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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Will Evil be defeated by superior and overwhelming force?
I am so grateful ... and I am so sorry for what I did
April 19, 2011, BBC At 14-years-old, schoolboy Umar Fidai was brainwashed into thinking blowing himself up in a crowd would get him into paradise. When his suicide bomb jacket failed to completely detonate, instead blowing off his left arm and tearing open his abdomen, the care shown by doctors who treated him made him realise he was wrong. Umar said he now regrets the bombing which was carried out after being lured into training with the Taliban. "I am so grateful, because I have been saved from going to hell. I am in a lot of pain, but I know there are many people in hospital even more severely injured than me and I am so sorry for what I did and for what Ismail did," Umar told the BBC. "We did a very bad thing by killing children and old men and women. I now realise suicide bombing is un-Islamic. I hope people will forgive me." Umar said a member of the Taliban would approach him on the way to school in his hometown, close to the border of Afghanistan, and tell him there was no point in learning. "He told me that nothing was better than paradise, and that you could earn that by killing non-believers." "The Taliban prayed all the time and read the Koran, so I thought they were good people. My heart told me to go and train with them." He said he and Ismail were told their attack would be on non-believers in Afghanistan, but they instead arrived at a shrine in Pakistan, where extremists believe worship is "un-Islamic." The plan was for Ismail to detonate his bomb in the shrine, while Umar would wait for ambulances to come so he could blow himself up nearby. "All I was thinking was that I had to detonate myself near as many people as possible. When I decided it was the right time, it was a moment of happiness for me. I thought that there would be a little bit of pain, but then I would be in heaven." Umar said he hasn't heard from his family since and lives in fear of the Taliban. "I know my mother and my younger sisters, in North Waziristan, would know what's happened and they must be very upset. I just want to apologize to my mother. But at the time I detonated myself, thoughts of my family were not in my mind, I was only thinking about what the Taliban had taught me."
old lady disarms robber with her kindliness:"Young man, I love you and God loves you" Feb. 21, 1983 – Mason, Tennessee. Mr. Nathan Degrafinried met on porch by an escaped convict. “Lord Honey” Louise heard her husband say. Man burst in door; shotgun; “Don’t make me kill you.” Man was Riley Arzeneaux – escaped with 4 other inmates. Louise Degrafinried; grandmother; 73 years old took over: “Young man, I’m a Christian. I don’t allow no violence in this home. Put that gun down and you sit down.” He looked at her; put gun down; sat on coach. “Lady, I am so hungry. I haven’t eaten in 3 days.” “Young man, you just sit down there, and I’ll fix you breakfast. "Nathan," she said, “go get this young man some dry socks.” Before eating she said: “Young man, let’s give thanks that you came here and that you are safe.” She prayed. Later: “Young man, I love you and God loves you. God loves us all, every one of us, especially you.” “You sound just like my grandmother. She’s dead now.” He cried. Sirens coming down the street. “They’re gonna kill me.” “No young man, they ain’t gonna hurt you. You done wrong but God loves you.” She and her husband took him by the arm to the door. “You let me do the talking” she said. Police with guns drawn. “Y’all put those guns away. I DON’T ALLOW NO VIOLENCE HERE. PUT THEM AWAY. This young man wants to go back. Nathan! Bring the young man out to the car.” They put the cuffs on. They drove away. That afternoon, two men who escaped with Riley came into a back yard during a barbeque. A man went in and got a gun and was shot dead and his wife taken hostage. Nathan and Louise Degrafinried are lifelong members of the Mount Sinai Primitive Baptist church.
