Libra Festivals: Michaelmas, Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan & Navratri
October 4, 2005

by Curtis Lang		print version
		print version (graphics)

Welcome to the October 4, 2005 edition of the Satya Center newsletter. Warm greetings from your Editor, Curtis Lang.

This week provides us all with a marvelous opportunity to honor the varied ways that different cultures and religious traditions mark the autumnal turning point in our yearly seasonal cycles.

During last week and this week, in the wake of the autumnal equinox and the Harvest Moon, the Sun presents itself against the starry backdrop of the constellation Libra, often represented by a woman wielding the sword of free will and discrimination, and holding the Divine Scales of Balance. Initiates around the world celebrate the feasts of Michaelmas, Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan, and Navratri, sacred to the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu religions.

The paths to the Divine are many, and the faces of the Divine form a multitude, but the Unity of the Divine manifests on every path and in all the masks of God and Goddess.

Cultures all over the world have for thousands of years celebrated religious festivals coinciding with seasonal cycles. Thesecyclic celebrations depended upon accurate observations of the movements of the sun, moon and planets during the year, and on the ability to track and predict the much longer cycles of the movements of constellations of stars overhead.

The human spirit has since time immemorial sought meaning, order, coherence, and strength in its ability to accurately observe and predict these earthly and celestial cycles, seeking to unite in these community festivals the heavenly and earthly realms, the spiritual and the material worlds.

During seasonal festivals, entire cultures around the world have engaged in communal spiritual practices designed to influence predicted weather patterns, irrigation needs, and agricultural productivity, and to plan communal activities such as crop storage and distribution.

During these festivals communities have enacted rituals that seek to harmonize their earthly social structure with the seasonal and celestial influences that are perceived to embody a Divine order characterized by eternal life, abundance, fertility, and power.

These efforts formed the basis for the earliest recorded civilizations on Earth. Mathematics, astrology, astronomy, agricultural science, hydro-engineering, medicine, meditation, prayer, ceremonial ritual, sacred pilgrimages and ritual sacrifice, sacred architecture, art, music and dance flowed from the individual skills and community interactions that structured these yearly observances.

Many seasonal festivals fall during the month when the Sun is in Libra, and these festivals work to create and restore an individual and collective sense of balance during a difficult transitional period of the year, when days shorten, and in the northern hemisphere temperature falls, crops wither, and the extroverted summer energy of plants in the fields begins to turn inward in anticipation of the little death of winter.

Mother Earth comes to the end of the cycle of spring and summer exhalation that extends the breath of life across the surface of our blue-green planet, and she begins the long inhalation characteristic of fall and winter. The planet’s surface becomes barren, but the interior of the Earth, more receptive now to the light streaming from cosmic sources, is quickening with new life.

At this time of year, the spiritual component in human nature surfaces after a long summer slumber when activities in the physical world captured the energy and attention of the entire community.

The mystical Christian community celebrates the Fall Feast of Michaelmas on September 29, one week after the Sun entered Libra. The philosopher, spiritual scientist and Christian mystic Rudolf Steiner granted the Archangel Michael a very special role in today’s world.

Michael’s role is revealed in the Bible’s Apocalypse of St. John (12:7) “And there was a war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. . .and the dragon was cast out into the Earth. . .having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”

For Steiner, who lived at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Apocalypse is a metaphor for modern times. Steiner believed the Apocalypse was not a physical war but rather a spiritual struggle between the forces of materialism, represented by the Lord of Darkness, called Ahriman, and the forces of Spirit. The Forces of Light represent humanity’s free will and the Forces of Darkness represent oppression and suppression of that free will.

In this Titanic struggle for the souls of all humanity, Archangel Michael leads the forces of Light, wielding a fiery sword, the sword of free will.

Michael is said to help women and men to find their own spiritual purpose and path in life, and to help, guide, protect and energize them that they may exercise their will forces in the service of the light, choosing to freely walk upon their own personal path of Spirit, and thus advancing their spiritual evolution, and the evolution of all humanity.

For Steiner, the physically compelling forces of the summer season, when heat rises in plants, animals and human beings alike, and the air is saturated with desire, correspond to the element of sulfur, and this element stimulates a wide range of material and emotional excitements, all of which tend to increase the average person’s attachment to the material world.

