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05/22/2002 Archived Entry: "5/3/02 – Asleep"

It seems to me that we (me, you, and us) are asleep to the exigencies of the time. Many years ago, Dan Ellsberg (the Pentagon Papers), speaking at the Stanford Meeting of the Ways Conference, painted a horrific picture of the future.

He said that there would be a little nuclear exchange somewhere on the planet. That everyone would be horrified, and there would be a great hue and cry, that this must never happen again. Then, he said, it would happen again, with somewhat less of a hue and cry. Then, he said, it would happen again and again, and we would begin to get used to it. It was one of the things that brought T.S. Elliot’s words to my mind:

This is the way the World ends
This is the way the World ends
Not with a bang
But a whimper

President Bush, we are told, plans to invade Iraq. Many columnists say that if the US attacks Iraq, that Iraq will retaliate by attacking Israel (as they cannot reach the USA except through terrorist activities), with bio-chemical or nuclear armed missiles. Then, say the columnists, Israel would respond with nuclear weapons. And then, there you are- Einstein and Dan Ellsberg’s prophecies rolled into one messy package.

When I thought about this, I recalled my daughter calling me on 9/11 to say that the Twin Towers were gone. I could not at first grasp what she was saying. How could the World Trade Center be gone!? Now, I find, I regret to say, that I could imagine receiving the news that Tel Aviv or Bagdhad was gone (or mostly gone).

Am I just gloomy and filled with depressing thoughts? Am I over reacting? That would be nice. I would be quite happy to find that this is like the Y2K thing, about which, it turned out I was completely wrong. It feels to me that time is short and that we are not doing enough to deal with what is before us. We are moving too slow. We are going on with our plans, our programs, schedules, event, vacations, etc.

I will look at this again tomorrow and maybe through the weekend, during which I will be leading a (Kundalini Yoga) Teachers Training Course. I generally find leading such a course to be quite an elevating experience. This will give me an opportunity to view my concerns through those eyes. So, I will sit with this for a couple of days.