Sham Rights Versus Real Rights

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1.       God has not granted Zionists the Biblical right to Palestine or surrounding lands. To whatever extent anything has been granted (and this is a contentious issue), the granting was to those (whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, indigenous peoples, Hindu, or otherwise) who were committed to submitting themselves to God, and this is something which Zionists have never shown themselves capable of doing in any way but a self-serving manner.

2.       Sykes and Picot didn't have the right in 1916 to arbitrarily divide up the Middle East on behalf of the British, French, Italian, and Russian governments.

3.       James Balfour didn't have the right in November 1917 to promise Palestine -- in part or whole -- to the Zionists via the latter's agent, financier, and protector (Lord Rothschild).

4.       The Nazis didn't have the right to help move and transport Zionists to Palestine in the 1930s -- which was Germany's preferred solution prior to developing subsequent forms of a “solution”.

5.       The British had no rightful mandate from Palestinians -- during the period of 1920 to 1948 -- to rule over Palestine, nor did the British have a right to be so incompetent when it came to preventing Zionists from committing acts of terrorism against, and stealing property from, the Palestinian people.

6.       The Zionists -- in the form of Haganah (1920), Irgun (1931), and/or the Stern Gang (1940) -- had no right to commit terrorist acts in Palestine during the period between 1920 and 1948. The very first hi-jacking of airplanes and the first terrorist bombings in the Middle-East were conducted by members of the foregoing organizations.

7.       Meyer Lansky (head of Murder Inc., the American mob-directed assassination bureau) had no right to ship weapons to Palestine. He was merely a Zionist thug helping fellow Zionist thugs through his forte of illicit, illegal, as well as ignoble activities, and the Zionists in Palestine knew the foregoing facts because such realities were the reason why Lansky was never granted citizenship in the Zionist entity created by the U.N. .

8.       The U.N. had no right to take land away from Palestinians in order to recognize a terrorist-based, Zionist government as a separate country in 1948.

9.       The Zionists had no right to declare that the geographical area known as Palestine was: “A land without a people for a people without a land” because such a claim was never true.

10.   The U.N. had no right to apportion the majority of land in Palestine (56%) to a minority people (Zionists, most of who came from outside Palestine, constituted less than a third of the population during the act of partition in 1948).

11.   The Zionists had no right in 1947-1948 to conduct ethnic cleansing in more than 70 Palestinian cities/towns/villages driving out 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, and killing thousands in the process.

12.   AIPAC (which, in 1959, became the renamed successor of the 1954-formed American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs) has no right to operate as a political entity within the United States as long as it fails to abide by the requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

13.   Lyndon Johnson had no right to betray his country -- as both President and Commander in Chief -- when he chose to protect Zionist interests rather than to protect and to assist the American service people serving on the USS Liberty in 1967.

14.   Lyndon Johnston and James Angleton had no right to ensure that Zionists were able to illicitly secure the resources necessary to construct nuclear weapons.

15.   Zionists have no right to hold the world hostage to a threat of nuclear holocaust if such Zionists are not given what they desire.

16.   People who are acting members of any of the three branches of federal, state, or local government in America have no right to be citizens of both the United States and any other country simultaneously. This constitutes an inherent conflict of interest.

17.   With the possible exception of John Kennedy, all presidents from Truman to Biden have betrayed the rights of Americans by showing preference for the cause of Zionists over the needs of Americans. For example, the two-three billion dollars per year that has been given to support Zionists should have been directed toward re-building American infrastructure, or helping those in America who are sick, homeless, hungry, and/or jobless.

18.   Self-absorbed political narcissists such as: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Robert Kennedy, Junior have no right to support, aide, or abet the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians, most of whom are women and children.

19.   The conflict between Palestinians and Zionists did not start on October 7, 2023. The Zionist-side of the conflict started in the late 1800s when people like Theodor Herzl (founder of the Zionist Organization) encouraged other Zionists to invade, settle, and colonize land which was not theirs, while the Palestinian side of the conflict began when the aforementioned invaders started stealing from, terrorizing, imprisoning, and killing Palestinians in the 1930s-1940s and who, as a result, were forced to exercise their right to defend themselves against a foe that was being financially supported, armed, as well as encouraged to become settler-colonialists in Palestine by, among others, America, England, France, and Germany.

