Without the use of soldiers the people in safety enjoyed their sweet repose.  Earth herself, unburdened and untouched by the hoe and unwounded by the plowshare, gave all things freely.”  ~ovid’s Metamorphosis in Chellis Glendinning 1994.

SUCCOUR for the wounded healer
Transcribed with Mitree by Jeff Knaebel

Be grateful to those who have hurt or harmed you,
For they have reinforced your determination.

Be grateful for those who have deceived you,
For they have deepened your insight.

Be grateful for those who have hit you,
For they have reduced your Charmic obstacles.

Be grateful to those who have abbanned you,
For they have taught you to be independent.

Be grateful to those who have made you stumble,
For they have strengthener your ability.

Be grateful to those who have denounced you,
For they have increased your widow and concentration.

Be grateful to those who have made you firm and resolute.

~Ven.  Master Chin Kung, CORPORATE BODY OF THE BUDDHA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION, Taiwan 2003

[These are my great teachers of compassion, tolerance and forbearance.  Without these teachers I would have remained an entrepreneur busiess executive in the rat race of corporate culture, living to the end of my days in anomie. ~ Jeff Knaebel]

BY JEFF KNAEBEL FEBRUARY 13TH 2010

Referring to Sir C.B Snow’s theory of 2 cultures— the Scientific and Humanistic— Professor serene notes the deep and anxious schism of industrial civilization found in themes of contemporary anthropology: FOLK AND URBAN CULTURE, LITTLE AND GREAT TRADITIONS’ {PAROCHIALISATION AND UNIVERSALIZATION}, PART WORLD AND WHOLE WORLD< Core values and twilight zones of cultural systems.

He says that given the obviousness of the absence of a Common Value-System, any synthesis of Scientific Humanistic cultures is impossible, and the attempt will lead only to mis understanding.  Our real problem is that of restoring our Common Tradition [As "FOLK KNOWLEDGE" DOES] which transcends both scientific and humanistic cultures— What INDIAN PHILOSOPHY CALLS Para Vidya [, Ancient Knowledge].

[This of course requires accepting the "CLOUD OF UNKNOWING" of metaphysics and owning our ignorance of Reality.]

THe Scietific Indusrtial have produced the contemporary disintegrating society.  “Who woold wand to adjust to a society in Decline?”  Professor Saran asks.  [I propose that the root of our dilemma is the wholesale failure of symbolic thought and its resulted divorce from man's respect for the Sacred  See the works of John Zerzan, Pauls Sheppard, Chellis Glendenning, Jerry Mander, Louis Mumford, Derrick Jensen, and Kirkpatrick Sale].

Professor Seran quotes C.S. Lewis, “The abolition of man 1946″, “We do not look at trees either as beautiful objects or Dryads when we cut them into beams: the first man who id so may have felt the price keenly,and the bleeding trees of Virgil and Stencer may be far off echoes of that primeval sence of impiety the starts lost their divinity as astronomy developed, ad et dying God has no place in Chemical agriculture.  Great minds know that nature thus treated is an artificial abstraction, that something of its reality has been lost.

“From this point of view the conquest of Nature appears in a new light.  We reduce things to mere [Scientific] nature in order that we may conquer them.”

Professor Seran continues, “Once the concept of control or conquest is applied to the controller himself, it loses it’s usual meaning.  At this stage the exploiter and the exploited are the same.”

“It is ,” Quoting C.S. Lewis, “The MAGICIANS BARGAIN: Give up your soul, Get power.  But once out souls, that is our selves, have been given up, the power thus conferred does not belong to us.  We shal in fact be the slaves and the puppets of that to which we have given our souls.  It is MAN’S power to treat himself as a mere object to manipulate at will. If man chooses to treat himself as raw material, then raw material he will be.  But not raw material to be manipulated by himself, as he fondly imagined, but by mere appetite in the person of his dehumanized conditioners.”

If a human being can treat another human as a mere natural object, this power cancels their fellowship in a total , in a fundamental way— Perhaps both have ceased to be men. [Emphasis added]

Profeesor Seran points out that, ” Emptiness of Symbolic Logic” in this system of so-called Knowledge.  [John Zerzan, Vladimir Megre, and CHellis Glendinning opine at the failure of symbolic thought and the domestic nature as both having origins of the middle east about 10,000 years ago.  Connected with the was the soul-selling of the priesthood to gain temporal power from the nascent rulership.

