IT is heartening to see the work of Pandit Suresh Sugrim of NJASHM  and others in Guyana taking a stand on physical and sexual abuse and domestic and other forms of violence in the country.
I am personally aware of the sterling service that the CIOG performs to support impoverished Guyanese men, women and children in every aspect of their lives and hence the story of an Imam on trial for sexual abuse of children is yet another indication of the level of depravity to which the society has fallen and a clear statement that for all our good intentions we are out of control on the highway to hell.

Of all the heinous acts being perpetrated by Guyanese people against Guyanese people, the report (KN Feb 5th, 2012 – Mentally challenged woman abducted and used as sex slave) of a mentally challenged young woman being lured by a trusted acquaintance, imprisoned against her will, brutally sexually assaulted, beaten with electricity wire, cuffed in the face then branded and discarded onto the streets – all for the economic gain and physical pleasure of a dehumanised slavemaster trading her body for income with impunity. The sheer horror of this story aside, what is even more horrifying is that it contains all the elements mirroring the most barbaric of acts that have been committed against Guyanese historically.

This is the society in the post-independent republic that we have created. This and a few bridges. For all our obsessive preoccupation with history and with condemnation after condemnation of European slave masters, this is what our society is producing today. We are enslaving women. We have lost our moral right to condemn the spiritually bankrupt.

There are millions of poor people worldwide. Mental depravity is not a function of poverty. It is a function of ignorance. Without a focus and right knowledge, our people are in mental disarray, lost and wandering in the wilderness of their minds.

If there is one principle that Guyanese should remember to hold dear, in honouring our history and our experience, it is the principle of freedom. If that term has many connotations, let us begin with physical freedom from bondage of any sort. Never ever should anyone of us forget what it means to be free. This principle of respect for individual freedoms must pervade the consciousness of our society. Every adult man and woman in this country, come Republic Day 2012, should hold clearly in their consciousness the consequences of bondage, hatred, brutality and know therefore exactly what is being honoured and why; and pledge solidarity to respect, uphold and defend it. Our ancestors and foreparents have bequeathed to us a sovereign state and all the symbols of nationhood and we honour them for it. We have a responsibility now to create a nation. To fail in this mission is to dishonour the blood, sweat and tears of those who built the foundation upon which we now stand.

Any person born into this nation or blessed to visit it should be guaranteed, at minimum, physical safety and individual freedoms by consensus of its citizens.
While we celebrate annually the abolition of slavery on August 1, on the 23rd February, a date of significance in the struggle for freedom, we ought to consciously state, restate or renew our intentions; our values, choices, standards, principles. At minimum, there ought to be a commitment to assuring the physical and mental liberation of every citizen and to creating a society where injustice against freedom can never prevail.

Many incidents of domestic violence arise from a perception of ownership. There can be no possession of what is born free. A marriage or a partnership is one of consent. If we understand the principle of freedom – of self and others – nationally and extend it to govern our inter-personal relationships, we have some solid ground upon which to start our re-negotiation and construction of the fabric of our society.

Having established a society committed to the principles of freedom, we then have a foundation for accountability and hence,the rule of law.

While we rightfully condemn senseless acts of brutality, we must understand also that our society is broken and we are attempting to fix it. If our society is not wholesome, then our prisons are also not institutions that can support rehabilitation, a duty of compassion owing to each citizen in a proper society. Anyone who is rightfully imprisoned and any other who might soon be imprisoned because they are on a trajectory of self-destruction, listen up.

The human mind has negative forces and positive forces working within it. The negative forces are very powerful. The world recently lost Whitney Houston as it did Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and countless others. People say: they didn’t succeed in fighting their demons. Lack of knowledge of the methods of attaining self-knowledge ( and overcoming of suffering) is a global epidemic.

