OF PAIN, BLOODLETTING AND THE ALCHEMY OF SPIRIT In his times, he was the supreme terrorist. For in his wake he left terror among the populace and kept his score in as grisly a manner as they come. Severing a part of his victim and keeping it on his self. And there were many a parity in his behaviour to that of the modern terrorists. For he began his life as the son of a well-to-do family and at one time a brilliant student at the Oxbridge University of those times. Coincidentally it was in an area close to Rawalpindi of today in Pakistan. The stories as to how he went on to become a bloodlusty murderer is varied, but most of them gravitate towards a brilliant mind which was turned by machinations of jealous manipulative comrades, towards this path of violence. Those who had turned him on a path of violence had done so out of their own insecurities and selfish, short term gains. What they had not anticipated was he would turn into a threat on them and their populace. It is a tortured soul who is easy to manipulate. And this person had been manipulated too into becoming a killing machine. In his spree he went about touching hapless victims with the kiss of death, preying on them in wiley ambushes. Leaving wails and grief cascading from the doors of the loved ones. This villainous character continued to kill without compunction and collected his trophies by severing a digit of his victims and wearing them on himself. He had a total in mind. 1000 victims. And the only way he could keep that staggering number of fingers on his person was by weaving the severed fingers into a garland which he wore on himself. His name was Angulimala (the garland of fingers), he operated around Taxila. And reached 999 victims. He needed one more to complete his score. Legend has it, his mother distraught at hearing news of his misdeeds decided to go out and seek him out and pray to him to mend his ways. Little knowing that Angulimala made little distinction on whom he could get to kill to complete his score. This was in the age of Buddha. And he was around in Taxila those days. It is said that with his prescient abilities he could see that if Angulimala killed his mother, the splurge of bloodletting which would follow would be hard to stem. However if Buddha could get to meet him, there might be a different story to tell. He set out to meet Angulimala. Angulimalas mother however reached before the Buddha and he gleefully seized her to decapitate, but by this time Buddha reached too. Letting her go he decided to add Buddha to his score instead. As to what exactly transpired is a matter of lore. But what can be ascertained was Buddha stumped him in ways miraculous, so that he could come out of his blood stupor. He equally did pique Angulimalas interest enough to get him to look inwards enough to locate the pains he carried within himself. Pains stored in the subconscious which spiked him to see the reflection of pain in others by perpetuating his deeds of killing. Once he could perceive his actions as a play of subliminal programing, a circus of reactions, he could come out of it and went on to become an Arhant, a saint. A liberated monk. One who subsequently bore the stoning of the family members of his victims daily but did so with equanimity. What was wrought was a miracle of human Alchemy. And brute force was overcome by a paradigm changing idea. It is not the people we are but the ideas we hold which makes us do what we do. In wake of the dastardly act which happened yesterday, the natural reaction is to bay for more blood. Blood of the perpetrators. But I was left with a number of questions. ~ If it isnt pain, be it inflicted or by subscription, what turns human beings into the killing fiends they become? ~ There has been enough violence. Yet it has never been able to stop violence. If only the spiral of violence has grown wherever violence was brought in to stem violence. If violence has not been able to address the rise of violence for so long, will fresh dose of violence be able to stem it? This act was carried out as reaction to the action in Waziristan. ~ The killings were sanctified by scriptural references. Some allege that it is a misinterpretation. Yet how is it that there is such scope for misinterpretation in Islam? ~ How does one do due diligence of ideas? ~ Are we so bereft of an empowering idea that we will continue to bomb people out of existence instead disarming them with a grander and more powerful vision? Is alchemy of spirit now just a lore? Is a spiral of greater violence all the recourse we have left? (images from the net)
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 16:43:14 +0000
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