20.   Zionism did not come into existence following the holocaust but arose prior to, and independently of, that set of events. However, never wishing to let a crisis go to waste, opportunistic Zionists have callously used the holocaust as a propaganda tool to further their own oppressive ends and, in the process, have misdirected attention away from the threat entailed by all forms of pathological tyranny -- including that of Zionism.

21.   Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, had no right to invite an acknowledged war-criminal as well as a perpetrator of crimes against humanity to address the United States Congress, but he did have a fiduciary responsibility to the people of the United States (which he failed to exercise) to shield the latter from being exposed to anyone who had such a callous and malignant disregard for humanity. Moreover, one is sickened to know that there are hundreds of Representatives and Senators in the U.S. Congress who were willing to stand up 56-times to offer standing ovations indicating that they are fully on board with terrorism, murder, cruelty, theft, torture, and barbaric oppression so that the Zionist entities that have bribed those same governmental officials will be able to continue to interfere with the American political process.

22.   Zionists have no right to be anti-Semitic ... that is, Zionists have no right to harm, abuse, demonstrate bias and bigotry against, or exercise hatred toward Palestinians who -- unlike many, if not most, Zionists -- are actually a Semitic people.

23.   The leaders of Hamas had, and have, no right to place the lives, children, and property of millions of Palestinians at extreme risk in order to advance a morally questionable military and political strategy.

24.   Zionists -- especially the current Prime Minister -- helped to support, protect, and substantially finance Hamas leadership. Neither side of the foregoing destabilizing collusion had the right to actively deceive and manipulate the people of Gaza as well as people in the surrounding areas who only wanted to live in peace.

25.   England, France, Germany, Zionists, the United Nations, America, and the leaders of Hamas might have all manner of self-righteously proclaimed and dubiously obtained laws, rules, and mechanisms of power through which they conduct themselves as they like. However, those countries, organizations, and groups have never actually possessed anything but a self-delegated sense of delusional entitlement as their rationalization for oppressing and betraying the people of Palestine in the despicable manner which the aforementioned countries, organizations and groups have already done and continue to do.

26.   Miko Peled, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappé, Dan Cohen, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, Katie Halper, Lee Camp, Sam Seder, Noam Chomsky, and I.F. Stone -- as well as many other Jewish individuals who could have been mentioned and who have all spoken out against the Zionist project of ethnic cleansing, terrorism, colonialism, and brutal oppression that is taking place in Palestine -- are not the “self-hating Jews” whom Zionists have tried to induce people around the world to derisively dismiss, but, rather, the previously identified individuals are people who give expression to the moral courage, critical reflection, and intellectual rigor that is exemplified in the Jewish spiritual tradition, but, unfortunately, these same qualities seem to be entirely absent from what appears to be the morally bankrupt and corrupt, political-philosophical ideology which is known as Zionism.

27.   Zionists are, and always have been, an occupying force that has become lost in the obsessive, devolutionary, hysterical lawlessness of a colonial-settler way of existence which seeks to spread its pathogenicity everywhere it goes. Consequently, as an occupying power, they have no rights under International Law to defend themselves against those Palestinians who are pursuing the latter's inherent right to be sovereign individuals.

28.   Everyone has a right to sovereignty.

29.   No one has a right to: Ethnic cleansing, torture, terrorism, collective punishment, arbitrary detentions, or behaviors that deprive people of food, shelter, water, education, health care, and the capacity to communicate freely with others about matters that adversely, if not destructively, affect one’s right to sovereignty.

30.   A third of the people being decimated in Gaza and the West Bank are Christians.

31.   Consequently, those Christians who support Zionism are endorsing the idea of an alleged “right” to slaughter and oppress their own Christian brothers and sisters.

32.   Apparently, there are some individuals who believe they have the right to place their spiritual brothers and sisters at risk due to an assumed right to poke or prod Divinity to speed up the end-of-days dynamics in order to realize their own self-serving and delusional understanding of Armageddon at the expense of others. Such a perspective seems inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus/Isa (peace be upon him).

