Letters February 2005
It's not only Arabs who try to misrepresent our historyIn response to Fatema Soudavar Farmanfarmaian's "The other terror": Dear Madame Farmanfarmaian, Thanks for sharing with us your thoughts and information on the Persian civilisation and its contribution to the world community. I've read with a great interest several of your articles in Iranian.com . Unfortunately it's not only Arabs who try to misrepresent our history and heritage. For some reasons Hindus living in the US (amongst others) also like to consider us (e.g. fareed zakaria, and that's a Muslim one) as inferiors by tagging us "Arab". I remember having been invited to an American-Hindu family for dinner and upon arrival to the place, the host tells me: Oh, it's good you are here, we have other friends coming, and they know well your culture, they have lived couples of years in Saudi-Arabia. And these were a couple, both with a Ph.D. and working for a prominent company in the US. I don't know if it's ignorance or unconsciously deliberate from their part. Maybe it's because their most famous monument (Taj Mahal) is a Persian one. Maybe because before the British, their official administrative language was Persian. Maybe because Persian culture had been in the weaving of their culture for years. In any case, these chauvinistic views distort the reality and harm the truth, but will never change them. For, I know for a fact that in the annals of the universe, the achievement of Persians and their contributions to the world community will be remembered with reverence and respect. As it is known by scholars, the prophet of Islam said : " If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it"... For my part allow me to tell you about two other stories that I lived personally: I have been interested in Buddhism and Hinduism for a long time. Among those I came across and studied was "Jiddu Krishnamurti" a contemporary Mystic and Philosopher, very well known in the west and respected by the scientific community (Curiously lot of Hindu- Americans don't know him, that says much about them, even though they may go to their local temples). I used to go to the Krishnamurti centre when I was living in Paris, and I watched lot of video-tapes of his talks and Question- Answer sessions. I remember one day when I was watching a Q-A session Video-tape (it's a long time ago) I heard him saying in substance: "the Persian's contribution to the world community was enormous." I was kind of surprised when I heard that, first because it seemed out of context, and second because he was not a kind of person who usually talk about these things, or who praises a specific group of people. His teaching was much deeper than that and genuinely oriented towards discovery of the true self. At the time I didn't take note of the date and the place of the gathering on the video-tape. But as his collected works is now gathered on DVD and indexed, if one day I go to Brookwood-England where his work is safely guarded, I will try to find that Q-A session. Among the more well known people who felt strongly inspired by the teachings of Krishnamurti were Aldous Huxley, Henry Miller, Iris Murdoch and George Bernhard Shaw, to mention just a few. J. Krishnamurti was the Buddha of modern times. In another occasion, I was attending a 3-days meditation retreat of about 30 people (I was the only Iranian) with a "Kashmir Shivait Tantrist" teacher, a Frenchman who lived in India and who is a genuine fire bearer of this tradition, and whose presence impregnates his surroundings. A true realized man. During the break time I made acquaintance with a woman who asked me where I came from. I said from Iran. She kind of smiled and started to tell me about her, that she had been married with an Egyptian and has 3 sons and so on and so forth. Then in the course of the conversation, she started to say, you Arabs this..., you Arabs that..., and I was astonished. I said to myself I can't believe the ignorance of these people. I was so upset that during the next session of meditation, I had only this thing in my mind, saying to myself, I can't believe that these people think we are Arab and they even don't question their ignorance. How come they don't understand that I come from Persia. I was just ruminating these thoughts in my mind. And at some point I felt tears in my eyes. Right after the meditation session, it was the time for questions and answers. After few questions, another woman asked: -Why do we feel some places as if there was something sacred and alive, while other places have no special liveliness to them? Then the master whom I don't know personally and who does not know me personally started to answer. I can't remember what he said word by word. But in substance he said : "There are places that the original vibration is more present than others. Those who are interested in metaphysics often think that the phenomenal world is uniform and homogeneous from the metaphysical standpoint. They are wrong. There are places where the sacred vibration is more present than others. Places like "Persia" (he used the word Persia not Iran, la Perse in French), like "India" with very ancient nations are sacred places on earth. And then he talked more about Persia. At some point he even talked about Sacred music of these places and named an Iranian singer "Shahram Nazeri" that I even didn't know at the time. Although it was not the first time he read my mind and felt my feelings, I was at the same time astonished and happy to hear him talking about Persia with such reverence. As in the spiritual realm it is advised not to reach out for any goal in the phenomenal world, he ended by saying that you don't need to go to these places to find yourself. Best regards,
>>> Latest letters >>> All past letters |