Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Publisher of Hinduism Today Speaks on the September 11th, 2001, Attack on America 9/12/01

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami,
Publisher of Hinduism Today
Speaks on the September 11th, 2001,
Attack on America
9/12/01


The giant 12-foot by 24-foot saffron-colored Hindu flag which flies at my monastery on the island of Kauai, Hawaii lies at half-mast today, in honor of the victims of yesterday's abhorrent and tragically violent attacks on America. In response to the many queries I have received about yesterday's calamity, we offer these thoughts and perspectives:
Every high-minded and good soul on Earth has been hurt and shocked by the appalling images of the buildings being destroyed in New York and Washington and the resulting deaths of untold thousands of innocent human beings. Hindus everywhere in the world, of every tradition, are praying for those who have suffered and rightfully calling for the terrorists to be brought to justice and for terrorism itself to be stopped in every nation of the world so people everywhere may live in security. Leaders must be vigilant, and governments have the duty to protect all citizens and to punish the guilty. We must all rely on the integrity of the US leadership to do the right thing to assure a future free from such terrorism.

"Hindus everywhere are reminding themselves and those they meet of the great principle of Ahimsa, noninjury, which Gandhi lived so faithfully and which lies at the heart of all Hindu thought and culture. Not to injure others is the highest path. The ancient South Indian scripture, Tirukural, says, "It is the principle of the pure in heart never to injure others, even when they themselves have been hatefully injured. Harming others, even enemies who harmed you unprovoked, surely brings incessant sorrow." The wise never let hateful people fill them with hate, never give permission to the angry to arouse their own instinctive nature of anger. They cling to the Divine, trust in the Divine in all circumstances and thus are channels for the divine process of human transformation and evolution.

"As unimaginable as this tragedy is, we must all not respond to violence with more violence in our homes and streets. Trust our government and the governments of the world to perform their military duty to assure our safety in the future. We must be the peacemakers, the arbiters of differences and the protectors of goodness. The world has always been populated by people of the lower nature and those of a higher nature. Immature souls, young souls in spiritual evolution, live in the chakras below the muladhara, where fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, confusion, selfishness and maliciousness without conscience reside. Old souls live in the higher chakras, where reason, will, understanding and love prevail. Life on Earth has always been happiest, safest and most rewarding when the higher-consciousness people are in control, both of themselves and of those who follow a lower path. Each one can make a choice in the days ahead to remain in the light and illumine the world or be drawn into the darkness of hate, fear and revenge. Our Siva is a God of love, and our traditions and scriptures assure us that this love will overcome every lesser force."

Read below Gurudeva's presentation at the United Nations on Stopping War.

Particular advice for devotees:
I strongly endorse the giving of blood by my devotees at this hour of human need.

What To Tell our Children

The question has arisen among so many regarding what to tell our children about the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Here are some simple guidelines gathered from experts who counsel children professionally about tragedies and violence.

TALK, TALK, TALK: They say to sit for more time than usual with your kids and talk to them. Talk about democracy and how wonderful it is, and about freedom, and how these can be abused, as in the case of terrorists. Talk to them about violence and about peace, about why people get violent and why we should not respond with violence. Talk about ahimsa, the great spiritual law of noninjuriousness. Talk about karma and how when we hurt others, that hurt comes back one day and causes us to suffer, and when we love others we are naturally loved. Experts say to admit to children when you don't know the answer to their questions. This shows our sincerity and lets them know we don't have all the answers. It will actually help their trust grow.

ENVELOP THEM IN SAFETY: Kids can become insecure easily, especially if the parents are themselves uncertain or upset. So, be calm, be an example. Hug them, tell them stories, make them special meals, take a walk. Time spent with them is invaluable. Don't let them watch TV for hours. Do carefully limit the images of violence they see. Show them ways in which the world is a safe place, and assure them they are safe with you, in their home, far from the source of these awful happenings (most are). Give them a strong sense of the future, and speak about how such problems are being worked on by thousands of very smart and good men and women. You can tell older kids details about finding and punishing those who did it, but not the very young. Give them hope by your words and your assurances. Young ones can be distracted into happy play and experiences. Kids, like all people, want to feel safe.