That a system of symbolic thought and symbolic logic has failed is perceived as obvious by simple observation of our destruction of the physical staion of life and the moral, and political and physical degeneration of human nature]

Professor Seren cites Vico, Nature is ultimately beyond our understanding for it is not made by capitalized man.  History is ade by man, so it canbe understood by Man.  It is this false belief in mans creation of history that is responsible for modern mans Gigantic hubris: The utopia of self-directed humanity.  [The U.S. Presidency goes so far as to claim that it creates human reality]

We seek certainty, objectivity, and universality in the sphere of action [ but it doesn't compute, for HUMAN ACTION is defined by its incalculability]

For me, professor serene states both the problem and the solution. “Man is a Creature. The realization of his creatureliness is absolutely fundamental to Man’s self knowledge.”

[With out self knowledge--- along with humble acceptance of the vastness of our ignorance-- it is difficult for me to fathom how we will survive.  aAnd symbolic thought has absolutely failed to provide us with Self Knowledge. The abstraction of Symbolic thought veils the possibility of direct experience. Without direct experience, how can we guide ourselves?  It would be like an aviator submitting to instructions of a far-removed controller who has no awareness of weather conditions faced by the pilot]
~ Attribution and editorial comments by Jeff Knaebel 13 February 2010

Office of Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission

P.O. Box 1689

Window Rock, Navajo Nation ( Arizona ) 86515

Phone: (928)871-7436 Fax: (928)871-7437

speshlakai@navajo. org

www.NNHRC.navajo. org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 11, 2010

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ ___

Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission Prepares for

United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review

St. Michaels, Navajo Nation (Ariz.) – The Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission (NNHRC) is preparing statements to be submitted, byway of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee of the Navajo Nation Council, to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) for submission in a report for the 9th Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in December.

The report will strongly advocate for the HRC to press the United States , and its political subdivisions, for immediate ratification and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to respect and protect the Dine Life Way and to actively engage in a true nation-to-nation dialogue with indigenous nations.

NNHRC Executive Director Leonard Gorman says Diné has always been a civil society with methods and means of addressing issues in factions within the nation, the economy, development and preservation of resources and fundamental laws and values.

The UPR is a United Nations mechanism which assesses the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States once every four years, with the intent to improve human rights conditions and to address any human rights violations in all the countries. Each State is also given an opportunity to highlight what actions they have taken to improve human rights issues in their country, to fulfill their human rights obligations.

On December 3, 2009, Commission Staff Attorney Donovan Brown and Policy Analyst Rodney L. Tahe met with members of the U.S. Department of State in Washington D.C. to invite them to the Navajo Nation to hear Diné issues directly from Diné before the UPR of the U.S.

In the past, the Commission has sent delegation to United Nations (UN) and Organization of American States (OAS) meetings to advocate on behalf of the Diné people, to advance the Navajo Nation’s positions in international fora and to ensure Diné human rights are represented when the UN and OAS adopt their declarations on the rights of indigenous peoples.

“With the advent of the UN’s adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, at least 146 nations/states have recognized, at the minimum, the rights of the Diné people to exercise their life-ways the way Diné people recognize their relationships with lands, resources, environment, atmosphere and governance,” Gorman said.

The Commission sought participation from the general public and organizations in providing language recommendations for creating position statements regarding self-determination, lands and natural resources, sovereign immunity and self-governance, for insertion into the OAS draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“While the U.S. supported many parts of the UN Declaration, it’s dissension from it centers on the recognition of owning lands, territories, resources on Indian reservations and if the indigenous peoples have the full right to self-determination as other peoples do under international law,” Gorman said. “Thus, it is very important for the Diné people and Navajo Nation to assert and let it be known internationally their views of how the U.S. has affected Diné human rights.”

The Commission has also conducted 25 public hearings addressing race relations between Navajo’s and non-Navajo’s in the border towns of the Navajo Nation. Although a variety of concerns were heard, there were four issues that consistently reoccurred: Issues pertaining to sacred sites, the environment, relocation and unsolved deaths, all of which the Commission included in the position statements as thematic issues.

