NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
For many, it is easy to recognize the prevailing sense of pessimism or hopelessness in our times; the feeling that one is unable to cause a lasting impact on the world, either because of the enormous scale of the challenges that need to be resolved, or because one gets lost in dealing with symptoms, ill equipped to deal with the root cause of the challenges. Perhaps this is one of the attributes that characterizes the onset of a middle ages, which are marked also by a tendency towards separation, competition, and racism – a general degradation of human connections and human values.
As the courageous amongst us persevere to find real solutions for real change, it becomes evident that the secret to change lies not in new laws, new committees, new systems, or new funds or resources. The ancient sages have always maintained that the key lies in purifying human consciousness; individually and collectively, we must embark on a sincere pursuit of Beauty, Goodness, Justice, and Truth.
This suggests that the solution is an internal solution, to be found within the human being, and therefore independent of external circumstances. It relies on the human will to transform, and master himself. Obscure, but ever present through history, we find few great and enigmatic heroes, torch bearers, who dared to set off on this inner path. Let us also dare to follow their example. Let us Discover, Awaken, Transform.
ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE
Racism can be expressed and experienced on different levels. Not knowing how to value another race or another religion is part of an ethical conception of racism. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. It appears in the Renaissance and especially develops in the 18th and 19th centuries.
During the Renaissance, while Europe was experiencing a gigantic shift of ideas in almost every aspect of knowledge, in India, was born a man who, as Emperor of Hindustan, would use his indomitable courage and a restless search for wisdom to weave a similarly audacious social, political, and spiritual vision in the Indian subcontinent. His name was Abu’l-fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar.
Which would you prefer: meeting for a quick cup of coffee with a friend or spending the same amount of time texting back and forth about the same topic? Chances are that most of us would prefer the first but usually end up doing the second. But can 10 texts really equal a face to face exchange? Can an emoji replace the smile and the look in the eyes of a friend? Is a network the same as a community?
Hazrat Baba Bulleh Shah is believed to have been born in 1680, in the small village of Uch (Bahawalpur, Punjab) in present-day Pakistan, where his father, Shah Muhammad Darwaish, was a Paish Imam and teacher. Most historians confirm that Bulleh Shah worked as an adolescent herder in the village. Despite his poverty, however, he was able to educate himself very well, and became a well known Sufi mystic, and celebrated Kaafi poet, using the main lyrical form of Punjabi Sufi Poetry.
Amidst a series of mystical verses compiled in the Bhagavad Gita, this is one of the fundamental instructions that Krishna transmits to a distraught Arjuna, when faced with the prospect of killing his own cousins in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in order to reinstate dharma in the kingdom.
We know that the duration of time varies in accordance with the inner state with which we measure it. For this reason, neither in the life of human beings nor in their historical life as a whole, can we avoid this sensation of uncontrollable speed. Partly because everything happens without intervals that allow us to breathe; and partly because the number of events that are happening all over the world exceeds our capacity for assimilation;