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Note from the Editor

Greetings all,
This issue is focused on the post september 11, 2001 world that we find ourselves in and is initially compiled from a number of postings made to the Jamiat-am of the Sufi Order international. I am happy to include any other related messages from any other sources. If you know of particularity inspiring messages from spiritual leaders in any tradition please send them to heart@cheraglibrary.org

Just a few notes related to this issue...

One thing, It is natural, after an event of this magnitude and intencity that our lives and many of our interests and activities will seem dry or empty or colorless. This is because our everyday life, in relation to an event of great intencity whether it be a tragedy like this massive orchestration of death and destruction or an enlightenment experience leaves all other more subtle things seeming insignificant. It is like eating a very hot chili pepper and then trying to taste the sublte flavor or a rice grain. The chili has so overpowered our taste buds that we cannot taste anything else for quite a long time.
In the same way, this event, as gargantuan as it is, will recede into the past and our eyes and hearts, blinded to all else just now by its brilliant and awesome flash, shall soon recover their normal sight. But as others have said, something has irreversibly changed.

Another thing, what was the intended message of this terrorist event anyway? What were these daredevils trying to tell us? What was it that they were willing spend a long time planning and then to kill and die for? Usually a terrorist event goes with some statement, some demand, some call to action or hoped for change. I never hear what that message was. That seems strange to me. There is also the question, what benifit was gained by this event and for whom? What possible benefit could this event have yielded for those persons or ideals that these terrorists served? I guess they figured the message was embedded in the event itself? Of course, there are many making up what they believe the message was or are inventing a new message to attach to it. I feel other forces at work besided some terrorist group hiding in the mountains on the other side of the world bent on senceless destruction. I would say that we need to be very, very awake and lucid. We need to look very closely and warily at what has happened and what is happening and what exactly rises from these ashes once the smoke clears and the rubble has been sifted.

Sept 28, 2001
Hamid Touchon