On April 6, 2009, the Intergovernmental Relations Committee of the Navajo Nation Council approved and adopted the position statements made by the Commission as the minimum standard to be utilized in the advancement of relevant Navajo Nation policy positions.

The United States will be under review in December 2010. For more information contact the Office of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission at (928) 871-7436 or visit www.nnhrc.navajo. org .

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DISASTER DECLARED ON THE CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX INDIAN RESERVATION IN SOUTH DAKOTA.

Two weeks after mammoth storm, reservation still struggling

Wayne Ortman Journal staff | Posted: Monday, February 1, 2010 4:15 pm | (2) Comments

Roger Lawien This Jan. 29, 2010 photo provided by the South Dakota Rural Electric Association shows Moreau-Grand Electric Cooperative crew digging a 4-mile long trench in the snow north of South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe reservation to get to two broken wires following power and water outages caused by an ice storm. South Dakota Rural Electric Association spokeswoman Brenda Kleinjan said electricity has been restored to most population centers on Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe reservation. Hundreds of people in rural areas remained without power Monday Feb. 1, 2010. (AP Photo/South Dakota Rural Electric Association, Roger Lawien)

EAGLE BUTTE — Parts of a sprawling South Dakota reservation still were without water and electricity Monday, nearly two weeks after winter storms toppled thousands of power lines, caused water pipes to freeze and burst, and forced more than a dozen residents on kidney dialysis to seek treatment at another reservation.

A fierce ice storm hit the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation overnight Jan. 20, coating roads and electrical lines and forcing shops and schools to close. Before residents could recover from the ice, a blizzard tore through the Dakotas , bringing a few inches of snow and wind gusts between 25 and 50 mph.

Several shelters and distribution centers were set up around the reservation, and an 8 p.m. curfew was imposed after some looting took place last week. At the height of the outages, about 14,000 people in the region were without water — most of them on the impoverished reservation that covers an area larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

About 8,000 people live on the reservation, among the rolling, grass-covered prairies of north central South Dakota that includes Dewey and Ziebach counties. The tribe says unemployment on the reservation is at 80 percent.

More than half of Ziebach County and 38 percent of Dewey County lived in poverty in 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Tribal Chairman Joseph Brings Plenty said Monday that no deaths had been reported, though a few people reported becoming ill because of fumes from gas-powered heaters.

“I thank the Creator for that, because we could have had quite a few people perish in this,” he said.

Seventeen kidney dialysis patients from the reservation were moved to a hotel at the Prairie Winds Casino in southwest South Dakota , said Rick Shangreaux, the casino’s acting general manager. Indian Health Services nurses are monitoring the patients, who will get treatment at a facility on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota .

Curtis Chasing Hawk, 56, was getting his thrice-weekly dialysis treatments at Pine Ridge after leaving the Cheyenne River reservation last week.

“The roads were all icy and the power was out,” Chasing Hawk said. “We formed a five-car caravan and got out.”

Mona Longbrake said she and her husband, Dilbert, have not had electricity or running water at their ranch about 12 miles southeast of Eagle Butte since Jan. 22. They have been drinking bottled water, cracking ice on a pond to get water to flush their toilet, using an oven range for heat, and using candles and flashlights for light.

“It’s getting tired,” Mona Longbrake said. “You get by as best you can.”

Sonny Brave Eagle said he, his wife and their two young daughters have split time between an emergency shelter and a relative’s house in Eagle Butte where four other families have crowded in.

He said he and his family were stranded about six days in the dark at their home 12 miles north of Eagle Butte until law officers came out to check on them.

“We didn’t have a vehicle … We had no phone, no batteries for the radio,” he said. “We didn’t know what was going on.”

Water and power outages struck all of the reservation’ s residents, tribal spokeswoman Natalie Stites said. Water outages for many lasted about four days, and power outages for some are into their second week. Residents couldn’t even get gas for their vehicles because service station pumps weren’t working without electricity.

By Monday, outages were no longer considered a crisis, but the tribe was still in an “immediate response” mode, Stites said. The tribe has spent “enormous amounts” of money on such needs as fuel and water and an emergency fund that had $175,000 a few months ago has been drained.