This presents a danger during these Apocalyptic times, when the Lord of Darkness seeks to entrap all humanity in a purely materialistic existence, devoid of all spirituality. Manifestations of Ahrimanic influence include political systems that seek to dominate through military force, economic systems that seek to enrich the few at the expense of the many, philosophical systems that seek to depict all human activity as neo-Darwinian, psychological theories that reduce humanity’s free will to a set of biologically determined chemical reactions, and all reductionist, purely mechanistic scientific models of the universe.

During the Libran month, on October 8, in the northern hemisphere, the Draconid meteor showers will be visible. At this time of year, when sensational meteor showers, largely composed of iron, traditionally streak across the night sky, Steiner’s clairvoyant vision saw the traditional flashing iron sword of Michael. The meteoric sword of Michael was thought to cleanse the Earth’s atmosphere of sulfurous influences, allowing the Higher Self to emerge and guide the initiate along the path of Spirit toward the birth of the Inner Christ Light, an event which takes place in December, during the festival of Christmas.

Jewish people celebrate the Festival of Rosh Hashanah this week. Rosh Hashanah commemorates the Head of the Year, the holiest time of the calendar, marking the first ten days of the Jewish Year. This is the Jewish Year 5766, and this year, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated from sunset October 3 through nightfall October 5, with solemn ceremonies, temple observances, purification rituals, and acts of atonement.

In Leviticus 23:24-25, the Bible refers to the holiday as Yom Ha-Zikkaron, the day of remembrance, or Yom Teruah the day of the sounding of the shofar.

The shofar is a ram's horn which is blown somewhat like a trumpet.During this festival, the shofar is sounded one hundred times during services in the synagogue. The sacred sound of the ram’s horn serves to remind the community of G-d’s blessing to the Jewish people when he allowed Abraham to sacrifice a ram in place of his son Isaac.

Members of the Jewish community perform ceremonies designed to balance out old debts during this festival, for a ten day period of interior searching that culminates in the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. During this first ten days of the New Year, G-d judges our actions during the year just past, and decides on our fate during the coming year.

Jewish celebrants search their hearts in a spirit of contrition, and then apologize to friends and family members they may have wronged during the year, and ask for forgiveness. Those who can give generously to charities of their choice, in an effort to give back some of what they have gained through the grace of G-d.

Some observe a ritual cleansing called Tashlich. Celebrants visit a river or other flowing stream of water containing fish, and throw bread crumbs into the water, symbolically cleansing their sins in the process. Ritual bathing and other purification rituals are very important to restore the cosmic and individual balance necessary to achieve G-d’s blessing for the New Year.

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, people eat only sweet food thought to symbolize new beginnings, especially fruit that is only just beginning to come into season, and that has not been served until the festival. Pomegranates, pumpkin, dates, and beetroot are popular dishes. Round Challah loaves are served at ritual meals, symbolizing the turning of the year, the completion of the yearly seasonal cycle, and the promise of abundant New Life to come.

Today, October 4, 2005, is the First Day of Ramadan, the most sacred Moslem month of the year, which begins at sunset upon the sighting of the lunar crescent in the twilight sky.

This is a month of purification and spiritual quickening for Moslems worldwide, celebrated by fasting from food, water and tobacco, from just before dawn to sunset, and by reading one of the 30 chapters of the Holy Koran each day of the month.

Fasting is intended to instill the virtue of self-discipline in the community of believers, and is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Fasting involves mental and emotional as well as physical discipline designed to enhance the power of the spiritual aspects of human nature. Bad thoughts, lying, swearing, and arguing are believed to violate the spirit of the Fast. Fights and arguments are forbidden.

When mosques light colored lamps at sunset, the faithful break their fast, often beginning with dried fruit, such as dates, and water.

Community solidarity is emphasized during the festival of Ramadan. Because of the importance of Fasting, friends, neighbors and family often exchange gifts of food each evening in a festive atmosphere.

The seasonal theme of individual purification and community balance is stressed in Ramadan, when many seek reconciliation between rich and poor through charitable acts. Traditionally the faithful greet one another during Ramadan with a request for forgiveness for any wrongs they may have done during the previous year.The traditional Ramadan greeting is “Ramadan Kareem” which means Blessings and Bounty of Ramadan.

Today is also the first day of the Hindu festival of Navratri which means “Nine Nights” in Gujarati, the language spoken by inhabitants of the Indian state of Gujarat, which lies in western India, near the Great Desert, and is the popular Hindu name for the festival properly known as Durga Puja.

