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In the mid 80’s I visited Washington D.C. with a friend. This was at a time that the Iran-Contra hearings were occurring. There was also a scare about the Libyans committing terrorism in Washington. We stayed at a hotel very close to the Pentagon. The night before we were to leave for New York, something unusual occurred. Earlier, the day had been rather hectic and my friend and I were glad to be in our hotel room for a good night’s sleep. The night started off rather uneventful. I had ordered a pizza to be delivered to the hotel from a local fast food place. I brought the pizza to the room and as I did, the person staying in the room next to me, made what seemed to be a casual remark. He said that the pizza was for him and wanted me to come in his room with the pizza. I would usually consider such a comment as a joke, but he did not seem to be joking. I later walked by his room again to get some ice for our soft drinks. As I walked by, he stared at me again. I shared the pizza with my friend and we went to bed early. It seemed like the peaceful end to a long and difficult day, but the excitement was just about to begin.
The evening changed drastically as I had an extremely powerful dream. In the dream, I gained the realization that God was EVERYWHERE. Not only within, but without, as well. We were all INSIDE GOD! I had never experienced this feeling so strongly before. Just then, something occurred which pulled me out of the dream. I found myself back in my hotel room and it was shaking as I heard what seemed to be an explosion. Were the Libyan terrorists attacking the Pentagon just across the street? It sounded that way. Our room even shook as if there was an explosion. However, there was no explosion in the usual terms. There was only an explosion of the temper of the person next door to us.
The guy in the room next to us was hitting the wall with a tremendous force. I looked out in the hall and next door there he was, peeking out of his door. He was going back and forth, slamming something into the wall and then peeking out his door at me. He appeared to be attempting to get my attention and for me to go out in the hall to assess what was happening and then to attack me when I did that. I sensed this trap and did not go out in the hall, but rather summoned a security guard who happened to be walking by at that time. I requested his assistance, but he said that he was getting out of there and he left in a hurry, (So much for the U.S. Calvary coming to the rescue). I then called the front desk and asked for the police to come to our room. Hotel detectives, and police, I believe the Arlington police, arrived shortly. They talked to the guy next door. He had an incredible story to tell: He told the police and me that he was very angry with my friend and me because we had been keeping him up with our loud music and dance party. He was just retaliating. I was astonished. My friend and I had gone to bed hours ago with no dancing and no music and no television. We simply went to sleep because we were tired. This person next door had concocted in his own mind a bizarre story that he had believed and brooded upon so long that he was prepared to commit violence and probably spend time in jail because of his mistaken belief, that we had so wronged him. This person had convinced himself that I and perhaps my friend were evil because we had somehow grossly wronged him.
It would have been simple enough to conclude that he was evil because of his bizarre and psychotic actions. He imagined we were evil perhaps because we had not paid sufficient attention to him.
Lately, we have been hearing on the television, calling the terrorists, evil. Then we hear the terrorist religious leaders calling us evil and claiming that as infidels, we are part of Satan America. So who is right? We look at the World Trade Center attacks and say that the people who committed these actions surely must be evil people. After all, they purposely plan to murder thousands of innocent civilians and if they could have murdered millions more innocent civilians, they would have done so with nary a qualm. The terrorists on the other hand have come with some kind of tortuous argument about infidels occupying holy-land and supporting other infidels. The terrorists then allege that everyone other than they, are evil. So what is evil and who is evil?
To answer this, I look back to the dream that I had on that fateful night in Washington in 1987. The dream was one of the most powerful that I had ever had and there were clear messages there. One of them was that we were all inside God. Another clear message was that essentially, evil, as an intrinsic force simply did not exist. This was made clear to me for the dream occurred simultaneously with the eruption was what was to me, an evil act by the person next door who planned to assault me just because I did not pay enough attention to him and invite him to our pizza party. Yet the message to me was that despite his intending to commit an evil act, this person was not evil. He was obviously ignorant, but not evil.
If we follow the Postulates, that is, that are people are connected to a Divine being, as the dream seemed to imply, than no one is evil. That is not to say that men cannot and have not committed acts of unspeakable evil, such as the World Trade Center attacks. Whenever we separate ourselves from our fellow man by claiming that some particular man is inherently, the more we separate ourselves from our true roots in Divinity. Some separation is necessary. We are not the World Trade Terrorists. They are separate from us individually as all people are separate from each other. The World Trade Center terrorists are further separated from us by their own violent actions and evil acting deeds. Nevertheless, the basic connection exists.
There have been some to suggest that no separation ever exists. This is obviously not true. As said, some separation is needed so that we experience ourselves as individuals, but that separation from our fellow man need not be a No Man’s Land replete with psychic barbwire. And that feeling of separation of that sort would only be actualized with negative consequences.
This basic Divine connection can be stated in other terms. It can be also called, The Brotherhood of Man or of Mankind or the Sisterhood of Man or Brotherhood of Woman. However you slice it, it ends up being the same event or phenomenon. We all have that Divine connection. The connection exists even with those we do not like nor agree with nor even respect or even hassle us. As long as we are not willing to admit to this Brotherhood of Man then we will be confronted the global problems which are so clearly at the cutting edge of our consciousness. While the World Trade Center was knocked down with jumbo jets used as guided missiles, it is clear what the motivation powering those jets. The motivation was hatred and ignorance of the worst kind. It was spiritual ignorance, an ignorance that tells a person that people of different religions or races or appearances or life-styles, must die. Truly this ignorance of the role of the Brotherhood of Man is responsible for these terrorist attacks on us. The time has come for all of us as a race, the race of man (woman) to rise up and say we will not take it anyone. We refuse to hate and we will look for the best in others and ourselves and draw that goodness out in them.
We have seen this principle violated time and time again with one excuse after another. But always we have accepted these excuses. We accepted excuses for the longest time that Big Tobacco was entitled to its profits because tobacco was legal. We ignored the fact that thousands of kids were getting addicted everyday and millions of people were being killed by tobacco every year and tens of millions of people being maimed by tobacco. We ignored this in part because we could profit from Big Tobacco stocks and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that the scourge of tobacco was passing us over and just getting those other people and who cares about them. We could kid ourselves and say it was not our responsibility since the product legal. Of course, opium was legal once and some Western and Asian countries forced China to open up its population to opium use, all for profits. We pretended that we were not accepting blood money as Big Tobacco said that smoking was no more dangerous than “eating gummy bears” or as one presidential candidate said; “it was like drinking too much milk”. But is this principle much different than those Swiss Bankers who trusted the word of Honest Adolf (Hitler) who swore that the gold traded with them was not looted from anyone. Or is it different in principle than those who plied their trade in banking and helped Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network or those willing to sell them radioactive material?
The true fact is we can come up with excuse after excuse for using or abusing other people for gain and greed or out of hatred. But the results are always the same at the end of the day. We all suffer when we engage in such behavior and hold such belittling attitudes toward people and life. We all benefit when we realize this Brotherhood of Man on emotional level as well as an intellectual level.
The time is truly here for us to accept this Brotherhood of Man principle. This is now our time to accept this principle before it is too late. Without accepting such a principle, we risk far worse disasters than that which occurred at the World Trade Center.