33.   One can only shake one's head in perplexity and dismay concerning those Zionists who claim a right to be outraged and anguished with respect to the holocaust and, yet, in such hypocritical fashion, those individuals also have become inexplicably entangled in perpetrating terrorist acts against the Semitic people of Gaza and the West Bank ... acts that cannot be distinguished from the moral atrocities which occurred during the Second World War.

34.   The United States has used its veto-powers at the United Nations to protect Zionism for 76 years. One of the many flaws of the United Nations is that this latter organization has enabled the United States to use that veto power to facilitate the destruction of all Palestinian rights by offering all manner of political, financial, economic, legal, scientific, and military support to Zionism which has been used for nefarious purposes and, in the process -- as collateral damage from such irresponsible actions -- the lives of those who are sincere explorers of the Jewish spiritual tradition have been adversely affected because Zionists have tried to obfuscate the difference between Zionism and Judaism.

35.   There is a substantial distinction to be drawn between Zionism and Judaism. The former (that is, Zionism) seeks to induce people to destroy spirituality for the sake of personal, worldly gain, whereas the latter (that is, Judaism) seeks to induce people to enhance spirituality independently of, and, if necessary, at the expense of worldly gain.

36.   The meme: “From the River to the Sea, Palestinians will be free” says nothing about annihilating Zionists. Rather, the meme alludes to the right of all people – including Palestinians -- to be free from tyranny, whether Zionist-caused or caused in some other manner.

37.   Unfortunately, those who object to the foregoing meme have become consumed with a classic case of projection in which such individuals fear that others will do to Zionists what Zionists have done, and are doing, to other human beings. Fortunately, there are many people – including Palestinians – who do not suffer from the same defects of thinking, feeling, and acting which characterize those who seek to project their own faults onto others and, as a result, notwithstanding the fictional narrative which has been created by Zionists, Palestinians are pursuing nothing more than for their basic human rights to be acknowledged and realized – aspirations which Zionists have no right to deny or disparage. 

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The foregoing perspective is not my idiosyncratic view concerning the situation in Palestine. It is shared by many individuals who have had their hearts sincerely opened up (i.e., the quality of Ikhlas) to the spiritual influence of Jesus/Isa (peace be upon him), and such people are referred to as Isawi or followers of Jesus/Isa (peace be upon him) by the Sufis (i.e., those who pursue the mystical dimension of Islam). In addition, the foregoing thirty-seven points also resonate with the position of those who have had their hearts sincerely opened up to the spiritual influence of Moses/Musa (peace be upon him) and who are referred to, by the Sufis, as Musawi, or followers of Moses/Musa (peace be upon him). For example, in the latter case, many things were said in an interview given by Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss which are consonant with what has been voiced during the previous five pages. The url for that interview is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2H-F0HVKDY .

Interestingly enough, the foregoing 37 points were written independently of the Rabbi’s interview since I only came to find out about his talk after the foregoing link had been forwarded to me by a fellow Sufi who, after reading the 37 points, responded by suggesting that I listen to the aforementioned interview and for which he had provided me with a link through which to engage the Rabbi’s commentary.

Sufi Reverberations Addendum - Freedom Came Today

 

The poem that will be featured toward the latter part of this video, following some introductory comments, was written some twenty years ago. When the thoughts and emotions bubbled to the surface and came together to form the soon-to-be-played poem, the focus of the composition’s phenomenology was directed toward the insanity, barbarity, propaganda, lies, duplicity, depraved indifference, unholy machinations, and murderous activities of the United States Government and its allied oppressors with respect to their invasion of Iraq – a country that was blamed – falsely -- for helping to organize the events of 9/11 and for allegedly hiding stockpiles of mass destruction which didn’t actually exist but whose actual sin in the eyes of its attackers was that Iraq had begun to disengage from the petro-dollar and was selling its oil through other means. In truth, however, aspects of the American government – with a little help from its friends in British and Israeli intelligence, along with rogue elements from the CIA – were responsible for helping to organize the events of that horrendous day in September and, this led to a reprehensible set of policies being invoked into so-called law (starting with the Patriot Act and continuing on with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) that were designed to use the falsehoods surrounding the carnage and tragedy of 9/11 as leverage for shamelessly seeking to justify the government’s own intent to unleash very real stockpiles of mass destruction upon the people of Iraq and elsewhere. (And, for those who have been induced to accept the “official story” concerning 9/11, please read and critically reflect on actual research concerning 9/11 conducted by: David Ray Griffin, Judy Wood, Jim Marrs, Barbara Honneger, Richard Gage, Ole Dammegard, Rebecca Roth, Barrie Zwicker, Peter Dale Scott, Webster Tarpley, Graeme MacQueen, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, David, Icke, Max Igan, Christopher Bollyn, Thierry Meyssan, Kevin Barrett, James Corbett, Kevin Ryan, and Anab Whitehouse.)

