Some Thoughts on the Two Towers and the Aftermath

Today we remember the terrorist attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center, and killed many innocent people.

It was a truly diabolical attack, carried out mercilessly.

I think we also need to reflect on how we responded, and continue to respond. I have some quotes which I think are relevant:

Thomas Jefferson
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Benjamin Franklin
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

John Adams
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Henry David Thoreau
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

David Kaczynski
We've got to take back the ideal of justice, we've got to take back this principle of human dignity. We've got to take it back from vengeance, from hatred, we've got to say: look, we're all in this together. We are human beings.

Martin Luther King Jr
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Mohandas K Gandhi
What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.

Mohandas K Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Mohandas K Gandhi
Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.

Albert Schweitzer
This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.

Jonathan Swift
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

William Blake
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

Desmond Tutu
Without forgiveness, there's no future.

Matthew 5:44
But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you...


These might seem like a bunch of random quotes, but they relate to my own thinking about the attacks, and our response. We, as a people responded, our government responded, both here and abroad.

We voluntarily gave the government more power, looking for security. (See the Benjamin Franklin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt quotes above, and think about the risks there.)

I think we need to evaluate what has been done, and decide if we have taken the best road, and if there might be a better way. We have tried hatred and violence, maybe we should try love and forgiveness.

Some of My Favorite Quotes

I was looking through an old journal yesterday, and I came upon these quotes which i wanted to share (I wrote down the names of the authors of the quotes, but not the sources where I found them):

"If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret."
Vernon Howard

"You are created anew every moment."
Sri Aurobindo

"The difficulty is that we do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A free mind has the power to achieve all things."
Meister Eckhart

"Be free, gay, uncomplicated, a child. But be a strong child, fearing nothing."
Francois Fenelon

For me, these quotes are significant because of the difficulties I was experiencing in my personal life at the time I recorded them in my journal. They helped me get through a very dismal time, and come out a better and happier person, maybe even a little wiser. I offer them to anyone who needs some hope or light.

One last quote for the day:

"For all these years, you've protected the seed. It's time to become the flower."
Stephen C Paul

Put Her Down!

This is another story I first encountered in a collection of Zen teaching stories. It takes place in Japan, many, many years ago.

Two monks are walking down the road of a small village.

The road is unpaved, and muddy. They pass a courtesan standing on the side of the street, dressed in a fine silk kimono. She is looking for a way to cross the road without getting muddy. She seems very distressed, as there is no way to cross the road without going through the mud.

The elder of the two monks, seeing her distress, picks her up and carries her across the road, and sets her down on the opposite side.

The monks continue walking through the village and beyond.

Eventually, the younger of the two monks, turns to the other monk and says, "How could you do that? We are monks, we are supposed to keep ourselves pure. We should not even associate with women like that. But you picked her up and carried her."

The older monk looks at the younger monk, and says, "I put her down back at the corner. You are still carrying her."

Welcome

Hello and welcome to Comes The Dawn.

The goal of this blog is to be a source of inspiration and encouragement, lighting a candle against the darkness.

I hope to offer a place where you can find an antidote to the "darkness" which seems rampant in our world today. (I put the word "darkness" in quotes for two reasons: this blog is an attempt to "light candles against the darkness"; and I have come to believe that darkness is not the opposite of light, but the absence of light, no amount of darkness is sufficient to destroy the smallest light, but the tiniest light will disperse the darkness.)

I have been a student of self development and spiritual development since 1967. I do not claim to be enlightened, but I have learned a few things in all these years. I hope to share those ideas I have found helpful, and that have brightened my life as it has evolved.