By Abdu Rafiu
As I was saying … were we to have a faint idea of how the mechanism that governs life and existence, the entire Creation, work, we would want to show greater empathy to the perpetrators of evil than we may want to demonstrate to the victims. I did state last week that we are living in a world in which ignorance is bliss. How do we picture the Almighty, for example? For a great many He is an old bearded, grey-haired and wrinkled-face King up there in the sky, seated on a golden high-backed chair, with agile angels as policemen, by His side. Such people believe that when the proverbial judgment starts, when in fact it has started, and as it reaches its crescendo, the Creator will order every human being to file out on a queue before him. To each one charges will be read. When charges are read out, each person will begin to tell his story. He is One who can be pleaded with, One who can be bargained with. How very wrong!! The contrary will be the case. We must remove the image of the All-Highest from that of an earthly king in all his majesty!! Do we know that between the Divine Realm and the Throne of Grace, the Throne of God Almighty, is an ocean of flames that not even the Archangels can cross, but only Two Who are Parts of Him, His two Sons, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit? Man at the peak of his perfection on earth and back home in Paradise cannot cross his own boundary limit to the Realm of the Primordial Beings, that is, the Realm of those created in the image of God, how much more to the Divine Realm.
The mechanisms with which God governs the entire Creation are through His radiations encoded in what are called the Divine Laws, Laws of Creation and which we call the Laws of Nature. With the anchorage of the Light and the coming of the Great Comet with its powerful rays already encircling the whole world which itself has entered the last phase of its transition in its development and maturity, the Laws are infused with increased power. The power of the Most High Creator streams down unceasingly in invisible radiation threads holding, urging and furthering life and existence and our world. And there is therefore increased pressure of the Light. This pure power is neutral. For every thought, for every speech and for every activity, it is what mankind uses. It can be likened to electric power currents that flow into every home.
We can just picture to ourselves the numerous uses to which we can put electric power. It can be used to build and it can be used to destroy. Every time we clamour for electricity in homes, for cooling, for heating, cooking, for pleasure, name it; and in companies, for services and in factories to manufacture goods. It is used to run trains and tramps. Aircraft generate electric power to fly. Electric vehicles are here. So important is the use to which energy electricity provides that mankind is finding various sources from which it can be derived. In the end we see that the various sources merely tap from the streams of radiations pouring from the Power of the Almighty Creator. The electro-magnetic waves we call sunlight stream down from an accumulation of spirit motes that flow down from the highest heights, the Primordial Spiritual Plane.
Man, it is revealed, that by virtue of his specific spiritual make-up, like lens that collect the rays of the sun, collects the power, the pure radiation threads streaming through him using his intuitive faculty to do so. He passes this on through his thoughts. Through thoughts that precede every action, we human beings employ the creative Power of the Almighty God for pure and impure use, guide it to good or evil channels, to harm or to build. The Power works according to the contents of the intuitive perception and the thoughts, bringing joy or sorrow, building constructively and furthering or destroying like electric power misapplied.
We learn from higher knowledge spreading on earth in these times that the decision to think in a good or evil way lies with man, and he can thus guide the Divine Power to good or evil purpose! In the words of Abd-ru-shin, the Bringer of the Grail Message: “Therein lies the responsibility that man bears, for reward or retribution will infallibly be his, as all the consequences of his thought return to the starting-point through the established reciprocal action, which never fails and which is quite inflexible. Thereby also incorruptible, stern and just!”
When the Power currents are used for good, the Power remains pure, it is unsullied; and if for ill, it is dimmed. Deposits ensue to the extent of the deposit, first on the soul. We can picture a plate of soup that is not washed. The dross detracts it from a clean plate. It is a stain. The thoughts take on form. In accordance with natural lawfulness, thought forms congregate on account of their nature, their homogeneity. The thought of a person attracts or is attracted to form a power centre with similar thoughtforms of other people from which power centre its currents go out and further attract similar thoughtforms. The congregation of the thoughts on account of their homogeneity –the little drops of water becoming an ocean as they say—becomes so powerful that in its outworking more and more are attracted becoming stronger, overcoming and influencing the weaker. It cannot, therefore, not be surprising that because thoughts of evil and wrong-doing predominate in our world today evil is on the rise; mobs are gathered effortlessly. Young people, even if in fleeting thoughts, get recruited into mob gangs or banditry as a result.
