Kundalini Splendor

Kristallnacht

The SS guard hit Zindel Grynszpan on the head and he fell
Into a ditch. Father, he heard the voice of his son, you must
Go on. Zindel took the hand of his son and climbed out of
The trench. With his wife, a son and daughter on his side
They continued the march. But the SS guards did not stop
The savage whipping of the deportees. Blood was flowing
On all sides.

The Grynszpan family were Polish Jews from Hanover.
When the Nazis came to power they became outcasts.
In October 1938 they were expelled from Germany
And deported to Poland in a group of 12,000 Jews.
They were taken by train to the frontier town Neubenschen
And from there on foot to the German-Polish border.
When they reached the border heavy rain started to fall.

The Nazis confiscated their money. They had no food to eat.
Polish officers arrived and began to inspect their papers.
They admitted the refugees with Polish passports,
Housing them in military stables. Old, sick and children
Were herded together in most inhuman conditions.

One of the first things that Zindel did in Poland was to send
A postcard to his seventeen year old son Hirsch in Paris.
When Hirsch Grynszpan read the family’s tribulations
He became furious. His heart was filled with rage and hatred
And he decided to avenge their sufferings. On the morning
Of November 7, Hirsch entered a gunsmith’s shop on rue
Faubourg Saint-Martin and purchased a 6.35 calibre pistol
With a box of 25 bullets, for 235 Francs.

Then he took a ride on the Metro to the Solferino stop
And walked to the German Embassy at 78 rue de Lille.
Hirsch told the receptionist that he has some documents with him.
He was received by Ernst vom Rath, the third secretary.
When the German diplomat closed the door Hirsch pulled out
The gun. “You are a filthy Kraut”, he said, “and in the name of
12,000 persecuted Jews here is the document”. He fired five
Bullets from point blank range at vom Rath. The diplomat died
Two days later of his wounds.

The assassination came as a godsend thing for the Nazis.
Hitler denounced it as part of a global Jewish conspiracy
Against Germany. It became a pretext for the well-orchestrated
Pogrom of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass.
During the night of November 9-10, 1938, in every place
Throughout the Third Reich, Storm Troops attacked Jews
And Jewish institutions.

Hitler’s henchmen burnt down or destroyed in Germany
Nearly two hundred synagogues. They burst into Jewish houses,
Broke the glass of Jewish businesses and beat up Jews wherever
They found them. About ninety people were murdered
And thousands of others were wounded in the street violence.
The Nazis also arrested thirty thousand Jews and sent them
To concentration camps in Buchenwald, Dachau,
And Sachsenhausen. And on top of all this, the Reich
Cynically imposed a billion mark penalty
On the Jewish Community to pay for the damages.

In Berlin hundreds of truncheon swinging storm troops
Led the mob in smashing up the glass plate windows
Of Jewish stores. In the Jewish neighbourhoods of German
Cities the Nazis lit bonfires. They threw on them to burn
Torah scrolls, prayer books and whole libraries. Thousands
Of Germans joined the Storm Troops in the atrocities.
But many resented the pogrom. People watched in horror
The roundup; they cried silently behind their curtains.

On a third floor balcony in Leipzig
Storm Troops shattered a balustrade and pushed
An upright oak wood piano over the edge. It plunged like
A black wingless dragon and fell helplessly to the street.
It crashed on the pavement with a shocking clamour.
Its wooden casing had split. The strings stripped bare
Stood in the middle of the wreckage as an orphan harp
Screaming with a heartbreaking outcry.

- Paul Hartal

(Note: Paul Hartal is a renowned poet and artist of Hungarian origin, who now lives in Canada.  He has won many prizes and accolades for his poetry, which is often described 
as the marriage of spirit and intellect.  "Kristallnacht" is a particularly powerful poem, revealing as it does the horror of what was then the beginning years of the rise of Nazi Germany in a candid, extremely honest account of this event which, to many of us, signals the decay of civilized behavior and the emergence of the savagery of the Third Reich, in particular how that terror and suffering were inflicted on the Jews and other groups in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

Paul Hartal is thus a major spokesperson for those who have suffered at the hands of the
powerful, when their only crime was their minority identity.  He is to be applauded and
admired for his willingness to explore this dreadful page in the human history of the twentieth century.  Certain events need to be remembered forever, and Kristallnacht is certainly one of them--it is good for those of us who have come later to be reminded of
the excesses of history and of the negative capabilities of humanity under certain conditions.

But, with no disrespect to the revelation that Hartal presents, we can also recall that the other side of horror is, in fact ecstasy.  How many artists today are willing to take an equally honest look at the experience of ecstasy and/or intense joy, such as often flows through the initiate during kundalini awakening?  How many have the strength or stamina to experience such states for themselves?  Is it considered a sign of weakness to turn to rapture as a universal theme in art?  Where has our sense of transcendence  gone?

Yes, a few have had the courage to explore this area.  I think of Mary Oliver, Billy Collins in a few outstanding poems, Wendell Berry also.  But to a great extent, gloom
and skepticism are in fashion, and, although we cannot deny the truth of the negative vision, neither can we ignore the fact of the eruption of joy through spiritual awakening
such as is occurring to many among us.  Indeed, spiritual awakening is a topic that seems to be banished from the world view of many of today's artists and writers.  Can we in fact construct a vision where both despair and joy are equally honored?

As I have mentioned often before, I hold with Gopi Krishna who saw Kundalini as the driving force behind evolution of consciousness.  Life is neither all light nor all shadow.
Both deserve their due.  "Stand in the light but acknowledge the shadow" is, I think, a worthy admonition.)


 If you are seeking, seek us with joy
    For we live in the kingdom of joy.
    Do not give your heart to anything else
    But to the love of those who are clear joy,
    Do not stray into the neighborhood of despair.
    For there are hopes: they are real, they exist ˆ
    Do not go in the direction of darkness ˆ
    I tell you: suns exist.

   - Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
    (Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)




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