I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example. That is the reply Benjamin Britten gave to a tribunal for the registration of conscientious objectors in 1942 when asked "What would you do if Britain was invaded?" I was reminded of it when researching my recent article on Marco Pallis , who was an authority on both Tibetan Buddhism and early music, and, together with Britten, a champion of Purcell . In his best-selling book Peaks and Lamas , which was written in 1939, Pallis tells this story about the Sakyas , the ethnic group of which Gautama Buddha was a member which inhabited the foothills of the Himalayas. News was brought to them of an impending attack by a hostile tribe and it was debated anxiously whether resistance should be offered or not. Eventually they decided that, as followers of [Buddhist] Doctrine, they were debarred from offering armed resistance, but must welcome the invaders as friends, so they threw down their arms... The Tibetans, how...
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"There are as many ways to God as the number of human beings on earth." This quote alone is a representation of the vision of Sufism.
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the letter "Waw", which in Arabic means "and." The Sufis call it the letter of Love, because without it, nothing can come together. We say "the sea and the sky," "Man and Woman." The"Waw" is the meeting place, thus it is the place of Love. It is also the letter of the traveler, because it gathers together things and beings.'
b.