If, when one listens to the forthcoming poem, one substitutes the words: Palestinian and/or Gazians for Iraqis, and: Zionists for American government, nothing else that is being said in the poem – and this is said with considerable sadness -- has changed. The names have changed, but the cruelty, terrorism, and destructiveness that is being inflicted on innocents has not changed at all.

We are still witnessing the insanity, barbarity, propaganda, lies, duplicity, depraved indifference, unholy machinations, and murderous activities of a government as it commits atrocities against unarmed people. On this occasion, however, the Israeli government is the one which is leading the charge against the unsuspecting people of Gaza, rather than against the unsuspecting people of Iraq, while being assisted by self-serving oppressors from the American government as well as several other governments populated with witless, morally challenged sycophants.

Nonetheless, what continues to be a common theme between now and twenty years ago is the manner in which the Israeli government is pretending (just as the American government did following 9/11) that it had nothing to do with enabling someone – in the present case, Hamas – a group that the Israeli government helped protect, support, and fund since 2007 – to breach, in fifteen different places, the security fence system that separates Israel from Gaza. One might note in passing how there has been an array of independent testimonies given by a number of former IDF members (individuals who were intimately familiar with the capabilities of that security system) who recently indicated that what happened on October 7, 2023 was completely impossible based on what they knew, via direct experience, about that security system’s capabilities and the numerous back-up protocols that were entailed by that system.

The implications of the testimonies of Israeli citizens and former members of the IDF which are being alluded to in the foregoing comments is that October 7, 2023 was not the result of a breakdown in Israeli intelligence or incompetence on the part of the IDF. Rather, the events of October 7, 2023 were the calculated, deliberate, with malice aforethought, evil spawn of Israeli intelligence, government officials, and IDF leaders.

Furthermore, evidence from inside Israel has been leaking out in which Israeli citizens who – much to their dismay -- had been caught up in the tricks being played out on October 7, 2023, are testifying that it was the IDF – operating in accordance with the Hannibal Protocol that first came into use during the 2014 Gaza War – that was deliberately seeking to kill both members of Hamas and Israeli citizens during Israel’s terrorist operations. In addition, not only were more than half of the Israelis who died on that day members of the IDF, but none of the allegations about the beheading of Israeli babies, or the raping of Israeli women, and other alleged charges of atrocities that were being directed against the members of Hamas have been demonstrated – on the basis of evidence rather than propaganda -- to be true.

Did Hamas take hostages? Yes, they did. Were members of the IDF killed by members of Hamas on October 7, 2023? Yes, this did happen.

However, evidence indicating that Hamas tortured, raped, and killed unarmed Israeli citizens or perpetrated an array of unspeakable atrocities on October 7, 2023 has not been independently substantiated. To be sure, if credible evidence concerning such allegations should ever surface, then, the perpetrators deserve whatever fate has sought them out because such acts are entirely antithetical to Islam and Christianity. Nevertheless, as far as actual evidence is concerned, there are testimonies given by a number of Israeli citizens who were taken captive on October 7, 2023 which indicated that the latter individuals had been treated with humanity by their Hamas captors.

None of the foregoing is meant to excuse the culpability of members of Hamas from, knowingly or unknowingly, allowing themselves to be used to provide the Israeli government with a purported, but woefully inadequate – indeed, psychopathic and criminal -- justification for conducting a genocide against innocent Palestinians. If the raid of Hamas into Israel was done unknowingly with respect to the Israeli Psy-Op that was being conducted, then, how could the members of Hamas have been so callous in their mode of unthinking, self-aggrandizing lack of insight and discernment to suppose that their actions would not subsequently boomerang, with deadly and devastating results, on the millions of innocent people in Gaza – people who knew nothing about, nor had they given their approval to, the actions of Hamas on October 7, 2023. Surely, Hamas had considerable understanding concerning the sophistication and complexity of the security system that was inherent in the fence structures that separated Gaza from Israel, and, yet, apparently, none of the members of Hamas or its leadership were suspicious of the information that led them to believe that an impenetrable security system could be breached in fifteen different locations on the morning of October 7, 2023. How foolish and careless can one get with the lives of the millions of people in Gaza that were supposed to be protected by Hamas and for whom Hamas had a fiduciary responsibility? … a responsibility which they have failed to observe.

