World trade center bombing

[sridhar.mfc at SOFTHOME.NET]

I am glad to know you (and presumably others on the list) are unhurt,
physically at least.

> [Subject changed to something more descriptive.  I never heard from anyone
> else with mail problems.  Shall I conclude it was a false alarm?]

Yes, I should have changed the subject line, and I apologize for the
oversight.

>
> My wife was on the 78th floor of WTC 2.  She made it out safely but It was
> another 24 hours before she was able to come home because of the military
> curfew.

That was close, particularly since that came down first! It must have been
very painful. And she probably personally knows so many who did nor make
it.

> On Tuesday I was on the Internet all day because it was the only
> open channel of communication but since then I've been too distracted.
> In retrospect that is a bad thing, what the terrorists want more than
> anything is for us to change our lives and give up our freedom.  By
> continuing as normally as possible, we are denying them victory.
>

I could not agree with you more, but we do have a limit to our
capabilities.

>
> Bhagawan in not a puppetmaster.  He has endowed His creations with free
> will hopefully to do good, but, alas, sometimes to do evil.  The
> terrorists will reap the fruits of their own actions.
>

He may or may not be - we do not know. It hurts when we think of Him as an
uncaring, reckless puppetmaster, but that is only because we are
attributing our values to Him. And there are several other questions: How
free is free will? From whose perspective do we label good and evil? Surely
the religion of the Vedas and the Gita knows better than to shy away from
accepting that there is a limit to what an ordinary human may understand of
why things happen as they do. To my understanding, death and destruction
are not looked upon as undesireable in the philosophical sense. No
religion, including the Vedic,  would condone senseless killing - but that
is as a guideline to potential perpetrators of such acts in day-to-day
life. What explanation does it offer to the victims or observers? That He
absolves Himself of responsibility for what is happening on this earth
since He has given us free will? That the terrorists will suffer in their
next birth? I am not so sure that the explanations are all that lame. But I
may be wrong - I am not a scholar of Vedanta.

In any case, my comments were more in the spirit of what Gandhiji, perhaps
one of the greatest Karma Yogis of our times, meant when he said that there
is not a blade of grass that moves without His express will. I find deep
strength in that explanation.

My heartfelt sympathies to all those who have suffered in the tragedy. Wish
I could do something to mitigate the pain.

Sridhar