The South Dakota National Guard helped bring in generators supplied by the state during the crisis. The tribe distributed fuels such as propane, delivered donated bottled water and send bulk water tanks around the reservation. Stites said the water deliveries were enough to meet everyone’s needs.

Electricity had been restored to most of the reservation’ s population centers, including Eagle Butte, where the tribal offices are located, but hundreds of people in rural areas remained without power, said South Dakota Rural Electric Association spokeswoman Brenda Kleinjan.

Brings Plenty said some of the estimated 1,700 homes that remained without electricity might not have power restored for another three weeks. He said crews need to use jackhammers to break through the frozen ground so they can drill holes for power poles, and snow drifts as high as 30 feet also are hampering the work.

The number of water outages had declined Monday, with about 100 people still affected in the town of La Plant and some scattered rural areas, said Tri County Mni Waste Water System general manager Leo Fischer. Power failures led to equipment malfunctions in the water system’s treatment plant, causing flooding a week ago, that took more than a day to clean and repair. Many pipes on the reservation also froze and burst, adding to the outage problems.

“Our days have run together out here since the 21st,” Fisher said.

Stites said schools remained closed throughout the reservation Monday and the tribe was continuing to distribute water until it could be determined that the tap water was safe.

http://www.rapidcit yjournal. com/news/ article_b1ab5488 -0f53-11df- 922e-001cc4c0328 6.html

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by Jeff Knaebel
by Jeff Knaebel
Recently by Jeff Knaebel: Personal Choices Under Corporate-State Rule

Kind Sir, it is too simple. How can there ever be peace with a system of Nation States designed and organized for endless war – war on other States, war on their own people, war on nature? How can peace arise from institutionalized structural violence that is constantly escalating to new levels of insanity through ever-expanding technology? How can a social system grounded in the science of killing ever deliver the goodness and beauty that is the art of living? How can humanity survive where there is no moral ground? ~ Jeff Knaebel, letter to National Human Rights Commission, 10 JAN, 2010

INTRODUCTION

It is your moral choice. It is on you weather I be granted to live as a dignified human being dedicated to the cause of peace and brotherhood, or else to die as a hunted slave or in jail. ~ Jeff Knaebel, letter to the National Human Rights Commission, 6 DEC, 2009

19 JUN, 2009. In the evening, I destroyed my passport and renounced U.S. Citizenship in an action of Satyagraha at New Delhi, India. This action of sedition and rebellion comprised a public statement of civil disobedience against lawless and corrupt governments. My Declaration of Renunciation and Severance was posted on LewRockwell.com on 29 JUNE, 2009.

By this action – sited at the Gandhi Samadhi, Rajghat, out of reverence and respect for the Mahatma’s inspiration – I courted arrest and imprisonment in India. My calculation was to demonstrate to the world the truth of Mahatma Gandhi’s statement: “The State is a soulless machine that can never be weaned from the violence to which it owes its very existence.”

The State’s Divorce from Ethics and Conscience

Also sought was to point out by direct physical action the ethical linkages that State propaganda attempts ceaselessly to obscure from our perception. The first link was clearly stated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930. Speaking in Madras, he said, “The highest moral law is, we should work unremittingly for the good of mankind.” The manner of his living demonstrated what he meant by the good.

The second link is the foundation precept of all the great wisdom teachings: that our first duty is to do no harm – to do unto others as we would be done by.

The third link is the obviousness of the fact that we cannot follow these precepts of eternal wisdom so long as we vote for and pay taxes to a government which engages in criminal activities against mankind as does the United States.

[and the intrinsic compulsions of the Corporate State predict that it can do no other than plunder]

The State tries to convince us that it is exempt from the Laws of God and Nature – in other words, to the effect that IT is the God which we must obey, and not the God which speaks to us through our personal conscience. In this attempted divorce of man from conscience lies proof that the State is a non-human machine-entity, and thus truly beyond the influence of the human conscience.

Thus, we who vote and pay taxes are in fact mere slaves to the mindless, soulless, conscienceless machine whose genetic compulsion is to control and to exploit. It is our mind that is enslaved, to wit:

“The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” ~Stephen Biko, South African Freedom Fighter, & Derrick Jensen, End Game.