American Academy of Pediatrics Offers Advice on Communicating with Children about Disasters

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In response to the tragic events unfolding in New York and Washington, DC, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) would like to offer some advice on how to communicate with children and adolescents during times of crisis.

* It's important to communicate to children that they're safe. Given what they may have seen on television, they need to know that the violence is isolated to certain areas and they will not be harmed. Parents should try to assure children that they've done everything they can to keep their children safe.

* Adolescents in particular can be hard hit by these kinds of events and parents might want to watch for signs such as: sleep disturbances, fatigue, lack of pleasure in activities enjoyed previously, and initiation of illicit substance abuse.

* Overexposure to the media can be traumatizing. It's unwise to let children or adolescents view footage of traumatic events over and over. Children and adolescents should not watch these events alone.

* Adults need to help children understand the significance of these events. Discussion is critical. It should be stressed that the terrorist acts are ones of desperation and horror -- that there are "bad" people out there, and bad people do bad things. But not all people in a particular group are bad. Children should know that lashing out at members of a particular religious or ethnic group will only cause more harm.

For World Peace,
Stop the War in the Home

A talk given by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami to 1,200 delegates at the United Nations Millennium Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in New York, August 30, 2000. A few days earlier, on August 25, in the Dag Hammarskjûld Auditorium Gurudeva received the prestigious U Thant Peace Award.

I was asked by the United Nations leaders how humanity might better resolve the conflicts, hostilities and violent happenings that plague every nation. my answer was that we must work at the source and cause, not with the symptoms. That is what we do in ayurvedic medicine„focus on the causes, on establishing the body's natural balance and health. That way we are not always working with illness and disease; we are spending time and resources instead to establish a healthy system that itself fights off sickness. To stop the wars in the world, our best long-term solution is to stop the war in the home. It is here that hatred begins, that animosities with those who are different from us are nurtured, that battered children learn to solve their problems with violence. This is true of every religious community. Not one is exempt.

In Asia, in the United States and among Hindus all over the world, there's a war going on in every home. Few homes are exempt from the beating of children. This is a global problem, in all communities, but I believe that Hindus have the power to change it because our philosophy supports a better way. If we can end the war in our homes, then perhaps we can be an example to others and this will lead to ending war in the world. People will choose a different path.

In our homes when we strike our children, we teach everybody to beat everybody else, and the beating goes on, right on down the line, until they are a soldier or a gang member or rebel, and then they are fighting to kill. That's how all the religious wars have trained religious people to create the wars and to disturb the planet. The hitting and the hurting begin in the home. We should all be vowed to bring peace into the homes and stop the war within the home. Why? Because our neighborhoods and communities will not come up, the nation will not come up, the world will not come up until there is harmony within the home, until problems are solved before bedtime, until children are not abused and pushed down into fear, into a condition where they've lost all self-respect.

The children are amazingly intelligent these days, different than twenty or thirty years ago. These bright children are watching television. They see on TV that those people whom people like are loved and hugged, appreciated, lifted up, and nice things are said to them. They see on TV that other people whom people do not like, that they hate, are put down, told they're stupid, made to feel they're worthless and no good, they're hit and sometimes maimed or killed. Therefore, children will know with the first slap that they are hated, no longer wanted. Where are they to go? They can't, at a young age, go make a living. They can't run away from home, though some of them do and join gangs which will give them the only belonging, the only love and friendship that they have, to share their suffering with other people who have been suffering because of parental abuse, verbal abuse and physical abuse.