Durga, in Sanskrit, means “She who is incomprehensible or difficult to reach.” Goddess Durga is one manifestation of Shakti, the Divine Mother of the Universe. She is known by many other names such as Parvati, spouse of Lord Shiva, and Kali, Goddess of death and liberation.

Goddess Durga, slayer of demons, is pictured as having ten arms holding sword, conch, discus, rosary, bell, wine cup, shield, bow, arrow and spear.Dressed in royal red cloth she rides mounted on the lion, king of beasts. Terrifying in her aspect as a slayer of demons, she appears as a beneficent, sweet, nurturing guide for her ecstatic devotees.

She is the Universal Life Force Energy manifest in the human body, known as the Kundalini, and she lights the seven lamps of initiatic awareness, corresponding to the seven chakras of the subtle body of the human being.

When demonic forces create great imbalance on a cosmic scale, it is Goddess Durga who restores the Divine order by combining all Divine forces within her person and slaying negative thoughts, feelings, and physical manifestations throughout the Universe.

In ancient times, a powerful demon known as Mahishasura performed many austerities and remained so long in meditation that he attracted the favor of Lord Shiva, one of the three members of the Hindu Trinity of Gods -- Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Shiva blessed Mahishasura with a boon, that he could not be killed by any male being. Mahishasura took this as a surety that he could never be conquered at all, and proceeded to lay waste the Universe, killing mercilessly and establishing a reign of terror that threatened to undo the balance of cosmic forces and overthrow the reign of the Gods themselves.

After many humiliations, Brahma the Creator of the Universe, Vishnu the Sustainer of Life, and Shiva the Destroyer of Illusion gathered together and combined their Shaktis, their energies, to create a powerful woman Goddess warrior who would be able to defeat Mahishasura.

After a Titanic struggle, Durga beheaded the Lord of Darkness and restored balance to the Cosmic Creation.

Since that time, she has stood ever ready to help her devotees destroy the negative emotions, misleading thought forms and physical desires that enslave them to the physical world and their own lower, animal natures, to free disciples from all encumbrances and obstacles standing in their path of spiritual evolution, to quicken the lamps of Spirit within their hearts, and to crown their meditations with visions of the Truth, called Satya, the Unity that underlies the apparent duality of material Creation.

During the nine nights of Durga Puja, or worship of Goddess Durga, Hindus honor the Mother Goddess in her three aspects: Durga, consort of Lord Shiva, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Lakshmi, Goddess of Abundance, is the consort of Lord Vishnu, and Saraswati, Goddess of Wisdom, is the consort of Lord Brahma.

Feasting, fasting and dancing constitute the trinity of observances dedicated to the Mother Goddess during this festival.

In Northern India, devotees of Goddess Durga observe a fast during the festival, to empower them to overcome the desires of the physical body and establish a harmonious balance between body and soul. On the physical level, fasting purifies the body of toxins and gives digestive organs a much-needed rest.

Fasting can mean living on milk, it can mean eating only one meal a day, and many other variants, depending upon where one lives in India and which spiritual path one is following. The Hindu religion has many paths and many disciplines within it.

At the end of the fasting period, devotees distribute food to the poor, another aspect of balancing the energy within the community.

In Western India, especially in Gujarat, devotees spend the nine nights of Navratri in song, dance and merriment. Garba is a graceful form of dance, wherein women dressed in exquisitely embroidered costumes gracefully circle around a pot containing a lamp. The word “Garba” means “womb”, and the lamp in the pot represents new life being birthed within the womb.

Men and women both participate in the “Dandia” dance. Pairs of dancers begin slowly, waving small, decorated bamboo sticks called dandias in their hands. At the end of these dandias are tied tiny bells called ghungroos that make a jingling sound when the sticks hit one another. As the dance progresses, the pairs of dancers break into frenzied movements, striking one another’s dandias in time to the complex, driving rhythms of the festival music.

In eastern India, especially in Bengal, the Durga Puja is the principal festival during Navratri. In this region, community worship is stressed through observances known as “Sarbojanin Puja”. Huge, highly decorated temporary buildings called “pandals” are constructed to house grand communal prayer services, which are followed by mass feasting and cultural functions. The earthen icons of Goddesses Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati, are taken out on the tenth day in a triumphal procession to the nearby river, where they are ceremonially immersed in a ritual that enacts the transitory nature of all earthly and heavenly phenomena, and symbolizes the purification of creation in preparation for a new turn of the Cosmic Wheel, a new year and a new beginning for the community.

