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Peace Issue

Jun 24, 2005 08:09 PM
by Bart Lidofsky


There was a library, which had, as an employee, a man of great faith. The library contained many rare and irreplaceable volumes. One day, a fire started. The man calmly walked out. One of the other employees asked, excitedly, “What about the rare books?”

“You shouldn't do anything.,” replied the man “They'll be taken care of.”

The other employees, risking injury, grabbed as many of the rare books as they could, as the man stood and watched. By the time the firefighters arrived, almost all the rare books had been removed from harm. They were stacked up on the streets, as the burned and soot-covered employees caught their breaths.

“You see? You did all that for nothing,” said the man. “They were taken care of.”

The Quest Magazine is the main voice of the Theosophical Society. Large amounts of information about the Theosophical Society are included, as well as a single paragraph, hidden near the bottom of the indicia, saying, “The Theosophical Society in America is not responsible for any statement in this magazine by whomever made, unless contained in an official document of the Society. The opinions of the writers are their own.”

While this may be true, the editorial policy is certainly that of the Theosophical Society, and what is put in the Quest is certainly presented as if it was the official opinion of the Theosophical Society.

And this is why I am extremely disappointed with the July-August, 2005 issue of the Quest.

One of the principles that virtually all Theosophists agree upon is a basic unity behind the perceived universe. Everything is interconnected with everything else, even if it appears that they are separate. One would not know that this was the case, from the current issue of Quest Magazine. On the contrary, the articles are written from a point of view not unlike the man in the story above, who was incapable of connecting the idea of the books being safe from the work and sacrifice given to ensure their safety, even to the point of chiding those who risked themselves for their efforts.

The current issue of Quest has a theme of peace, with the authors criticizing those who go to war, without ever making the connection that a temporary war may be the only way to ensure the more lasting freedom, or even preserve life. In addition, the thinking of the authors disconnects actions from intent, when Theosophical authors have, previously, stressed the importance of treating both action and intent as a whole.

Lets start with the first article, “Thinking in Freedom.” It starts out with a quote by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, an author who would have been put to death in the gulags of the Soviet Union had it not been for the efforts of those who were willing to put their lives on the line for human freedom. The author, Sheldon Stoff, criticizes the desire to preserve freedom as growing out of ego, as if there was something wrong with preserving the freedom that allows him to write the articles that he does. He talks about answering hate with love, ignoring the fact that those for whom freedom means taking freedom away from others use love and trust to destroy those who believe in freedom. He ignores the fact that humanity has not completed its evolution, and that some people have refused to evolve, and, to them, self-determination means taking away the right of self-determination from others.

In the next article, “A Breath of Life for the Anonymous Dead”, the author, Edward Tick, clearly dissociates actions from intent by equating the Ann Frank House, the site of My Lai, and Hiroshima. The first was a victim of a policy of atrocities by a government. The second was individuals representing government acting in a manner that the government itself considered criminal, where the perpetrators were tried, found guilty, and imprisoned. As for the third, it represented the attempts to free people like Ann Frank from oppression; the oppression by the Japanese is even given in more detail by Tania Dyett in a later article, “A Lesson Learned.” Tick later equates the extermination of the Holocaust, where millions of innocent civilians were systematically and purposely slaughtered, with the deaths of Iraqi civilians killed during the current war in Iraq, ignoring the fact that many were killed by fellow Iraqis, that great efforts were made to minimize the deaths of Iraqi civilians, and that the rate of civilians being killed actually went considerably DOWN during and after the invasion; Saddam Hussein killed civilians at a far greater rate than the U.S. forces have. But once again, intent is ignored, the context is ignored, and only the action is considered.

In the next article, “The Miracle of Transformation”, Kay Mouradian seems to say that the adage, “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” should be ignored, and it is better to forget about history, if it makes one happier. The message of the article appears to be, “Let those who commit evil get away with it, just forget about it, and it will be a much happier world.” It will be until others who wish to do evil are encouraged by the fact that their predecessors were spared the negative consequences of their actions.

In an article written over a decade ago, Tony Lysy describes a sweatshirt with a caption, “Were all on the same side.” In the universal sense, where time has no meaning, this may be true, but in the time space-continuum in which we are currently rooted, this is not true at all. He writes, “Can we as a people ever grasp that unity requires diversity and not uniformity?” ignoring the fact that there are people who are willing to kill to destroy diversity, and if they are not stopped, then the evolution of humanity will certainly be delayed.

Similarly, in his article, John Algeo speaks about the preference of archetypes of love rather than archetypes of murder. This is fine, in and of itself, when one is dealing with people who are willing to live and let live. But, once again, if one is dealing with people for whom the right of self-determination includes taking that right away from others, even to the point of death, then perhaps love should be extended to those who are being oppressed.

The issue is rounded out by Radha Burnier, who, in her article, “Mental Compartments”, equates the suicide bombers of Al Queda, pedantic teachers, and Siegfried and Roy, calling them all terrorists, and therefore reduces the significance and danger of the former, and belittles those who do make distinctions between them. First of all, there is a difference between making somebody feel bad about themselves, and maiming or even killing them. And animals do NOT have the same rights as people. And, finally, there is a difference between criminals taking hostages using weapons, and police using weapons to free the hostages, even if both are using weapons. Once again, intent is key.

On the back cover, there is a quote, which says, in part, “war is merely the effect, the symptom, of inner moral weakness.” Once again, it ignores the fact that inaction creates karma; if there is injustice that one can stop, and one fails to act to stop it, then one takes partial responsibility for that injustice. And, sometimes, war is the only way available to end the injustice, in which case war arises from moral conviction, not weakness.

While, several times in the issue, it is mentioned in passing that people were liberated from their oppressors, none of the authors seem to connect the liberation with the actions required in the process of the liberation, even to the extent of condemning those actions. The freedom that the authors have to write was paid for in war, whether they appreciate it or not. It would be as ironic as the man in the library, if the attitudes encouraged would only result in rare books being destroyed, and not people, or freedom itself.





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