Burma

I'm with you there, Sue. I too have been watching the news unfolding from Burma which is a country that I've never visited though I've read a lot about it in recent years. I feel that the Buddhist monks and nuns are showing incredible courage and am sending all the positive and powerful thoughts that I can. The military junta is undoubtedly a force of darkness and it's time must come to an end. May that be now!

With love and in hope
Sunanda xxx

Hi Sunanda

I would wish to heaven that you were right, but I fear that this will be another losing battle for the Burmese people as the junta and military have so much power and weight. I saw today that Burma is the second most corrupt country in the world!!! Doesn't surprise me when they showed the wedding of one of the top generals' daughters; it was an over-the-top lavish affair with every conceivable luxury and it cost more then is spent on the so-called National Health Service. Some farmers get less than a dollar a day and they have to feed families on nothing but poor quality low-grade rice!!

Love x

Years ago, I visited Burma briefly. The Burmese people were lovely and friendly, or indeed they wanted to be friendly if they weren't looking over their shoulders at every given moment to see if they were being watched talking to a Westerner. The country is beautiful, the architecture is astonishing....
Love

Hi Lotusflower,

Thank you for starting this thread.

It WAS necessary!

Here is the link from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7013638.stm

As you might imagine the Indian Press provides slightly more info:

http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/26/stories/2007092662751900.htm

Here is another local newspaper:

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.mimage.php?usrsess =

Regards.

Prashna

As you might imagine the Indian Press provides slightly more info

Just being picky, Prashna: did you mean to write this? Because in my opinion the BBC link gives many more details. Also the BBC calls the country Burma rather than Myanmar. What's so great about the Indian press coverage?

Sunanda

Edited to add that I am praying that the rank and file soldiers and members of the security forces will find the courage and the compassion not to fire on their fellow countrymen. The junta would fall if the military no longer supported them. Where is the humanity? Man killing his fellow man - for what?

Hi All

I was visiting Thailand earilery this year and did think about going over to Burma but at the time was told there was limited places you could go to due to the political situation, so did not go, went as far as the Border north of Thailand and looked across..

Anyway I have a question, have always known the country as Burma so obviously now called Myanmar what doe the two names represent and why the name change. And what do the people recognise themselves as, was it a policital name change.

Hopefully one day will visit.

Flower

Picky!

Just being picky, Prashna:

If you wish to be picky, why not? Sunanda.

So long as you are happy.

Prashna

Burma, Myanmar ; why:

Anyway I have a question, have always known the country as Burma so obviously now called Myanmar what doe the two names represent and why the name change. And what do the people recognise themselves as, was it a policital name change.

Hi Flower,

And a very good question, if I may say so.

The story is long and complex.

And one, that I suspect, cannot be told in these pages.

But I can give some hints. Try:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Burma/Myanmar

and

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/burma.htm

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Myanmar

IMO, the following are the most relevant excerpts from the first linked webpage:

"The colloquial name Bama is supposed to have originated from the name Myanma by shortening of the first syllable...

"Burma/Myanmar was historically known in India as "Brahma-desh" ("Brahma-land"). This etymology, however, is rejected by most linguists.

In the decades preceding independence, independence parties were in search of a name for the new country to be born, which would be made up not only of Burmese speaking people, but also of many minorities. In the 1920s, some favoured the name Myanma, which had been the name applied to the old Burman kingdom destroyed by the British in the 19th century. In the 1930s, the left-wing independence parties favoured the name Bama, as they thought this name was more inclusive of minorities than Myanma. Indeed, the Burmese puppet state set up by the Japanese occupation forces during the [url]Second World War[/url] was officially called Bama. However, at the time of independence in <a class="go2wpf-bbcode" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="1948">1948 it was the name Myanma that was chosen for the new country. This name has been the official name of Burma/Myanmar in the Burmese language ever since 1948, while the name Bama is used by Burmese people in colloquial conversation...

Hope this helps.

