How to breed evil
JournalNews column
There are a lot of reasons for our involvement in the Middle East, a lot of reasons why we are in conflict.
So while it’s not especially accurate to describe it as a religious conflict, there’s no denying the religious overtones of it all. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden both see themselves as warriors for Islam, and though our nation tries to be more subtle about it it’s pretty clear than many Americans, including a lot of our leaders, believe that our conflict resonates with Biblical prophesy.
Although “Salam: Divine Revelations from the Actual God,” a new book by New York businessman Shyam D. Buxani, doesn’t address the Middle East conflicts directly, his revelations about the mysteries of the universe could have healing power if both sides would open up enough to consider them.
Buxani said that he wasn’t raised in any religion at all, but his family was very strict in its rituals of fasting and meditation for personal enlightenment.
Then around 1984, he’d reached a point of prayer and sacrifice that merited divine enlightenment and he began to write down his revelations in a notebook, which are now collected in his nearly 600-page book.
While some of the specific revelations may be subject to debate, Buxani said that his premise is irrefutable, that if we pray and sacrifice directly to what he calls “the Actual God,” without intercessors, intermediaries or visual images, only then we can attain spiritual enlightenment.
“If I tell you to worship a tree, you can dispute that, or someone who is incarnate of God, you can dispute that,” he said. “But if I tell you to worship the Actual God, you cannot dispute that.”
Although he never mentions any religion specifically, it’s easy enough to see the implications of his writing. The world’s religions, he said, are based on books that make worship restrictive and regressive rather than liberating and uplifting.
“Because of their restrictive beliefs, religions are forced to defend themselves,” he said. “They cannot alter their books because it is written within them that they cannot. It is very difficult to change people’s set thinking.”
While his revelations ultimately succumb to the very same weaknesses he describes in established religions — demanding, for instance, that unless you follow the practices described in his book, including rules about shaving and hair length, bad things will happen to your eternal soul — section 3.5.1.22, “Do Not Harm Anyone in the Name of Religion,” contains an interesting enlightenment on the subject of religious conflict.
He writes, “(D)o not vent your anger on any living prophet, saint or guru who preaches visual worship. While the teachings that person is trying to propagate may be so nasty, remember that in religion, the size of a prophet’s following is directly proportional to the sacrfices performed.
“If you were to bring any physical harm to that prophet, saint or guru, you would only be compounding the level of his sacrifices, and accordingly aiding him in spreading those evil teachings by increasing his following.”
That’s a revelation to be considered by both sides of the conflict, especially if one side feels the leaders of the other to be the embodiment of evil.
The attacks on the World Trade Center empowered our nation to wage a “war on terrorism,” so what will the consequences be when we make a martyr of Saddam Hussein. Who will be empowered then?