Sadly, in this day and age, beating the kids is just a way of life in many families. Nearly everyone was beaten a little as a child, so they beat their kids, and their kids will beat their kids, and those kids will beat their kids. Older brothers will beat younger brothers. Brothers will beat sisters. You can see what families are creating in this endless cycle of violence: little warriors. One day a war will come up, and it will be easy for a young person who has been beaten without mercy to pick up a gun and kill somebody without conscience, and even take pleasure in doing so. I've had Hindus tell me, "Slapping or caning children to make them obey is just part of our culture." I don't think so. Hindu culture is a culture of kindness. Hindu culture teaches ahimsa, noninjury, physically, mentally and emotionally. It preaches against himsa, hurtfulness. It may be British Christian culture„which for 150 years taught Hindus in India the Biblical adage, "Spare the rod and spoil the child"„but it's not Hindu culture to beat the light out of the eyes of children, to beat the trust out of them, to beat the intelligence out of them and force them to go along with everything in a mindless way and wind up doing a routine, uncreative job the rest of their life, then take their built-up anger out on their children and beat that generation down to nothingness. This is certainly not the culture of an intelligent future. It is a culture that will perpetuate every kind of hostility.

In some Asian countries, if children ask a question, they're answered with a slap across the face. How brutal can people be? These are mean people, vicious people. The working mother slaps her children at home when they add stress to her already stressed-out nerve system. Father has a tough day on the job and takes it out on his son's back or face with the hand, strap or cane. Does it give him a sadistic joy to hear young children cry in pain? Does it enhance his feeling of "I'm in charge here! You are not!''? How do I know all this is happening inside the Hindu home? Hotmail. Young kids are getting into Hotmail. They all have their own account. They all have their own computer, and they are writing to me, "Gurudeva! Gurudeva! My father beats me and I'm beaten in school and if I tell anybody I'm beaten in school my mother will strike me. At least three to five times a week, a knock on the head, a pinch, a cane across the back or the legs." Is this the way of tomorrow? We hope not. But this is the way of today. It can be corrected by all of you going forth to bring peace within every family and every home, no matter what faith you belong to. If you know about the crime of a beating of a child or a wife, you are party to that crime unless you do something to protect that wife or to protect that child. Similarly, if you are driving with a friend in the car and he says, "Stop at this service station. I'm going into the convenience store." You stop and he goes into the convenience store, pulls out a gun, robs that store and jumps back into the car, you are an accomplice to the crime, whether you know it or not. You're an accomplice to the crime. All of a sudden, you become a criminal, unless you do something about it. That is taking on spiritual responsibility.

So, knowing that so much child abuse is happening behind a wall of silence, what do we do? Call one of our attorneys, call one of our missionary families and say, "Call the police. Have them watch this family very closely, to protect this child." We had one child put in a foster home and the father put in jail. He took the discipline a little too far. The child had burns all over his body, plus scars from earlier beatings. How do we know? Pictures were taken and sent to us by someone who cared enough not to ignore what was happening. In Canada, the teachers in school tell Asian kids, "If your parents hit you, you call this number." It happens to be 911. The police come to the house. Canadians want to stop the war in their homes.

In the past 85 years we've had two world wars and hundreds of smaller ones. Killers come from among those who have been beaten. The slap and pinch, the sting of the paddle, the lash of the strap, the blows of a cane must manifest through those who receive them into the lives of others. But there is a price to pay. The abuser one day becomes the abused. This is a law of life seen manifesting every day. It is called karma. Action gives an equal or more intense reaction, depending on the intent and the emotion behind it. Corporal punishment is arguably a prelude to gangs on the streets, those who will riot on call, and others who suffer in silence and hide behind a desk or in a routine profession, fearing reprimand and punishment, never talking back or offering an opinion.

We do know a few families who have never beaten their children or disciplined them physically in any way. We ask them "Why? "They say, "Because we love our children. We love them." "So, how do you train them; how do you discipline them?" "Well, we have them go into the shrine room and sit for ten minutes and think over what they did wrong, and they come back and we talk to them. We communicate. We encourage them to do better rather than making them feel worse." Then we ask, "What about TV? Aren't your kids watching TV all the time?" "No. We can't watch a lot of TV with children. Personal time with them is our family's way."

Holding the family together can be summed up in one word: love. Love is understanding. Love is acceptance. Love is making somebody feel good about his experience, whether the experience is a good one or not. Love is giving the assurance that there is no need to keep secrets, no matter what has happened. Love is wanting to be with members of the family. When harmony persists in the home, harmony abides in the community, and harmony exists in the country. When love and trust is in the family, love and trust extend to the local community, and if enough homes have this harmony among members, the entire country becomes stronger and more secure.
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