As it happened, my calculation of arrest did not work out as planned. The deeply humane character of the Indian ethos generated an unexpected outcome. After reading my Declaration and interviewing me at the Delhi police station, the Supervising Officer, (S.O.), refused arrest. He told me, “Jail is for criminals, and you are not a criminal. You are free to go anywhere in India.” I took the Delhi police at their word, and went about my work. The Rajkot police later adopted the same position as Delhi. Now, however, after more than 210 days of website and media documented Stateless Freedom, I am faced with a direct threat of imprisonment by local authorities. Upon their demand for a specific avenue of legal procedure or else be immediately imprisoned, I have, by their instruction, written to the National Human Rights Commission to request intervention so that I may be permitted Indian domicile as a Stateless person.

My hand-written to the NHRC – with minor editing for hopefully publishable quality and to delete individual names for privacy – has been transcribed below. It describes my continuing Satyagraha since 19 JUNE, 2009 and presents my current position vis-à-vis the authorities. This letter, of 6 December, 2009, has been followed by 7 others in which the Argument from Morality is presented to the NHRC.

Table of Contents

Introduction

My Vows

My Vows Versus Political Reality

Situations, Facts, and Request

The Gandhi Swaraj Padyatra

Subsequent to Sarahan Conference

My Request

No Safety in Any Other Country

Historical Background

Deciding Moment

Dhamma Seva

INTRODUCTION

I am an apostle of Mahatma Gandhi and a stateless person in my 71st year of life. My life purpose is to work for peace on earth and to help save humanity from self-destruction.

In the manner of a Shanti Sainik, (peace volunteer), as conceived and demonstrated by Mahatma Gandhi, I have pledged to strive for peace and be prepared to lay down my life in the attempt.

I have lived in India continuously since 1995. I have never been affiliated with any organization except Vipassana Meditation as taught by Acharya Ven. S.N. Goenka of Igatpuri.

This letter is being handwritten by candle light in a room where temperature is about 5 deg. C. As called for by Mahatma Gandhi, I have renounced both my home and the former amenities of technology in favor of a simple chop wood–carry water lifestyle.

The writing is in haste due to the deadline imposed by local authorities. It is based upon unaided memory because none of my archives are with me. I apologize for the lack of professionalism – this is the best I can do under the circumstances, with cold and numb fingers.

As Mahatma Gandhi is the Father of your nation, so he is the Father of my inspiration to come to India to learn and to carry on his work within my own capacity. I carry his teachings in my heart. I live to carry the essential message of love through my words and deeds.

Everything I have done or will do in India is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Buddha. Only by the Light of these two great Indians and their Followers like Vinoba Bhave can humanity be saved from self-destruction.

War – especially aggressive acquisitive war as engaged by the United States – is a total failure of the human spirit. To kill another is suicide, for the other and me are One.

We can have no friend so long as we count a single man as enemy. Love is now more than a Virtue – it is a Necessity. Without love, we all perish. We must love our Earth and all her creatures as we would love ourselves.

MY VOWS

I have vowed to strive for Satyagraha, (strong adherence to truth), and Ahimsa, (non-violence), in the sense of the Buddhist Precepts which operate on three levels.

• To abstain from violence.
• To not condone violence.
• To not support violence.

In the Christian sense this is expressed as “Do unto others as you would be done by.” All the rest is commentary.

Mahatma Gandhi taught that thought, word and deed must be congruent, for otherwise one’s life becomes a lie. He taught that we must ourselves do, and not rely upon the other fellow to act.

On this basis, my Secondary Sacred Vow is never again to ride in a motor vehicle. This is what one man can do to help save the Earth from the destruction of a petroleum-based economy. Gandhiji said that we should walk to our work on our own legs.

So far, in keeping this Vow I have walked 1,389 km in the past 111 days, crossing India from Jaipur to Sarahan and beyond. A significant portion of this walk has been on Himalaya Footpaths with back packs and tent camps.

My Vows Versus Political Reality

Ahimsa in its true sense requires not only personal abstention from violence – it also requires the Satyagrahi not to condone violence and not to support violence.

After years of research, study, practice, and writing, I concluded that the only way to be an apostle of Ahimsa at any level approaching the benchmark set by Mahatma Gandhi was to renounce my U.S. Citizenship. This act was one I could do with my own hands, as taught by the Mahatma.