The word ‘mob’ is usually associated with violence or unruliness. It connotes anger or revolt. It sends cold shivers down our spines once we hear the word and begin to map out a safe area to use to get out of the reach of the angry crowd. The period they engage in their destructive acts can be described as a season of unreason. They descend in blind vengeful rage, harming, sometimes inflicting fatal injuries on their targets or passerby, or destroying property—vehicles, houses or business premises or department stores. Buildings have been known to be set ablaze in such moments of madness. Mob action could be spontaneous or long planned.
That is one side, there could also be a benevolent mob who are excited that their favourite candidate has won an election; mobs who idolise their heroes or celebrities. You want to yank off the jersey from Pelle’s neck and get him to autograph it; you have a Dan Maraya of Jos, of Abraham and Ibrahim fame who through his soulful song wondered during the civil war why brothers could engage themselves in a shooting war! You want to just catch Davido’s face and you consider shaking hands with him a bonus. There are exclamations, there are shouts of joy: It is Arsenal! It is ManU!! It is Enyimba Enyim!!! Members of the team are mobbed in an inexplicable triumphal feeling. Up Oluyole Babes!!! Barcelona Lionel Messi is a constant name, but all hail Ferran Torres tagged $90million hero who helped lift World Cup for Spain breaking a 16-year jinx for the country. Just think of the wild jubilation that greeted Spain’s victory. The exited crowd hardly constitutes a threat to public order and safety. It is the destructive mob that is naturally cause for concern.
The mob gangs in South Africa who targeted Nigerians, their homes and property for destruction in xenophobic attacks must necessarily give cause for concern. After drawing up a list of supposed transgressions against Nigerians, Black South Africans embarked on an orgy of hate and destruction against Nigerians, fellow Black Africans. Nationals of some other African countries were affected as well and curiously directed at the citizens of the proverbial Frontline States of old.
Harm is harm–harm to our fellowmen, to our neighbours, acquaintances, to associates, name it–no matter what may have led to it. This includes harm inflicted on a person’s reputation, this latter being, in fact, a transgression of the Seventh Commandment of God. That Commandment forbids damaging a person’s reputation. Breaching it amounts to stealing. Explaining it comprehensively, Abd-ru-shin, the Author of the Book of the World, “In the Light of Truth,” the Bringer of the Grail Message, states: “A man’s property includes also his reputation, the esteem in which he is held in public, his thoughts, his individuality, as well as the confidence he enjoys from others, if not from all yet at least from this or that person!
“Once having got so far, many a proud soul will already become rather less confident about the Commandment. For ask yourself: Have you never yet attempted, perhaps in good faith, to shake or completely undermine in another the confidence a person enjoys by a warning to be careful? If so, you have quite literally robbed the one in whom this confidence was reposed! For you have taken it from him! Or at least attempted to do so.
“Through all the effects of this activity of continuous transgressions of the Laws of God, the self-entanglements therein draw after them a net so enormous that these people will never again be able to free themselves; for often they are more heavily burdened than gross material burglars and thieves. Guilty, akin to receivers of stolen goods, are those who support or encourage such ‘businessmen’ in their sinful transactions.”
“Every upright and honourable man, whether private individual or businessman, has the right and duty to demand an explanation and, if necessary, credentials direct from anyone who comes to him with some request, whereupon he can decide how far he can trust him and comply with his wishes. All else is unsound and reprehensible.”