Prashna

Hi everyone,

I know this is the current affairs pages, but I feel most of us here think with a spiritual dimension and our collective thoughts do affect the world, so let’s put the weight on the side of good! All information, impressions and knowledge that comes to us, arrives at the point of our consciousness and that’s where we should deal with it.

I so agree with Sunanda on the need to give our metaphysical support to this desire for freedom from oppression. The downfall of Communism in the West (and the overthrow of Apartheid in S Africa) was largely fuelled through the people’s refusal to be oppressed any longer and their strength and resolve was under-girded by prayer and faith (just like with the present situation in Burma)

I’ve posted this quote below before, from a talk, which discusses
Gandhi's non-violence.

So how is it that the overwhelming powers of tyranny, terrorism, state-sponsored oppression and violence can be effectively and nonviolently resisted? The principles of nonviolence are simple and straightforward. There are three fundamentals: First, power always belongs to the people. In spite of appearances, this is an immutable and inviolable law......

The principle is simple: Power belongs to the people. Of course the people give it up because of their fear, and repressive regimes are masters at exploiting fear in order to keep the people submissive. But once the fear is overcome, the fear of suffering, the fear of imprisonment, and the fear of death, then one is truly free.

But that’s a daunting task. Who among us isn’t afraid of beatings, jail, and of course death? The remedy is not in an attempt to somehow defeat fear, but in turning to the greater power of truth. And that is the second fundamental principle of nonviolence, that truth is ultimately an irresistible and undefeatable force. Gandhi put the issue plainly. After the death of a comrade in South Africa, he wrote, “The world rests upon the bedrock of satya or truth. Asatya, meaning untruth, also means non-existent, and satya or truth means that which is. If untruth does not so much as exist, its victory is out of the question. And truth being that which is, can never be destroyed. This is the doctrine of satyagraha in a nutshell.”

Plainly stated, but unfortunately not so simple for us Westerners who are always looking for truth to have a specific content. For us, truth is an empty container waiting to be filled with logic, ideas, analysis, and application. But this is not the sense in which Gandhi uses the term. His truth is closer to that of Jesus’ who said “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” We are more like Pontius Pilate who wants to know “what is truth?” and like him we are mystified by Jesus’ answer, which was no rational discourse at all, but simply a life, a death, and a resurrection. How then are we to understand this truth that makes us free, and which Gandhi promises us can become the instrument of our political freedom as well?

So these reflections are not about the dynamics of social change, but about nonviolence and the dynamics of transformation. Agents of change look at something and want it to be different. Agents of transformation look through something and see what it already is in the eyes of God. Seeking merely to change something is too often an affair of the ego. We want healing on our own terms. In either gross or subtle ways we seek to recreate others and the world in our own image. We write the script, design the stage, assign roles to the characters in our plot, and then when things don’t go as planned, we ask God to come onstage and fix things so we can go back to changing the universe into something more to our liking. But the radical spirituality that invariably goes along with transformative nonviolence is something quite different from mere religious ideology. Transformative spirituality is not about assigning God a role in our drama, but about surrendering our dramas altogether so as to take up a role in God’s.

Transformation, then, is both the spirit and the fundamental dynamic of nonviolence, and to become agents of transformation, we must attend to much more than the news. We must learn to look beyond the news and political analyses of those things we want to change, in order to become students of the ways of transformation. If we look for transformation and cultivate it; if we allow our eyes to become accustomed to seeing it, then we will find it everywhere:

Excerpts from: Nonviolence and the Dynamics of Transformation
by Daniel O. Snyder, Ph.D.. [DLMURL] http://www.pendlehill.org/resources/lectures_reports_forum.php [/DLMURL]

When we watch the news, instead of feeling angry, helpless and overwhelmed, let’s instead know that evil is not power and that goodness and truth always ultimately destroy it. I’m always reminded of these words of Mary Baker Eddy’s in this sort of situation:

The march of mind and of honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another extreme mortal mood,--into human indignation; for one extreme follows another. (Science and Health p 570)

Occult: Hidden from the eye or understanding; invisible; secret; unknown; undiscovered; undetected; as the occult qualities of matter. (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1828)

Most important, instead of seeing soldiers who beat, torture and kill and political rulers who pass down inhumane laws as tyrants and barbarians; let’s instead identify them as people who have the potential to be transformed.