By this severance of all relations with the government of this rogue nation which is the most destructive terrorist in human history did I gain the personal freedom which is pre-requisite to the clear conscience required for inner peace. No longer am I an accomplice, guilty by association and acquiescence.

To the extent that I retain any connection with the U.S. economy of tax-financed endless war, I abdicate my own moral conscience. I become an accomplice to mass murder and heinous crimes against humanity – a material accomplice to obscene and mindless wastage of life, human and other.

By renouncing my citizenship I have made a public statement that the American war machine does not act in my name, nor with my tax payments, because I am no longer an American.

Situation, Facts, Request

On the evening of 19 June 2009, by my Satyagraha conducted at the Samadhi, (monument), of Mahatma Gandhi, Rajghat, New Delhi, I renounced physically and directly my U.S. Citizenship. Passport, birth certificate and all identification documents were destroyed.

I chose this monument – and acted with great respect in my heart – because it is a symbol that all mankind can recognize: of nonviolent resistance to immoral, corrupt, and violent governments.

I read out to the assembled public and security guards my Declaration of Renunciation and Severance which is attached hereto. Its Accompanying Statement of Philosophy and Precepts is also attached.

I then took up a sitting position of Satyagraha next to the Samadhi until nightfall and closing time, when the police removed me from Rajghat and escorted me to the Darya Ganj Thana, (police station).

These actions were partially filmed by a local Delhi TV station, and thoroughly video-documented by international journalists. These videos have been shown worldwide on U Tube, and are carried on a number of international websites. By telephone to me and others on 20 June, the U.S. Embassy indicated contemporaneous knowledge of events.

Pursuant to advice from private attorneys, government officials, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, I had expectations of arrest and imprisonment. I had prepared by donating all of my assets, down to only the set of clothes I was wearing. Several of my references attached hereto can bear witness.

I had courted arrest in order to bring world attention to the insane, depraved and human species suicidal crimes of the United States government.

However, after reading my Declaration and interviewing me, the Superintending Officer of Darya Ganj Thana refused to arrest. He said, “Jail is for criminals, and you are not a criminal.” The S.O. further stated that I was free to move anywhere in India. When I protested about the difficulty of travel without I.D. papers, he said, “Don’t worry. Bharat Mata, (Mother India), will take care of you. If you encounter any trouble, dial 100 and we will help you. Now go back to your hotel.”

On 20 June 2009, I returned to the Thana along with a journalist. Again I protested that it was their duty to arrest. The inspector on duty reiterated the S.O. position and repeated that I was free to move about anywhere in India. These statements were video-recorded by the accompanying journalist and have been uploaded on U Tube.

The actions of 19 June 2009 and the video within the Thana of 20 June 2009 are attached herewith as DVD entitled “Jeff Knaebel in New Delhi 19 and 20 June 2009 – Raw Footage.” International Journalists continue to maintain contact and monitor my situation.

I took the police authorities at their word, and accepted the invitation of engineer-industrialist Sri V.K. Desai to stay at his home in Rajkot. There I responded to invitations to give public speeches as well as press interviews, some of which are attached hereto. The letter of congratulation from Sri V.K. Desai to the S.O. Darya Ganj is attached, as well as my own later letter to the S.O.

By word and deed, the police had made it very clear that an apostle of Mahatma Gandhi is free to live in India, that my actions were not an offense, that I was not a security risk, and that far from being a threat, I was here to carry on the sacred work of Mahatma Gandhi within my own limited capacity. Therefore my arrest would have been an insult to the Father of the Nation. See the DVD.

My Indian Friends have said that arrest would prove absurd as viewed through the eyes of humanitarian India. The Rajkot police have subsequently confirmed this position by telephone inquiry to Sri V.K. Desai about me, upon which they said, “No problem, just keep us advised of his activities.”

However, make no mistake – I am prepared to be arrested at any time, as will be shown in what follows.

Living and moving among the devout Gandhians of Rajkot, I became more and more inspired to give back to Bharat Mata whatever I could to express my gratitude and love.

I have long believed that the future of the human race rests with Village India. If Hind Swaraj cannot be made a reality in India, and Universal Swaraj a world reality, I believe we face extinction through planetary destruction. For non-Indian readers, Swaraj translates to self-governing village republics features consensus decision-making by all adults of the village, male and female.

