be a lovely piece of work, but do we need it? Hey, Muslims, you have Mecca, you have Medina. You don't need al-Quds, namely Jerusalem, give it up!

And this chunk of temple siding takes up way too much attention, you Jews are so fixated on the Temple Mount, take a note from the Christians and acquaint yourselves for once with the Sermon on the Mount.

Excessive zeal for a religious form has nothing to do with love of or toward God, still less with any experience of God, and therefore does no favors for Humankind. Please, someone prove me wrong. You can't.

So in conclusion, to those Christians running the Church of the Tomb: teamwork, fellas, teamwork. To the Muslims in the City: hey, the Jews were already here before you had your religion, they got driven out, you rode in and conquered, they came back and reconquered, deal with it – cut your losses, take what you had pre-'67, leave them in peace and build something for yourselves. Everyone here please stop playing the goddamn victim, and everyone stop being each other's aggressor.

And as to the City's Jews, ship the Haredi all back to Europe, they don't believe in your State anyway, they won't pay taxes, serve in your forces, get a job, get a life; they just take your bread and social, crank out kids as if they were discount. Dump them, dump the settlements, dump the dead weight and develop something that'll shut the Arabs and the UN up.

And finally - Mr. Netanyahu: TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!

Levi

(16 Jan 2012)

Like a levee overlooking a great river in winter -

this child will grow to give refuge and succor and comfort

to many who are drawn over vast waters to her shore.

Khadija's daughter, she will teach faith to the doubting,

the desperate, the anguished: Rock of Compassion!

She will know what to provide and in what measure,

and to whom.

The lost will find her,

she will raise them up.

Now she is but a child, infant unknowing,

beloved breath of a beauty -

then she will be mature in vision,

on her breath will many be guided

over the impassable rivers of coming times,

through the severe winters approaching.

Some may call this the vacant wishes

of some distant unknown grandfather -

or God may just confirm him as it is spoken.

God who is neither distant nor unknown,

who draws near whom He will

and makes known what was not.

Levi, even as I breathe,

on every pulse beat I know you are there,

and you are real to me.

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2014/06/there-is-river.html
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2014/05/schwester-des-flusses.html
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2012/04/source.html
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2012/08/for-my-children-and-grandchildren-trust.html

Loving, Serving, Remembering

Love, serve, remember:

Love everyone, serve everyone, remember God.

There is only one way one actually can love everyone, serve everyone – that is to remember God, there is absolutely no other possibility. Otherwise one is “trying to“ and that is either helper-syndrome which is based on a need of one's own, or social concern which is admirable but greatly limited and frustrating – because in both there is only ego. It is in remembering God that the inner movement comes, and from which the grace may come to indeed love everyone, serve or feed or nourish everyone.

One isn't at all distanced from the human side of giving, of being available, attentive, or generous – one's humanity and warmth is not forgotten but enhanced, empowered and rendered conscious. Remembering God is not like "remembering to believe in," this would be to remain trapped in the external, like remembering "someone else". One can only remember what one has experienced, where one has been. That's why we're instructed to remember. God is your Origin and your Source, That's where you came from, so buy it or not, That's where you return to and Remember, because That never “left or abandoned“ you (for where?), because That Alone exists and not your ego. And That, therefore, is Who actually loves, Who actually serves and nourishes – and Who actually Remembers, in you and as you when you are in the act of Remembrance. The practice and the mastery and the conscious absorption in Remembrance is 24/7 on every breath. That is serving everyone, that is nourishing the planet and all those around one. Any outward "form" of service or generosity will come from this and will make its mark in the world.

The surest way of becoming acquainted with all this is through love, in falling in love. When one meets, directly in-person or indirectly, a Being who thoroughly embodies this, one will be smitten with love for that Being – who is both mirror and enabler – who is worthy of all love and reverence. Through such a one will one grasp Remembrance of God.

Repetition of mantra is not for building up points in a merit system for oneself, that's all external religion, tailored to ego. Like dhikr-allah among the Islamic-expressive dervishes, or it's silent form, fikr – the former coming from the Arabic “to remember“ and the latter "to think" or hold in thought – one is keeping in the Eternal Moment of Remembrance through the repetition, whatever the mantra - let's take om sri ram jai ram jai jai ram. (Was Rama really God or someone merged in God, is God Ram and we say Rama when referring to this guy who lived and had this adventure in the Ramayana and was there a Hanuman?) Lovely work, inspiring, multi-layered as always – but if one wants to get super-involved in all that, one can go spend 20 years with pundits in the Himalayas. Or one can practice, here and now, immersing oneself in this love-bond with the Beloved. Om is now and every-other-now. Sri isn't just some holy application, it means all forms, male or female, are of the Divine Mother. Ram is God and God is Love. Jai is victory. So: God always wins. With God is victory. God is Most Great. Allahu-akbar.

Where is this divinity? Don't look around, it's in the mantra or dhikr itself, God is there in every syllable, they are atomic and loaded. Repeat them consciously. What is their power? They will awaken in one the Memory of Origin, the faculty of Remembrance. So one can go on Remembering, ever more consciously until the only one left Remembering is God/Allah/Ram HimSelf, as the ego becomes more and more absorbed in this love and less and less in itself.

One does what one does, but dropping the ego from the doing every time the identity with it asserts itself, one stays in the Remembrance, on the breath or intoned, and remains concentrated and relaxed. As Krishna also instructs in the Bhagavad Gita.

Two big things lost through all this are pity and self-pity, which are almost the same thing. Also envy, jealousy, resentments and grudges.  Expectations and judgment will be tamed, disappointments overcome or less important. Drama and trouble will be survived and gotten through intact. One will take oneself far less seriously and remain one-pointed in love, on God. One will be present and available for others in a way never imagined, instead of breaking one's neck trying to "be there" for "others" - as the illusion of "others" is not being nourished here, through the repetition of Remembrance: that there is no "other," only the One Self - which is awakened in the atmosphere around the very one absorbed in the practice of Remembrance.

Now that is love, that is serving, that is remembering.