A Message about Peace and War

A Facebook message from Antero Alli:

"We live in barbaric times glossed over by hi-tech addictions and complex cultural standards.As much as i personally stand for peace, I am no longer naive enough to assume that war will be rendered obsolete anytime soon. The USA is a young... adolescent nation still boasting and testing its prowess on the global stage until it gets its ass kicked and joins all the other countries humbled by warfare's horrible and necessary defeat of selfish behavior.

Opposing evil seems to have the same effect as throwing gasoline on fire. Evil needs opposition to increase its power. If we know what's worth fighting for, we don't have to waste time & energy fighting against anything. Fight for what's good and evil will eventually be revealed as the pain and suffering it always was.

I don't believe MLK and Gandhi fought against evil. I do believe they knew exactly what they were fighting for: Peace and equality. The 'good fight' triumphs over evil not by opposing it but by alignment with a greater power. This is not merely a semantic quibble but an important distinction between what results from such an alignment vs. using one's will to oppose a perceived evil".

--By Antero Alli

April Fool's Joke Conspiracy Foiled by Facebook

 

It’s not often you can credit Facebook for keeping you on track, but it happened to me.

Countless afternoons of being carried on the wings of whims, hungers and a search for the cheapest place to get a decent coffee had extinguished my reliance on a wrist watch, let alone a calendar. I’d been keeping a lazy eye on the date via my computer but somehow I’d managed to not notice that it had been April 1^st for about 4 days straight.  It was a tasteful April Fool’s joke, I suspect, caused by a power surge that fried my laptop battery.

Then a status update by a friend who I was supposed to meet on the 5^th of April in Istanbul read: “In a few hours I’ll never have to listen to Korean pop ever again”.  

A few hours? A few days maybe….

A stranger, huffing a giant hash joint at the table next to me, confirmed the date.  It was April 4^th already. I had about 14 hours to get to Delhi to make my plane.  Oops.

Naked, covered in ash from human cremation, carrying a human skull, and impossibly surreal, an Aghori walked in my direction as I hastily exited the coffee shop.  This was, I assume, an extension to the April Fool’s joke being played on me by the cosmic forces.  I’d been searching for these guys since I arrived in India. In my final, rushed hours, they passed me by. India is a playful place and jokes at your expense are frequent.

Minutes later, all that I own has been collected from my hotel room and stuffed into a bag on my back. I’m on a bus before I can even turn around to say good-bye to Rishikesh…this place that I really loved.

Run to the bus, then an auto-rickshaw to the airport, the 10 hour journey is complete.  4 hours to spare. Thanks for everything India.  Really.