Top Satya Center Stories of the Week

This week we are proud to introduce our readers to a new Satya Center contributor, the global environmental and health activist, renowned scientist and visionary Dr. Mae-Wan Ho.

Dr. Ho has been one of the most influential figures of the last decade in the debate within the scientific community regarding the use of genetically modified organisms. She is a highly respected global scientific figure and a well-known critic of neo-Darwinism and reductionist thought in Biology and Physics. Dr. Ho has authored hundreds of scientific articles and many books on a variety of subjects.

In an article on “Health, Human Rights and GM Crops”, Dr. Ho pulls no punches while dissecting the global political chess game that pits the forces of globalization and corporate agriculture against proponents of sustainable agriculture and healthy food.

“Adopting GM crops when oil and water are both rapidly depleting under global warming, and when industrial monoculture is showing all the signs of collapse is a crime against humanity and our planet,” argues Dr. Ho.

In “The Global Organic Foods Boom”, Dr. Ho explores the promise and the perils inherent in the expanding global markets for organic food. It’s increasingly difficult to know just what the label “organic” means, and many farmers are refusing to participate in government-regulated organic food certification programs. Dr. Ho points out that organic certification standards were initially developed by farmers and farmer organizations but new, third-party, market-driven and government mandated standards threaten to turn the organic food market over to corporate agribusiness.

Satya Center contributor and Futurist Richard Heinberg analyzes the “Threats of Peak Oil to the Global Food Supply”. “Farmers on the island of Bali in Indonesia once planted 200 varieties of rice, each adapted to a different microclimate; now only four varieties are grown,” Heinberg explains. “Ongoing, massive genetic consolidation is being driven by the centralization of the seed industry which is in turn consequent upon fuel-fed globalization.”

In an interview with the Senior Editor of Lilipoh Magazine entitled “Owned by Illness: An Anthroposphical Approach to Wellness”, Gerald Karnow, M.D. explores an alternative vision of physical, emotional, and mental health and how to achieve it. Anthroposophical medicine, following the teachings of Christian mystic, philosopher and spiritual scientist Rudolf Steiner, sees the spirit as the conductor of our life's symphony and the instruments as our physical attributes. When we experience illness, we need to adjust our life rhythms with herbs, dance, massage, painting and oil baths.

Yoga instructor, meditation teacher and Satya Center contributor True Alisandre shares his experiences of chanting “The Universal Mantra: Ba’ba Na’m Keva’lam” over thirty years of practice. Chanting this spiritually charged mantra, infused with the vibrations of countless spiritual teachers over many lifetimes, charges one's aura with the energy of Unity Consciousness. As True discovered during his reckless youth, chanting this mantra, combined with a meditation practice, can change your life.

Satya Center contributor Maya Del Mar, the Doyenne of American Astrology, asks the question, “Lopez Obrador: Will He Transform Mexico?” The popular left-wing Mayor of Mexico City is running for President on a platform of people power. Will Mexico join the South American revolt against globalization? The stars favor change --and they favor Obrador.

Finally, we issue an urgent appeal for Father Jean-Juste’s Release From a Haitian Prison! Father Jean-Juste has been designated as a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International and by many others. Known as Haiti’s "pastor of the poor" he has been held without formal charges in prison since July 21, 2005. He is planning on running for President of Haiti and if he runs stands a very good chance of being elected, but the military junta imposed by the US and the UN are attempting to thwart democracy in Haiti by incarcerating this powerful advocate for the poor because he represents the impoverished classes. Please send your letter IMMEDIATELY even though the deadline for the group letter in this article has passed!!

Breaking News Headlines 24/7 at Satya Center

Check out Satya Center’s 24/7 alt.newsfeed and read breaking news stories from Pacific News Service. Tune in to Satya Center’s 24/7 environmental news headlines and listen to environmental news radio from Environmental News Network at ENN EarthNews.

Top Stories from around the Web

Global warming 'past the point of no return'
The UK Independent, By Steve Connor, 16 September 2005

A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.

They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating.

The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a "tipping point" beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically.