Supposedly, the members of Hamas are ready to resist the IDF when the latter forces enter Gaza, as the IDF already has begun to do. Hamas fighters did actively resist the IDF during some of the earlier IDF intrusions into Gaza and did so successfully on a number of occasions.

Trying to protect Palestinians within Gaza is one thing. Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against a brutal, oppressive, and tyrannical occupier.

 Walking into a trap, however, seems like a bridge too far. Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor.

Hamas has had years of experience involving the sadistic ways in which the Israeli government tortures, abuses, manipulates, lies, steals, beats, maims, and kills for the sheer joy of doing so. Indeed, the Israeli government and its occupying forces are very devoted – pathologically so -- to the details of the foregoing kinds of exploits.

Consequently, it would seem to run overwhelmingly contrary to years of the foregoing sorts of experiences for Hamas to suppose that, somehow, all of the Israeli government’s years of meticulous attention to detail would completely evaporate on the day that Hamas leaders had been induced to attack Israel. Indeed, one wonders what the ultimate source of the alleged “Intel” was that had led Hamas to conduct their “al-Aqsa Flood” operation because the idea that the Israeli stand-down and the Hamas decision to attack during that stand-down was just a coincidence seems to be rather overly coincidental.

Just as was true in relation to the American government, following September 11^th, 2001, the Israeli government wouldn’t mind being charged with having suffered a massive intelligence failure as a way of gaslighting the idea that they were quite prepared to kill their own people and, in the case of the Israelis, perhaps, induce Hamas to assist them in that task in order to prepare the path to a genocide that the Israeli government had been planning to do all along.  If – and I emphasize the word “if” --  some of the leaders and members of Hamas colluded with, if not conspired with, the Israeli government to bring about the colossal tragedy of October 7, 2023, then, the level of the evil that has been let loose into the world has been increased by a multiplicity of levels in magnitude.

If the aforementioned scenario turns out to be true, then, not only did people in the Israeli government betray its own Israeli citizens, but, as well, the leaders of Hamas – or, perhaps, some of them -- might also have betrayed the people of Gaza. There is some degree of uncertainty surrounding the issue of whether the actions of the leaders of Hamas exhibited a knowing or unknowing lack of discernment concerning the situation on October 7, 2023, but notwithstanding such uncertainty, nevertheless, all of the available evidence indicates that the Israeli government was deliberately willing to put its own people in harm’s way in order to provide a pretext for moving forward with its genocidal plan to destroy the people of Gaza – and government leaders in America, England, Germany, and elsewhere appear to be quite prepared to join in to support, fund, arm, and, if necessary, participate in such genocide.

The right to self-defense – a right which belongs to both Palestinians and Israelis – is one thing. Nonetheless, the collective punishment and terrorism which is being egregiously imposed on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government – and, knowingly or unknowingly, with the assistance of individuals from Hamas -- has nothing to do with a right to self-defense and everything to do with the war crimes, as well as the
crimes against humanity, which are being conducted against the unarmed people of Gaza.

None of what is said in the foregoing is said against the thousands of Israelis and people of Jewish faith who have been demonstrating in Tel Aviv, New York City, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere to protest against the heinous actions of the Israeli government. My heart and soul goes out to those thousands of Jewish individuals, and I pray that they will be protected against the lunatics in their governments, as well as those people in the general public, who are sufficiently ill-educated and ill-informed that they can’t tell the difference between, on the one hand, someone who is Jewish or Israeli -- and, who, like individuals from Palestine, wish to be able to live free from hatred, bigotry, or oppression -- and, someone, on the other hand, who is a deranged zealot who wishes to inflict harm on innocent individuals and against whom we all – whether Jew or non-Jew -- need to be protected.

