Under the influence of Maya an individual loses his intelligence and power of discretion. He forgets his true nature. He loses contact with the self within and believes that he is the ego with a body and a name. In that delusion, he assumes that he is doer of his actions, whereas in truth he is is just an instrument of God, who is the real doer. He develops attachment with worldly objects and wants to possess them. He strives for wrong objectives in the world, having lost his connection with the real self and having forgotten the true purpose of his existence.

An explanation of the Hindu concept Maya, from the Hindu website.

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters

we honor courage in all its forms

cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune,  My Left Wing, and TexasKos.

image and poem below the fold

A coffin labeled ‘Late Mr.Jacob Bruce Kovco’ and marked for the final destination of Melbourne (Australia), is retrieved from a refrigerator at Kuwait’s Mortuary by workers on Thursday, April 27, 2006. An inquiry was ordered into an identification error which led to the body of an unknown soldier being sent to Melbourne, instead of the coffin of Private Jake Kovco which is still being kept in Kuwait. The grieving relatives of the Australian soldier killed in Iraq were distressed to learn that the wrong body was accidentally sent home in his place, the defense minister said Thursday.
(AP Photo/Gustavo Ferrari)

Those Graves in Rome
by Larry Levis

There are places where the eye can starve,
But not here. Here, for example, is
The Piazza Navona, & here is his narrow room
Overlooking the Steps & the crowds of sunbathing
Tourists. And here is the Protestant Cemetery
Where Keats & Joseph Severn join hands
Forever under a little shawl of grass
And where Keats’ name isn’t even on
His gravestone, because it is on Severn’s,
And Joseph Severn’s infant son is buried
Two modest, grassy steps behind them both.
But you’d have to know the story–how bedridden
Keats wanted the inscription to be
Simple, & unbearable: “Here lies one
Whose name is writ in water.” On a warm day,
I stood here with my two oldest friends.
I thought, then, that the three of us would be
Indissoluble at the end, & also that
We would all die, of course. And not die.
And maybe we should have joined hands at that
Moment. We didn’t. All we did was follow
A lame man in a rumpled suit who climbed
A slight incline of graves blurring into
The passing marble of other graves to visit
The vacant home of whatever is not left
Of Shelley & Trelawney. That walk uphill must
Be hard if you can’t walk. At the top, the man
Wheezed for breath; sweat beaded his face,
And his wife wore a look of concern so
Habitual it seemed more like the way
Our bodies, someday, will have to wear stone.
Later that night, the three of us strolled,
Our arms around each other, through the Via
Del Corso & toward the Piazza di Espagna
As each street grew quieter until
Finally we heard nothing at the end
Except the occasional scrape of our own steps,
And so we said good-bye. Among such friends,
Who never allowed anything, still alive,
To die, I’d almost forgotten that what
Most people leave behind them disappears.
Three days later, staying alone in a cheap
Hotel in Naples, I noticed a child’s smeared
Fingerprints on a bannister. It
Had been indifferently preserved beneath
A patina of varnish applied, I guessed, after
The last war. It seemed I could almost hear
His shout, years later, on that street. But this
Is speculation, & no doubt the simplest fact
Could shame me. Perhaps the child was from
Calabria, & went back to it with
A mother who failed to find work, & perhaps
The child died there, twenty years ago,
Of malaria. It was so common then–
The children crying to the doctors for quinine.
It was so common you did not expect an aria,
And not much on a gravestone, either–although
His name is on it, & weathered stone still wears
His name–not the way a girl might wear
The too large, faded blue workshirt of
A lover as she walks thoughtfully through
The Via Fratelli to buy bread, shrimp,
And wine for the evening meal with candles &
The laughter of her friends, & later the sweet
Enkindling of desire; but something else, something
Cut simply in stone by hand & meant to last
Because of the way a name, any name,
Is empty. And not empty. And almost enough.
– – –

“To me the whole feeling of Bangla Desh has been quite a personal one, because I happen to be a Bengali. This whole issue since last March is something of such a different nature and my feelings as it happened, apart from the sympathy I have because I am a Bengali, apart from being directly involved because such huge numbers of people were migrating into India . . . they were running for their lives and so many were killed, including my distant relatives, many friends, including Muslim friends, and even people from the family of my Guru; their homes burned, completely destroyed.”

snip
“And now I feel a great joy. With George’s single, “Bangla Desh,” my single, the film that has been made of the concert, the album coming out and whatever the gate monies from this concert . . . it will all add up to a substantial amount. Though, when you think of the amount being spent on almost eight million refugees, and so many of them children, of course it is like a drop in the ocean. Maybe it will take care of them for only two or three days. But that is not the point. The main issue – beyond the sum of money we can raise – is that we feel that all the young people who came to the concerts (maybe 40 or 50 thousand of them) they were made aware of something very few of them felt or knew clearly – about Bangla Desh and what has happened to cause such distress.”

“It is like trying to ignite – to pass on the responsibilities as much as possible to everyone else. I think this aim has been achieved.”
Ravi Shankar
Edited by Michael Vosse from the transcript of an informal interview held two days after the August 1st concerts
For the definitive account of the concert, including an historical overview of the political events that led to the slaughter, starvation, and exodus of innocents, go here.

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