a vast and complex next-world society devoted to overcoming Evil with Good The following is an excerpt from Father Robert Benson's More Life In The World Unseen, channeled information from Summerland. He and Ruth are showing a new arrival, Roger, some of the "neighborhood." They stop at the edge of a small property, a picturesque country cottage. Robert explains that the man who lives therein was once an inhabitant of the dark realms. Robert and Ruth, along with their friend Edwin, had visited the once-churlish man, an attempt to help him come to the Light: Those dark realms are not the theological hell to which people are condemned for all eternity; once in, never out again. Every person, who at present is an inhabitant of those terrible places, has the free choice to emerge from them whenever he changes his mind. He can work his way out in precisely the same way as we can work our way from these lovely lands into still lovelier. The law is the same there as here, and applies to us all, there and here. And here is a living witness to what I say. Do you see that trim cottage over there, Roger, with the two tall trees near it? Well, I’m revealing no secrets when I tell you that the dweller in that cottage once lived in an awful hovel ... in the dismal, bleak regions … [The man comes to greet them and says,] But come inside, and let our new friend see what a spirit world country cottage looks like ... This small dwelling was as neat and trim inside as it was outside, and everything was arranged with the greatest taste and refinement, and with yet an eye upon solid comfort and enjoyment ... When I lived on earth, Roger, I was a successful business man. Business was my preoccupation in life, for I thought of precious little else, and I considered all means right in my dealings with others, provided such means were strictly legal. As long as they were that, I deemed the rest did not matter. I was ruthless, therefore, in gaining my ends, and coupled with a high degree of efficiency, I achieved great commercial success. In my home, there was only one person to be thought of, and that was myself. The rest of the family did as they were told, and I did the telling. I always gave generously to charity when I thought I should derive the greatest benefit and credit for myself, for I did not believe in anonymity as far as I was concerned. If any donations were to be given I saw to it that my name was sufficiently prominent. Of course, I supported the church in the district where I lived, and at my own expense had some portions added to the building, with proper emphasis upon the donor. [The man explains how Edwin had tried to help him but with no success.] At length he returned, but this time not alone, for he brought with him ... two friends, who are looking after you, Roger, Monsignor and Ruth. Glancing back now, I know that visit was the turning point. Ruth and Monsignor stood in my room, very discreetly in the background, while Edwin spoke to me. I began to feel a trifle less angry, and my eyes were continually drawn towards Ruth, when I had first glimmerings of light, if I may so express it. Ruth’s presence served to remind me that I had a daughter of my own, though I had treated her equally abominably with the rest. There was no physical resemblance between Ruth and my daughter, it was more one of temperament, as far as I could judge. Whatever it was, I already began to feel differently. That, combined with all that Edwin had spoken to me on so many occasions, had its effect. After my visitors had gone, a terrible loneliness came over me, as well as deep, dark remorse, so intense that I cried aloud in my despair for Edwin’ s presence now, which I had so often spurned with contempt, for I had put in some good thinking. You can imagine my joy and surprise when I perceived Edwin coming towards the house almost upon the instant of my cry. Editor's note: Compare this to the line in The Wedding Song, "he is now to be among you at the calling of your heart." I met him at the door, and as he would tell you himself, I was a changed man. The first thing I did was to thank him for coming so expeditiously, and I was not much accustomed to thanking people for anything. The next, was to apologize to him for all I had said and done to him. But he waved my words aside with a brilliant smile upon his face that clearly bespoke his great pleasure that, at last, I was on the way to being something very different Editor's note: This "great pleasure" reminds us of another phrase in The Wedding Song, "rest assured he is acting on his part." Edwin at once sat down with me and proceeded to discuss ways and means of getting me out of the hellhole that was my abode. A course of action was decided upon. Edwin did the deciding, for I put myself entirely in his hands, and for the present it was arranged that I should remain where I was for a brief while, and that I had but to call him and he would come. After he had gone, I gazed round upon my house, and in some extraordinary manner it seemed much brighter than it was. It was unquestionably less dingy, and my clothes were less shabby, and that discovery helped to make me feel a great deal happier. I will not bore you with all the struggles, hard struggles, I had to make up for all that was past. It was hard work, but I never lacked friends. I don’t need to look farther than this room to see two, at least. I hope you find this true account as moving as I do. But what I would particularly direct your attention to is the triggering point for this man's enlightenment - Ruth reminded him of his dear daughter, and that caused his egoic defenses to crumble. They had "reminded him of the things that he used to love"; in so doing, Benson's team had overcome Evil with Good. Apostle Paul: "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Henry Ward Beecher: “Love is the medicine of all moral evil. By it the world is to be cured of sin.” Mohammed: "To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil." Socrates: "One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him." Sivananda: "An evil man is a saint of the future. See good in everything. Destroy the evil-finding quality. Develop the good-finding quality. Rise above good and evil." Abraham Lincoln: "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
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