After terrorists crashed two airplanes in the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001 suddenly the most searched word on the internet was Osama bin Laden. Osama's Al-Qaeda group claimed responsibility for this atrocity and also promised more attacks. The Americans vowed to get this man responsible for more than 3000 deaths by using the unlimited resources at their disposal. After hiding from the prying eyes of the CIA for more than ten years Osama was finally tracked down. When everybody guessed that this fugitive must be hiding somewhere on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, he embarrassingly turned up in an affluent town of Pakistan and that too only a kilometer away from it's elite military training centre.
President Obama of the USA sent two elite corps of commandoes and in a midnight raid they killed Osama and after performing the last rites on his body disposed it in the ocean.
After the American President personally carried out this news item to the American public unprecedented media coverage followed. On and on and on newspapers, magazines, internet everybody was just discussing this one event which finally led to the below question.
Is the world a safer place now that Osama is dead?
Our answer: No. Not that we do not sympathize with those who lost their near and dear due to the terrorism perpetrated by him and his ilk, but Back to Godhead would like to give you the big picture or the story behind the story.
If Osama should be considered evil because his actions killed more than 3000 people then today's governments stand guilty of killing many more people willfully. How can you justify the Indian government's stand on allowing the production of cigarettes, when national statistics show that a million Indians die every year due to cancer caused by smoking. Obviously the government is turning a blind eye because it stands to gain as much as 50% or more of the cost of a cigarette in the form of tax revenue.
So Osamas can be knocked out of the world's stage but while one actor is being pushed out many other are in the green room putting on their make-up. All these are “instruments of our own karma.” Unless we stop sinning, newer actors are always going to be around the corner waiting for us.
Earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, tornadoes in USA, uprisings in the Arab lands, rising food prices. . . the list of the collective bad karma of our planet simply goes on rising.
As long as we the people of this world continue to exploit the planet’s resources without any care for it’s longevity we shall continue to be punished in one way or the other. Our governments are taking an extremely narrow view of such events and are then surprised when punished again.
The Vedas describe the material world as an unsafe place, full of miseries. On top of it we are currently living in an age described as the age of quarreling and hypocrisy. With animal slaughter, unrestrained sexual activity, lying propaganda, mutual distrust, dysfunctional families and so on we are simply piling our karmic heap with heavy reactions. Only if we change our consciousness can we utilize our human body for what it was originally meant to be: a solid boat that can take us from the material world to the spiritual world.