Please keep the foregoing considerations in mind, when one listens to the following poem, entitled: “Freedom Came Today.”

 

Freedom came today for Iraqis

In a measured display of shock and awe

That bestowed gratuitous wounds

On thankful souls who’ll line the streets

And greet us as compassionate heroes.

Freedom came today for 600 thousand innocents

Which, of course, we deny as being far too high a figure

Based on data that do not keep track of dead Iraqis.  

Freedom came today for poor Sami

Who was looking for safety but found some kindness

Which blew him away, so let us play taps to mark

When he became part of America’s dream.

 Freedom came today for journalist Ali

Thrown in jail for, possibly, thirty years

Because he didn’t have the sense to write lies

Rather than truth about ruthlessly earned liberty.

Freedom came today for ‘Aisha who was raped by

Those who set her free. This sort of special gallantry

Is, of course, an anomaly since they normally

Stick with search and destroy.

Freedom came today for unlucky Hassan

Who was trying to see his family, but ended up

Naked in Abu Ghraib, with dogs growling,

Devoid of shame, at his dignity.

Freedom came today for Ra’bia who was caressed

By white phosphorous which made her feel

All warm and fuzzy inside, right down to her small

Little bones. Surely, her cup runneth over.

Freedom came today for the masses who can,

Whenever they like, turn on faucets empty

Of water, or switch on lights with no electricity

To illumine tyranny’s just end.

Freedom came today in such neatly

Wrapped packages of hypocrisy

And lies … democracy at its best, sold as a

Capital idea to people hungry for sovereignty.

Freedom came today to greedy ones, who,

Out of duty, lobbied their way to no bid, cost-plus

Contracts, made in the secrecy of self-serving facts

That enriched only non-Iraqis.

Freedom came today in uncivil ways,

One brother, against another,

Locked in malignant enmity,

Set loose by U.S. magnanimity.

O’ beautiful with rapacious eyes.

 Freedom came today to plans, where bands

Of hired guns are inspired to kill sand-dwellers

So wars will not wash up on homeland shores,

And mangled lives can be sanitized through illusions.

Freedom came today when night-vision goggles

Found opportunity in their sights, and those who

Never saw it coming were liberated.

Strange how we see their bodies but not their hearts.

Freedom might come today if the good old USA --

Despite a touch of delusion about it’s assumed

Place in God’s space – would attend to the

Ten commandments and leave Iraq alone.

Freedom might come today if knowledge

Took hold in citizens’ souls about democracy’s

Decay through abuse of power, which shackles

Conscience, and mindless fears of created demons.

The Voice of Innocence

 He eloquently speaks about the present (and past) in conjunction with his people, and his words carry a resonance which alludes to a fast-approaching possible future for many other peoples. May God have mercy on all of us ... those who have awakened (at least to a degree), and those who are struggling to awaken, as well as those who are still asleep but have the potential to awaken. Whether we are struggling to awaken, or we continue to sleep or, if (to whatever degree) we have awakened and are seeking to constructively act in some way, these are all choices for which we have a duty of care and from which there is no escape. This is at the heart of what is entailed by having been given the gift of life.

Rumi's Field: A Sufi's Perspective

Recently, I listened to a TED Talk by Leon Berg (see the accompanying video). The talk covered a lot of existential territory, including: emotional intelligence, empathy, vulnerability, active listening, equality, conflict, exploration, spiritual growth, as well as the idea of learning how to stay with emotion rather than walling emotion away or giving in to an inclination to exhibit acting out behavior concerning this or that emotion.

All of the foregoing ideas were woven from the fabric of the practice of ‘Council’. Council is a process that is rooted in qualities of listening with, and speaking from, the heart.

When done with sincerity, commitment, and honesty, the practice of ‘council’ is an act of worship or devotion by those who participate in such a process. During council, one seeks to attend to the depth of Being out of which the speech of another human being arises, and, when one speaks one seeks to give expression to the deepest core of one’s Being. 

While outlining the essential character of the foregoing process of worship or devotion known as ‘council’, the TED speaker indicated that he was a great admirer of Jalalu-‘d-din Rumi. More specifically, Mr. Berg quoted the following words that are attributed to Rumi: 

“Out beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” 

Actively listening to those words induced me to enter the territory of my heart and reflect on what Rumi might be trying to say. Was Rumi stipulating that there is no such thing as right and wrong? Not necessarily! 