It is praise-worthy and enheartening that Ohanaeze Ndigbo World-wide has courageously confronted one of the sore reputational issues Nigerians faced in South Africa and Ghana. Ohanaeze Ndigbo has banned the title Nze Ndigbo outside of South East to ensure what the leaders of the organization would like to see as “structured and credible cultural representation abroad.” According to the apex socio-cultural organization, the move is to “address the controversy surrounding the title across Nigeria and diaspora.” Eze Ndigbo title is being replaced with Onyendu Ndigbo. And those to be saddled with the responsibility of the office have to receive the approval of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the South East Council of Traditional Rulers. And to demonstrate the seriousness of the new, the decision was announced during the induction of diaspora leadership and the inauguration of the first batch of 32 Onyendu Ndigbo leaders drawn from Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ekiti and Ghana. The event took place in Owerri on Monday. The Chairman of the South East Council of Traditional Rulers, Eze Emmanuel Okeke formally performed the induction of the diaspora Igbo leaders into the office of Onyendu Ndigbo. The coronation of Eze Ndigbo was what first triggered confrontation between the South Africans and Nigerians with South Africans of the area fearing that the Eze Ndigbo office would supplant their own traditional authority; and a clash ensued.
South Africans also complained that most of the people they asked to leave their country were undocumented immigrants. The reason for immigration every where is to have formal documentation of who comes in, for what purpose and for how long. This is the reason countries issue visas. Official records where population figures are taken seriously are used for budget and planning purposes. Influx of people unplanned for will necessarily put pressure on social services such as provision of water, electricity, housing, transportation and health facilities.
There could be fear of more people for the available jobs. It was one of the grouses of South Africans, that Nigerians were taking their jobs. Indigenes would rightly want to have the jobs except where the expertise is in short supply. A deluge can constitute threats to indigenes and fears of being squeezed out of their lands. It is hard to find an African country which is a settler nation. They are lands of indigenous peoples. Threats engender fear, and fear leads to hate and hate gives rise to resistance and blow-out. The sense of entitlement arising from memories of help by Front Line States when it was most needed—to dismantle apartheid–cannot suffice in the face of new circumstances. In any case, you don’t do good and squat by it throwing it into the faces of beneficiaries. Let’s face it. The Yoruba are wont to say, A kii sore ka loso ti. Things must be done properly.
The South African Government must have read the handwriting on the wall from intelligence reports and ought to have promptly taken pro-active steps to prevent xenophobic disasters in which deaths occurred. What a responsible government should have done was to draw the attention of the diplomatic offices, the high commissioners of the countries to concerns over their nationals without immigration papers, then arrest and prosecute the culprits instead of allowing blind and mindless attacks to rage, inflicting great harm on fellow human beings with South African security officers looking away. Those who commit crimes, you arrest them. It is not after all only South Africa that frets over immigrants without valid papers. Mr. Trump has been unrelenting in flexing muscles over undocumented immigrants. But the US courts have been firm, deciding every case on its merit. Before the change of leadership in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Kremer announced he would send away illegal immigrants also. And Tory Party leader, Kemi Badenoch is warming up with plans to do the same when she assumes office as Conservative Prime Minister!!
We learn from higher knowledge that there is no getting round the Laws of Nature, no man can defy them for God is the Power that activates the Natural Laws. Thus, each person is connected through unbreakable threads to every of his deeds. And as the seed so the fruit and the harvest. The harvest streams down in multiples. Calamities continue to befall an evil doer, his promoters, his sponsors and even bystanders who rejoice at the destruction or harm being inflicted on fellow men and until recognition of the wrong and there is atonement—which may take hundreds of years. In other words, inexorably, the authors of evil doing who may have forgotten their deeds of a thousand years ago, are connected to us, the victims of today. Their lies, perhaps, our link with South Africans and our desire for recompense, and of course, our guilt—all of us! The losses are being computed by the House of Representatives, following which, hopefully, there will be compensation. They deserve our encouragement and thankfulness.
The Guardian