Let every Guyanese, from the north to the south, east to the west and overflowing overseas, know that there exist multiple paths to self knowledge and to overcoming demons of the mind: actual mental processes of purifying the mind of negative forces regardless of circumstance – worry, anxiety, hastiness, hatred, jealousy, anger, runaway sexual desire, greed – to reveal the calmness and bliss within; it is a more disciplined process than prayer. It requires faith and humility and involves training the mind with a special focus on overcoming negativity. This is how one transcends the negative forces of the mind and human suffering – by knowledge of what we are up against and with great effort.

Anyone who is in despair or sorrow right now or plagued by horrible, circling thoughts such as jumping over Kaieteur Falls for example, or fantasies of sex with children or rape, or any obsessive thought of any nature, knows that these are just thoughts. The world outside is larger than these thoughts in the mind. To rid the mind of such thoughts instantly, call one of the many names of God. Or any mantra. And say it repeatedly, hundreds of times if necessary. What you have done is to replace the negative thought with a positive one. Physically in the brain, neurons of the negative thought will be inhibited with every repression of it and it will cease, with conscious effort, to be a bother.

Anyone who is living on a diet of pornography, you are strengthening nerves cells in the brain that will fire across the synaptic gap when you see men, women (or children) and the thoughts will be sexual and predatory because you have conditioned your mind this way and you are determining your future diabolic actions against society. There are people in the world using their minds to find solutions to diseases, to understand the universe in which we live; to grow food; to understand themselves. To be sucked into a world of darkness is a choice that can ultimately rob one (and, often,others) of the opportunity of life on earth. Every alcoholic or drug addict begins with one drink or one sniff.

In order to live well and do good, it has to be by intention. This is the natural law under which we live – free will. We have been granted free will by our creator, so we have to choose. If we wander on the planet without knowing that we have to choose, we are kicked around by other forces of life as a reward for our ignorance. Our society is unformed so it cannot distract/support us with structure of busyness and activity so we must be vigilant of our mind. We have the responsibility to weave the fabric of the society and we must do so with minds of clarity. Every person is of value in this process.

As we classify the thoughts in our minds, and eradicate the negative, we purify our minds of negative forces and we come into contact with our higher nature and happiness and peace enters the mind. We then overcome suffering, for suffering is a perception created by the mind reflecting the way we perceive the world.

Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see as through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

All over the world, ordinary people are engaged feverishly in training their minds – attending retreats, chanting the names of God, meditating for weeks and days and months and years to purify the mind of its evil thoughts, transcending their suffering. Our situation in Guyana is dire, but: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty“ Psalm 91:1

We have among us those who internalise anger (we lost yet another young man who reportedly hung himself in prison) and those who externalise it. Neither of these approaches is helpful. We simply need to learn to cope with the anger, and with life, without hurting self or other.

For the anger and hate in us, let us consider how the body interfaces with the world via its senses. We gather information automatically from the five sense organs that are sent to the brain via the nervous system. The brain processes this information and forms a perception (often a wrong one), from which we decide how to react. If we are mindless and unaware of this process happening, there is no space between action and reaction and we are overwhelmed and operate in reactive mode – lashing out against ourselves, our spouses, kicking, cursing, fighting, defending, murdering, raping and creating a society of hell.

With conditioning of the mind, we can widen this gap between stimulus and response for more intelligent response (Stephen Covey.) If we are not thinking about our actions and we are not reflecting on our thoughts, we are mercilessly at the whims and fancies of external stimuli.

We can learn how to resist the negative forces of the mind – hate, anger, runaway sexual desire, etc – by cultivating higher emotions of restraint, love, compassion, etc. It is an act of will and it is a skill that can be learned and it is only knowledge, and perhaps intention, that we lack.

If the body is the temple of God, when we mindlessly sexually assault someone, what are we doing? And who is laughing at the ignorance of mankind? If God is closer to us than our jugular vein, what are we doing when we mindlessly slit the throat of a living being? If God dwells within, what are we doing when we are kind and supportive of another?

When children are no longer safe, our society is depraved. We have a job to do to arrest the moral decline in our society and establish morality and ethics in the land. Failure is not an option. Not by might, not by power but by spirit.