Perhaps Rumi was saying that irrespective of how appropriate ideas concerning rightness and wrongness might be in certain circumstances, there is a dimension to existence that falls beyond those sorts of discussion. When one strips away the cluttering debris arising from the machinations of the world or dunya and quiets the confusing, incessant chatter of the nafs or ego, there is a sacred field or space where only essence exists … your essence and my essence embraced by the field formed through the activity of the Breath of the All-Merciful … a wonderful, beautiful, fulfilling, nurturing place to meet and become engaged in the transactions of transcendence.

However, there are problems surrounding the challenge of finding one’s way to the field to which Rumi is alluding. This is where spiritual practices have a central role to play. 

Virtually every authentic spiritual tradition that I have studied shares certain things in common. All of those traditions – each in its own inimitable fashion – emphasize the importance of: fasting, prayer, remembrance, seclusion, self-purification, charitableness, meditation, contemplation, as well as the acquisition of positive, constructive emotional qualities of character – such as: compassion, love, friendship, courage, honesty, tolerance, forgiveness, humility, gratitude, patience, integrity – as well as the elimination of negative, destructive emotional qualities involving: anger, envy, greed, hatred, dishonesty, intolerance, selfishness, arrogance, impatience, apathy. 

If one wishes to arrive at the field to which Rumi is alluding, sacrifice is required. One of things that must be sacrifice is one’s own idea about what is right and wrong. 

One must become like a scientist seeking to discover the natural laws through which Being operates – this is the real meaning of: Shari’ah – a process of journeying to the place where one will find the water that gives sustenance to our essential nature. However, one will only have the opportunity to make the journey of discovery with respect to natural law by immersing oneself in the constructive qualities of emotional character and distancing oneself from the destructive qualities of emotional potential.

Constructive qualities of emotional character are at the heart of whatever is right. Negative, destructive qualities of emotionality are at the core of whatever is wrong.

When one transcends one’s ideas about rightness and wrongness and, instead, adopts the existential metric of rightness and wrongness inherent in the natural laws of Being, then, God willing, one will enter into the field to which Rumi is alluding in the aforementioned words. 

In the early stages of his TED talk, Mr. Berg mentioned a saying attributed to Jesus (peace be upon him) that appears in the Gospel of Thomas – namely: “If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.”

The natural law of the Universe can be found within us. If we bring forth those natural laws that serve our essential nature, they have the capacity to save us from ourselves. If we do not bring forth the constructive dimensions of natural law, then the negative, potential which lies within each of us will lead to our spiritual, if not, worldly destruction. 

Life is the story of the conflict between the constructive and destructive sides of natural law. Life is the story about the identity of the quality of emotional character we will bring into our lives. The purpose of life is to seek to discover those natural laws that will assist us to survive – if not flourish – spiritually. 

In his TED talk, Leon Berg related an anecdote concerning the life of Carl Jung. At one point in his life, Jung visited the United States and, among other things, spent time with the Hopi Indians.

During his time with the Hopi, one of the elders said to Jung words to the effect that the Hopi considered the white man to be crazy. When Jung asked the elder why the Hopi felt this way, the elder was said to respond with words to the effect of: “The white man thinks with his head.” Jung inquired about what the Hopi thought with, and the elder is reported to have said: “With our hearts.”

I both agree with, and disagree with, the words being attributed to the Hopi elder. While it is true that all too many white people think in a way that is devoid of emotional intelligence and wisdom – especially their so-called leaders who often speak with the forked-tongue of calculating, manipulative, self-serving, corrupting, and exploitive logic– nonetheless, there also are white people (perhaps not enough of them) who think with their heart, and, consequently, the Hopi elder’s statements – if true – gives expression to a sort of thinking that seems to be more from the head than the heart, and, as such, however true it might be, those words might not be conducive to finding Rumi’s field where the essences of white, red, brown, black, and yellow-skinned individuals can meet.

The late Russell Means talked about the importance of trying to free the white man from the enslavement in which the white man currently exists … and, yes, the white man is deeply enslaved. Russell believed that unless the white man could be induced to re-discover the true meaning of sovereignty, then Indians would never be permitted to live as sovereign people, and, therefore, he spent a considerable amount of time trying to enter into a sort of ‘council’ with white people to help nudge white people toward a meaningful kind of sovereignty. 

