Jan Nicolaas Kind -- Brazil
Abraham Oron (photo) heads a small but active group of Theosophists in Israel. It is of the utmost importance that all those who are assembled in the TS worldwide and call themselves theosophists, are aware that many of our sisters and brothers work very hard for Theosophy in the well-known and war-torn regions of Ukraine and Israel for example, often under very difficult circumstances. I reached out to Abraham asking him to share some of his thoughts about the recent and tragic events. He wrote a short but important letter to me and I’ll share his note with all of you. As an introduction I have added a paragraph from Boris de Zirkoff’s sublime “On the Threshold of Tomorrow”, written in 1947. For the complete article, click HERE (jnk)
The crisis of today is a crisis of human thinking, not solely a conflict of mutually-excluding political and economic interests. If we are to go up and forward, we must abandon our mental and emotional aggressiveness, intolerance, superiority and exclusiveness. We must replace them with universality, good-will, global consciousness, mutual understanding, and the will to peace. Justice, integrity, kindness, forgiveness, love of our fellow-men, charity and human dignity, must be made paramount in our mutual relations, as men and as nations. They must be shown to be symptoms of inner strength. Upon them can be reared a true civilization, the civilization of the atomic age.
The alternatives are simple: One World - or None!
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THE LETTER
Dear Jan,
There is a lot of pain and suffering these days in Israel and Gaza.
The newspapers here are full of stories about the brutal acts of Hamas, and also about the destruction and the many deaths among the civilian population in Gaza.
At the moment, the end of this war is not yet in sight, but we Theosophists learn that every destruction is an opportunity for renewal, and every death is an opening to rebirth.
Some of the bright spots these days are the revelations of brotherhood and support for those whose relatives were killed or kidnapped, and also the large movement of volunteers that help the kibbutzim and villages that were damaged or destroyed as a result of the Hamas attack.
Our big lesson in this period, and which we emphasize again and again in the study sessions, deals with the transformation of anger and the desire for revenge, to compassion and support for those who were injured or lost their loved ones.
The stress and mental distress following the war causes an influx to “mindfulness workshops” that are held on Zoom and sometimes reach up to 1,000 participants (!!) and more.
This is a dark time but it also has points of light and hope that the suffering we are going through will inspire the sane majority on both sides to search and find ways to live in peace.
Fraternal greetings from Israel,
Abraham