Why Rebuilding New Orleans is a Bad Idea
Pure Energy Systems News,by Paul Noel and Mary-Sue Haliburton, 9/23/05
   At this time the City of New Orleans is effectively a ringed, sinking island 10 feet or more below sea level, and something close to 20 miles off shore of the USA. In about 50 years, it will be nearly 60 miles off shore and will be at least 40 feet below sea level. To keep the city the dikes will have to be so high as to stagger the imagination and our national budget.
 To summarize: The river is leaving the city. The city is sinking because of its weight, because of no upbuilding by new muck for many decades, because of being cut off from the fresh water, because it is falling off a cliff (the Continental Shelf), and because the Oil and Gas Industry is sucking it down like a kid slurping a root beer float.

High Water: How Presidents and Citizens React to Disaster
The New Yorker, by David Remnick, 10/03/05

. . .Everywhere I went in Louisiana and Texas to talk to evacuees, many of the poorest among them were not only furious—furious at the President and local officials, furious at being ignored for days—but inclined to believe, as many did after Betsy, that the flooding of the city was, or could have been, a deliberate act.

Experts Say Faulty Levees Caused Much of Flooding
washingtonpost.com, By Michael Grunwald and Susan B. GlasserWednesday, September 21, 2005; A01

  Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and that the city's flood- protection system should have kept most of the city dry.

  The Army Corps of Engineers has said that Katrina was just too massive for a system that was not intended to protect the city from a storm greater than a Category 3 hurricane, and that the floodwall failures near Lake Pontchartrain were caused by extraordinary surges that overtopped the walls.

  But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.

The Predators of New Orleans
Le Monde Diplomatique, by Mike Davis, October 2005
 
   It is inevitable that many of those left behind in drowning neighbourhoods will interpret City Hall's unconscionable negligence in the context of the bitter economic and racial schisms that have long made New Orleans the most tragic city in the US. It is no secret that its business elites and their allies in City Hall would like to push the poorest segment of the population, blamed for high crime rates, out of the city. Historic public-housing projects have been razed to make room for upper-income townhouses and a Wal-Mart. In other housing projects, residents are routinely evicted for offences as trivial as their children's curfew violations. The ultimate goal seems to be a tourist theme-park New Orleans, Las Vegas on the Mississippi, with chronic poverty hidden away in bayous, trailer parks and prisons outside the city limits. Not surprisingly, some advocates of a whiter, safer city see a divine plan in Katrina. "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans," a leading Louisiana Republican confided to Washington lobbyists. "We couldn't do it, but God did" (13). Nagin boasted of his empty streets and ruined neighbourhoods: "This city is for the first time free of drugs and violence, and we intend to keep it that way."

The Great Lakes at a Crossroads
Rachel’s Environment and Health News, by Tim Montague, 9/15/05

  The Great Lakes stand at a crossroad. . . The health of the lakes seems to be declining. Emily Green, the Sierra Club's Great Lakes Program director says, "There is a growing consensus among Great Lakes scientists that the ecosystem is reaching a tipping point."

. . . Citizens, scientists, and even the Bush government are so concerned about the health of the Great Lakes that congress is considering sweeping environmental legislation to jump-start restoration of the ecosystem. With guidance from the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration (GLRC), federal lawmakers are calling for a $20 billion investment over ten years to clean up the water, reverse the impacts of urban sprawl, improve thousands of acres of fish and wildlife habitat and control exotic species.

Media Flounders As Antiwar Movement Grows
Intervention Magazine, by Stewart Nusbaumer, 9/25/05

Of the hundred or more speakers at the antiwar protest in Washington -- no one in their right mind could listen to all of them -- I heard only one say that “the media is not doing its job.” That was Cindy Sheehan. The mother of a son killed in Iraq, who last month camped out in a ditch near President Bush’s Texas ranch and ignited antiwar sentiment throughout the country, said what nearly every one of the tens of thousands of protestors was thinking. The mainstream media is doing a truly dismal job in covering the antiwar movement.

. . . The New York Times buried its article on the demonstration, and The Washington Post carried nothing in its Saturday paper that could have informed interested readers of the antiwar events.

