Brian’s Reflection: Monday, October 26, 2009

My advisers built a wall between myself
and my people. I didn't realize what was
happening. When I woke up, I had lost
my people.

- Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, tyrant (and
unfortunately not the last), of Iran, born on
this day, 1919


The Gospel of Jesus is about Reality. An example? Jesus confronting the apostle Peter with those chilling words, “Get behind me Satan!”. IMHO, the present and all popes of the Latin church, which claims to be founded by Peter, would do well to meditate on this moment. They should awake every morning hearing those words of the Christ in their ears. As should ALL faiths and religions as they reflect on their “founders” teaching. Jesus was constantly confronting His followers with their misguided understanding of His Message. It hasn’t changed. If Jesus were here today, He would be having the same problems with us.

My assessment of Shah Pahlavi as a tyrant may sound harsh – but I think it is accurate. It is, IMHO, true of all the subsequent “rulers” of Iran, and of many present World “rulers”, including our own in the USA.

I do not accept the Shah’s words as accurate. They are delusional. He chose to live in a fantasy World. He was ignorant and deliberately in denial, as many World “leaders” are, of his inner self and motives and reality. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that he was a tyrant, torturing his people, rejecting of their humanity, living in indecent luxury while most of his people suffered horribly. George Bush did the same thing as he deprived us of our constitutional rights. All World “leaders” run the risk of being so subverted. Power corrupts. I was not moved by the interview with the Shah’s wife, living in luxury in New York. She too was delusional and self-justifying.

Shah Pahlavi and so many others like him in power delude themselves. They put the blame – seen in these words of the Shah – on others for their cruelty, their inhumanity, their lust for power and riches, their renunciation of their humanity, their total lack of empathy for the suffering of others. Personally I don’t believe in Hell – but I do often hope that Justice will ultimately be done.

Somewhere, I hope that the Shah “woke up” and was forced to confront the consequences of his own choices, his own responsibility for suffering and deprivation. The same with George Bush and Robert Mugabe and Bill Clinton and various popes and other religious leaders and Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas and right-wing American “Christians” and Islamic and all religious militants and all others who should be in a position of concern for the well-being of others.

Such people lie to themselves. It’s the only way they can live with themselves. Jesus, and Christianity at its best, boldly confronts such lying and self-deception: “Get behind me Satan!”

None of us should be complicit in such self-delusion. In such callous cruelty. In such disregard for our brothers and sisters. It’s time to examine our lives. To look at the sometimes subtle ways in which we participate in the self-delusion and the karmic infliction of suffering of others.

I believe that such self-truth will amaze us (and I include myself in this) with the ecstasy of the discovery of our unity with the God of Love.

Brian+