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It is impossible, this first week of 2005, not to feel immersed in the earthquake, tsunami (seismic seawave) and related events in South Asia. As spiritual seekers particularly, we are confronted by the apparently random, even senseless death and devastation that has struck so many so quickly these past few days. What kind of a God is it that permits, initiates, encourages (what’s the right verb?) these kinds of awful events?

A few days ago, we posted an essay written by TZF's own Anna about the 9/11 event which asks each of us to wonder about the role, not to say the responsibility, all Americans (and others?) shared in the attack on the Twin Towers. In that essay, Anna refers to the question raised by the Dalai Lama concerning the Chinese invasion and mistreatment of Tibet, and the extent to which those events are an expression and unfoldment of Tibet’s own karma.

In his op-ed column in the January 1 issue of the New York Times, David Brooks bewails the South Asian catastrophe as evidence of nature’s apparent willfulness, amorality, and viciousness. “This catastrophic, genocidal nature,” he writes, “is a long way from the benign and rhythmic circle of life in The Lion King. It's a long way from the naturalist theology of (Henry David) Thoreau's Walden or the writings of John Muir".

Is it?

Those who consider planet earth a living being, as Gaia, might argue, first that, as with all living beings, constant change is inevitable, and second, that our self-evident misuse, even abuse, of the planet was bound sooner or later to generate unhappy consequences. Again, karma.

As suggested at TZF’s article Why Bad Things Happen …, the first thing each of us must do, in any way that we can, is support, comfort, and nourish those who have been stricken by the earthquake, the tsunami and whatever ensues from them. And second, as seekers, we need to remind ourselves that if God is infinite, then God is all there is; and what that means is that our discomfort, our pain, our horror, however appropriate and justified they may seem, are all dependent upon our definition of ourselves and of others as separate, unique, individual persons … when, in fact and in truth, there is no such thing.

Nobody said the spiritual path was going to be easy.

ihavesayso emailed me the text of an excellent opinion piece entitled "Good From Evil" by journalist Charley Reese in which he considers the good that all of us can harvest from the recent natural disaster in South Asia. To read the full article, please click here. Quoted below is a brief excerpt:

If anything good can be said about the disaster that struck Asia, it is that the response demonstrated once and for all that the world really has become a global community.

People put aside the labels that usually divide us – Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever – and responded as human beings to the needs of other human beings. That's encouraging. There might be hope for the human race yet.

And if the people got ahead of their governments, that's OK. People, after all, respond to need. Politicians, whatever their nationality, instinctively pause to assess the political impact of whatever they might do or say. To be angry about that is like being angry at the desert for being dry or the ocean for being wet.

The last paragraph particularly reminds me of these words by former President (and US General) Dwight David Eisenhower: "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way, and let them have it".

Charley Reese concludes, "today the world is closer than it was before the earth shook and the waves came". If that is so, then surely the events in South Asia cannot be considered a disaster. Of course, as I have written elsewhere here, for those individuals and families who experienced personal pain and loss, this kind of consideration is insane. Until their wounds heal, they don't want to hear about "the good of it", and rightly so. And it is our responsibility to allow them to cry and to wail and to mourn, and in whatever way we can, to comfort them as they do so.

But at the same time, again particularly as seekers, we must look for the lessons resident in these events, because in the final analysis, there is no getting around the reality that life is a curriculum, and each of us individually are the students. At least, that's been the continuing and consistent lesson underlying my spiritual path (if, I confess, not continually and consistently learned!).

I am writing this to help me deal with tsuinami as much as anything, I have worked on IS as opposed to any qualitative judgementfor a while now.Sometimes we want to blame the"victums" of such happining as if they got what they deserve.The earth settled. The earthis always settlling.This is an opertunity to love they neighbor as they self on a grand scale. but in everyone's life is desease and tragady and death, it is the way of things here.All moments are opportunities for {want os a better word ]salvation.thank you
peace