I found this article yesterday on www.spirituality.com:

[url]A higher vision of government[/url]

Judy

Hi Prashna

Thank you for the links and your thoughts, very interesting, will no go and have a read

Flower

When we watch the news, instead of feeling angry, helpless and overwhelmed, let’s instead know that evil is not power and that goodness and truth always ultimately destroy it.

July, I would love to be able to take this view, guess I'm not as spiritual as I would like. I can't help feeling anger and helplessness/hopelessness over the situation, it breaks my heart to see the masses of good Monks and Nuns trying so hard to democratise their country in the face of bunch of hardliner thugs who I'm afraid to say, will win at the end of the day. I fear the worse for Aung Sun Su Khyi as well........

Love

It is hard, isn't it Sue? I'm always inspired by what Judy writes but I too find it hard not to despair when faced with news like that coming out of Burma. However, I can remember growing up with the idea that the Iron Curtain was never going to come down - and lo and behold, it did! I do have an inner feeling that the time has come for the people of Burma to take control of their own destiny and I shall continue to pray that each individual soldier looks within his own heart and 'sees the light.'
What I can't wrap my head around is how these shadowy military dictators can be so twisted and inhumane. How do human beings get to be like this? To me it is just inexplicable that any human could inspire to be a dictator and enact such cruelty on his own country. My mind just can't grasp how this can be. As a believer in karma and reincarnation, it begs the question as to what roles these people are playing and what they will go through in future lives. And yet I am also a believer in the credo 'Everything happens for a purpose.' It's such a mystery....I really do not understand how it works. But God is great....and all shall be well.

Lots of love
Sunanda xxxx

PS Give Gordon Brown his due, he has written the following in today's Indy:
look here.

Hi all,

Obviously I am also watching the news on this. I'd love to be idealistic, but in that part of the world freedom has been put down many times before. I have faith that Burma will one day get it, but I'm concerned that it might not be this time and that there may be a crackdown.

Sunanda, you mention Gordon Brown, and give that link. I must admit that I hadn't a clue where Brown stands on the UK military, but recent reading tells me, if true, that he holds it in some disdain. I do hope not.

V

. My mind just can't grasp how this can be. As a believer in karma and reincarnation, it begs the question as to what roles these people are playing and what they will go through in future lives. And yet I am also a believer in the credo 'Everything happens for a purpose.' It's such a mystery....I really do not understand how it works. But God is great....and all shall be well.

The interesting thing here, Sunanda, is that the generals are supposedly devout Buddhists who hold the Senior Monks in esteem. The Monks have refused to accept donations from the Government, which basically means that they will lose their "credit" or make merit for the next life. That, in Buddhism is like being excommunicated in Catholic terms and is the last thing a good buddhist would want.

A Buddhist expression in Sanskrit (and I apologise for the spelling) is "took a tor, took a tar narng" which is very relevant at the moment as it means what comes around goes around or, more appropriately, you will get what you deserve!

Love

Sunanda raises the very key question of karma and reincarnation.

I'm not sure I can add much wisdom to that, apart from the fact that people make mistakes before they get it right. But Burma right now reminds me of Tianenmen Square. On the face of it, freedom lost that one, but the deeper truth is that it kick-started something off, and no-one wil ever forget the image of one student standing and stopping a whole row of tanks. The thing being, things begin in small doses, but they will win out in the end.

Sceptic that I am however, if the Far East gets democracy, are we simultaneously losing ours in the UK and USA? We really do need to watch our backs, as things in the "free world" are at crisis point IMO.

V