Confrontation Looms Between Iran and US
Power and Interest News Report, by Erich Marquardt, 9/26/05

. . .The three year posturing between Iran and the United States is moving closer toward confrontation. The U.S. has been able to convince the E.U.-3 to put more pressure on Iran to abandon its desire to control the nuclear fuel cycle.  However, as expected, both Russia and China have increased their resistance to attempts by the E.U.-3 and the U.S. to place Iran before the Council. Nevertheless, the U.S. and the E.U.-3 have managed to push the I.A.E.A. board to pass a resolution that threatens to refer Iran to the Security Council if it does not pursue a series of measures to explain its nuclear activities.

. . . It is important now for Iran to keep Russia and China on its side. If Iran does eventually get referred to the Security Council, it will need one of those two countries to veto any resolution that calls for sanctions. However, any such veto would create an international crisis and there is little doubt that both Russia and China want to avoid this development. It can be assumed that they will now put pressure on Iran to make its nuclear efforts look innocuous and to prevent a major escalation of rhetoric with the U.S. and the E.U.-3.

US Forces 'Out of Control,' Says Reuters Chief
The UK Guardian, By Julia Day, 9/28/05

Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public.

    The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee.

    The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq".

Any Profit in a Storm: How Big Oil Blackmails Consumers
The Village Voice, by Jim Ridgeway, 9/27/05

. . .The rising price of gasoline may turn out to have little to do with the hurricanes. "Profit margins for U.S. oil refiners have been at record highs," Tyson Slocum, the research director of Public Citizen's energy program, testified last week before the Senate Commerce Committee. "In 1999, U.S. oil refiners made 22.8 cents for every gallon of gasoline refined from crude oil. By 2004, they were making 40.8 cents for every gallon of gasoline refined, a 79 percent jump. It is no coincidence that oil corporation profits—including refining—are enjoying record highs." Over the past four years ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP, the five oil giants operating in the U.S., have racked up $254 billion in profits.
Bottom-line questions remain: Since the Texas-Louisiana coasts are our soft industrial underbelly, open to devastation by natural disasters and terrorists, why hasn't the government taken steps to break up the concentration of refineries there? Moreover, the Europeans have a reserve of gasoline. Why don't we have the same thing?

More Blood, Less Oil: The Failed US Mission to Capture Iraqi Petroleum
The Nation Institute, by Michael Klare, 9/20/05

. . .From all that can be seen, oil production in Iraq is likely to remain depressed for years, no matter how much more blood is shed in its pursuit. It is already evident that American military action will not lead to democracy in Iraq, merely to the division of the country into separate ethnic enclaves, one possibly ruled by Iranian-like ayatollahs; it can now also be said that we will not gain any additional petroleum supplies as a result of all this sacrifice and tragedy. Not only has the use of force to procure Iraqi oil failed to achieve its intended results, it has actually made the situation worse.

. . .Despite the debacle of Iraq, most senior policymakers appear to retain their blind faith in the efficacy of military force as a tool for securing access to foreign sources of petroleum. This, as Iraq makes painfully clear, is delusional. Yet they persist in risking the lives of young Americans and others in their continued adherence to a failed and immoral strategy. Any attempt to reconstruct American foreign policy on a more rational and ethical basis must, therefore, begin with the repudiation of the use of force in procuring foreign oil and the adoption of a forward-looking energy strategy based on increased conservation and the rapid development of alternative fuels.

Weekly Meditation: UNIVERSALITY AND SECTARIANISM

    The only persons who can psychologically accommodate themselves to the kind of world we live in and which is emerging are those who can authentically inherit the whole of human history, even though most of it is unknown to us. Which of us can say: "Everything human is deeply relevant and meaningful to me, and where I cannot know, at least I will not condemn. Even if I cannot understand the myths of particular peoples, the scriptures of other times, the languages, the cultures, the folkways of other men which may be strange to me, let me not mock, let me not make a great thing of my pathetic ignorance. Let me be silent. Let me be open. Let me in some way that is natural to me show that I too can acclimatize myself to the more rarefied altitudes of world citizenship that are authentic, that are more than mere assertions of goodwill, but are filled with a positive enjoyment and exaltation at every kind of human endeavour, every form of excellenceas well as positive appreciation for every kind of struggle and compassion for every kind of failure.”

  Unless a man can do this, can he even survive into the future?

Raghavan Iyer   
Toronto
October 8, 1971
Presidential Address
North American Theosophical Convention

(Note: painting of Durga is from Exotic India Art online. )