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Project FOCUS
Straits Times Archives
Background Information:
Indonesia Special Report Invitation emails: |
PLANETARY AWAKENING NETWORK
PAN ALERT: Religious ViolenceMARCH 15, 1999Dear Fellow Pan Participant, My name is Bambang Pramana and I live in Indonesia. I have a grave concern to share with you which I feel is of planetary importance and is a real crisis. As you may know from the news, for several weeks Indonesia has been in the throes of very bloody civil strife between Muslims and Christians. In the city of Ambon alone, it is reported that more than a thousand people have been killed, 18 Mosques and 18 Churches burned down and more than 3500 houses and 1000 shops destroyed. The whole island, with a population of only 400,000, is a mosaic of roughly 40% Muslim and 60% Christian, and they are savagely destroying one another. I am sending this Alert and making this appeal because I think the great suffering and anguish in Ambon represents only the tip of the iceberg of a social epidemic on our planet. We have also seen it in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, the Mideast, Rawanda, India, Somalia, the Philippines, and many other places where religious and ethnic violence has ripped deep into the fabric of society and the lives of common folks. We know that these conflicts often have deep historical roots that involve ethnic, financial and political issues, and yet there is also the deeply disturbing element of religion as a point of conflict - people killing one another savagely in the name of God! As a spiritual people from many different religious backgrounds I believe that we, as Light Workers from around the world have a special responsibility and opportunity to bring healing to this ongoing crisis in our collective life as planetary citizens. For this reason I am sending out this appeal to you to join us, your Family of Light in Southeast Asia, in praying or meditating for the healing of all hatred, anger and violence between the people of Ambon, Indonesia - and by extension to all places on the planet suffering from ethnic and religious strife and violence. March 18th - the new moon - is the Hindu-Balinese New Year (Saka year 1921) in Indonesia called "Nyepi" - a day of silence. In Bali, where the Hindus predominate, everyone stays home on Nyepi. There is no working, no cooking, no fire, no light. It is a day for fasting and meditation and releasing all negativity. The two weeks from the new moon until the full moon (coinciding with Passover / Good Friday) is a cleansing period; from physical (cleaning the garden, home, etc.), emotional, mental to spiritual cleansing. April 4th, the first Sunday after the full moon on April 2nd is Easter, which symbolizes the triumph of light against darkness. And the two weeks from full moon until the next new moon is a period for anchoring and establishing all positive energy which culminates on April 17th, the Muslim New Year (1420 Hijriyah). We are appealing to our family of light throughout the world to join us for the month from the new moon in March (17th) until the new moon in April (16th) in building an energetic "bridge of light" which can carry us out of this planetary nightmare of ethnic and religious violence and hatred and into a new world of understanding, acceptance, tolerance, planetary and galactic citizenship and the celebration of our diversity. We appeal to you to take a few minutes each day, at your convenience, to visualize all people of goodwill in the world working together to build this bridge of light out of the darkness of the past and into a radiant future. On the final day, April 16th, we call upon all people to take thirty minutes; from 14:30 to 15:00 GMT (9:30 to 10:00 am New York time) in prayer or meditation to visualize a column of white light beaming down into Ambon, Eastern Indonesia, filling the city and its inhabitants with peace, dissolving all hatred and anger, bringing people back to their senses and replacing all of the negativity with compassion and understanding. Once we have visualized the restoration of Ambon to sanity, let us see it beaming in to neutralize and heal all of the other places on the planet wracked with ethnic and religious violence; restoring peace, justice and compassion. As you share this with your own network and others begin to participate, it will gain momentum over the course of the month from new moon to new moon so that by the time that we do our synchronized meditation on April 16th, we will have a very powerful collective energy built to release into the world at Ambon. At our website( http://voice-of-one.org/in-light/focus.htm , you can see a map showing the geographic location of Ambon and get more information about the situation. We would also like to keep a register of those networks participating. If you will be asking your network to participate, we would really appreciate it if you would let us know. Just e-mail me with your name, geographic location and the number in your network who you are inviting to participate. On behalf of those of us holding the light in Indonesia I want to thank you in advance for your help. in Light & Love
B. Pramana |
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