Sovereignty – which plays a crucial role in the search for the natural laws of Being – is a necessary prerequisite for finding one’s way to Rumi’s field. Sovereignty entails the sort of respect for rights, along with the material means needed to realize those rights, that provides people with the opportunity to undertake the journey of discovery concerning the natural laws of Being that are capable of leading to Rumi’s field. 

Of course, the aforementioned Hopi elder might have been speaking from a place of considerable pain with respect to the genocidal, abusive manner in which Indian people have been treated by all too many whites. If one devoutly listens to the Hopi elder’s words with one’s heart, one recognizes the grief and sorrow that underlies those words … for the situation of Native Americans would not be what it is, if it were not the case that all too many whites engaged life through the calculus and logic of self-serving thought with little concern for the devastation that such ways of thinking foisted on Native peoples … as well as upon Blacks, and other races. 

Toward the end of his TED talk, Leon Berg spoke about some of the work he has done in Israel with respect to bringing Palestinians and Jews into ‘council’ so that they both might benefit from practicing the process of listening and speaking from the heart. He indicated how one of the first things he did to sort of break the ice during those gatherings was to ask each participant to say who they were, where they came from, who their people were, and to relate one story about his or her people.

Oftentimes during this phase of the council process, the Palestinians or Israeli Arabs would speak about the Nakba – the Day of Catastrophe – when, among other things, 700,000 Palestinian refugees were created as Israel declared its independence in 1948. On the other side, when the Jewish participants had the opportunity to talk in council about who they were and where they come from, they related stories concerning the Holocaust.

Like the Hopi elder, the individuals participating in the Israeli council sessions gave expression to the grief and sorrow that ensued when one group of people dealt with another group of people through the logic of negative, destructive, self-serving thinking. If the people in those council circles listen to such accounts with their hearts, they might just be able to struggle their way toward Rumi’s field. 

During this section of his talk, Leon Berg quoted words from a 2013 speech given by Barack Obama in Israel. Obama said: “Peace must be made among peoples, not just governments. That is where peace begins – not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people.”

Those words might or might not come from the heart. Irrespective of whether, or not, they do, they are almost always overruled by the plotting and planning of governments that insist on denying people the sort of sovereignty which would permit those people to make peace.

One can’t: give 2-3 billion dollars a year in largely military aide to Israel, permit illegal settlements and illegal walls to be built in Palestinian territory, and ignore the nuclear beam in the Israeli eye, while complaining about the possibility of a nuclear mote in the eyes of Iranians, and, simultaneously, make statements about peace beginning with people and not the plans of governments, without being considered something of a hypocrite. The Palestinian problem has, for the most part, never been a function of the people considered independently of governments … it has always been a problem of governments interfering with the sovereignty of people and denying the people any real opportunity to not only participate in the practices of ‘council’ that would afford them the opportunity to listen to, and speak with, other individuals from the heart, but, as well, to be able to act on what their hearts were telling them was necessary for peace to be realized.

Peace is rooted in being able to establish and give expression to the positive, constructive dimensions of the natural law of Being. Governments (on whatever side) tend to be deeply ensconced in the practice of negative, destructive dimensions of human potential even as such practices are couched in the terms of allegedly rational logic. 

There can be no real rationality without incorporating the wisdom of emotional intelligence into such deliberations. Moreover, the practice of council should not be restricted to occasional gatherings but should become part of the very fabric of government. 

In fact, sovereign people who regularly engage in the process of council would have little need for any kind of government except that which was needed to protect and nurture such sovereignty and its concomitant practice of council. Sovereignty is about establishing the conditions through which people will be enabled to discover the wisdom of emotional intelligence that is inherent in the natural law of Being, and council is one of the tools of sovereignty through which people can provide one another with the opportunity to practice and develop the skills of listening with, and speaking, from the heart. 

May the Great Mystery, the Tao, Divinity, Intellectus, the Buddha-nature, and/or Atman enable us to bring sovereignty into our lives through the discovery of the natural law of Being. May we meet one another in Rumi’s splendid field for a round, or two, of transcendent transactions during mystical council.