Dearest Friends,

On Saturday night, a friend of mine invited me to his weekly Siddha Yoga assembly in West LA. They are disciples of Guru Mayi (pronounced "mai") who is the current guru on the Muktananda line. They are new age Shivites who use as their main mantra "Om Namo Shivaya." It was my first encounter with that group. The emcee shared some information that I think we all need to know. Information I'm grateful for hearing.

One of Guru Mayi's close disciples, a man named Alan Breavan, was one of the men who wrestled the hijackers down on the Pennsylvania plane. He was an environmental lawyer who was completing his last case, flying back to San Francisco to close up shop. He and his wife had decided to devote the rest of their lives to their spiritual paths and were moving to Guru Mayi's ashram to live there. He called his wife from the plane and told her he knew they were all going to die but that he had to try and prevent even greater suffering from happening. The people on that plane knew about the World Trade Center from phone calls to family.

In commenting about these recent events, Guru Mayi gave her followers this statement. She said that a paradigm shift in consciousness was occurring and they must shift with it. She has directed her disciples to do non-stop chanting of their mantra at all of their centers and to individually focus their full intentions and blessings on the US and World Leaders that they be able to discriminate and find the right, dharmic response to this terrorism. She said after doing that we must "trust," "trust," "trust" that our political leaders have found the right course. She also said that there had been an omen of these events -- when the Taliban pulled down and destroyed the ancients giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan recently. She said we must read and understand the omens of our time.

I feel that Alan Breavan's presence on that plane and the presence of another man who was a Buddhist practioner, who both were active in thwarting the hijackers, is another omen. That there, in the midst of such incredible darkness, in the midst of a great evil against humanity that was unfolding, stood two awakened and conscious human beings who understood and lived their spiritual paths (as we also do), and fearlessly took action in service of the light in that moment as spiritual warriors. To me this is an omen that there is no place where light is not, even in the center of the terrorists' plans, and that our combined light will definitely overcome their darkness.