As Sri R.S. Negi told me after the Sarahan Conference (Proclamation attached), “If we cannot elevate our consciousness and stop the ecological and cultural destruction, we are doomed.”

The Gandhi Swaraj Padyatra, (Padyatra means journey on foot)

Seeing that 2009 is the centenary anniversary of Hind Swaraj, (Gandhiji’s revolutionary book of 1909), being celebrated throughout India, my friends and I conceived the Gandhi Swaraj Padyatra as a means through which I could give of myself and my experience something useful to the villagers.

The statement of Darya Ganj S.O. that “Bharat Mata will take care of you” turned out to be prophetic. The respect, support, generosity, hospitality and compassion that poured forth during our village walk across India was simply overwhelming.

The Padyatra covered 1,108 km from Jaipur to Sarahan, where an International Conference on World Village Swaraj was held. Its Proclamation and partial proceedings are attached.

We were directly supported and hosted by more than 600 people. Our team spoke to an estimated 20,000 people, ranging from groups of Village Elders to assemblies of more than 3,000 University Students. We gave more than 150 public addresses as well as a number of press conferences. We were filmed for local TV.

Our hosts included householders, Sarpanch, (presiding officer of village council), VIP industrialists, ex-Ministers and MLAs, retired military officers and University Chancellors, as well as Khadi Ashrams, (Gandhian cottage industry campus), and schools.

There was not one instance of violence. Expressions of gratitude and outpourings of goodwill were almost universal. Occasionally there were long queues of students seeking autographs on the copies of Hind Swarj which we distributed.

Our Core Message was to revere and respect the culture and values of India as expounded by Mahatma Gandhi, and to turn away from the wanton waste and destructiveness of the Western Corporate State model.

We expressed the view that India must become the Light of the World if our planet’s life support is to be saved from total destruction. The India dreamt by Mahatma Gandhi is the last best chance to save humanity from self-annihilation.

We urged students to turn off the TV, and imbibe the great teachings of Dhyan, (meditation), and Yog, (unity), by which India has taught mankind for millennial the techniques of mental discipline and self-restraint. We recommended the Anuvrat Movement of the Jains, (see Wikipedia). We pointed out that survival of the human species depends upon elevating our level of consciousness toward the great values of the Buddha, the Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, and the great Saints of India.

Jeff described from his experience as a US Navy officer, government planner, and business executive how the institutional corporate structure of Western civilization is a non-human machine that has no conscience, cannot feel pain, cannot pray or meditate, cannot feel empathy, and cannot love. The corporation exists and is legally chartered only to make money profit. This generates its compulsion to exploit both nature and people.

An abstract mortal legal construct, the corporation has neither soul nor body, so it does as it pleases. You can neither reason nor negotiate with it because it is a non-human machine, incapable of human empathy. Most, of not all, governments of the world are now effectively corporate entities. Political elections amount only to changing the driver of a pre-destination train. Against the corporate state, a person’s right to life does not count.

I describe how a young man, once initiated into the life of a corporate employee, is compelled to surrender his moral conscience to the corporate interest in furtherance of his own self-interest and professional advancement. He becomes a member of the company tribe. Job security and company loyalty trump personal conscience.

I asked young people, who are the future of humanity, “What is civilization? Is it space satellites? Is it the nuclear bomb? What is the mythical ethos of Western civilization? Was it encapsulated at Hiroshima? Is it currently promulgated by the horrible birth defects factored into the human genome by depleted uranium?”

I quoted a child survivor of Hiroshima, now a Buddhist monk in saying, “Civilization is not electricity. It is not the atomic bomb. Civilization is not killing people.”

I asked if peace could ever be realized through a system of massively centralized institutions of the Money Power – non-human institutions whose framework is designed to support endlessly escalating structural violence. How can peace arise through geo-political institutions that are organized for war – war on each other, war on nature, war on the poor who must watch helplessly the land and water base of their lives being destroyed by the corporate machine of mindless greed as it smashes down mountains, shreds forests, and poisons air and water, chewing through Village India like a cloud of locusts? How are 500 million rural Indians going to live when the Ganges drainage has been destroyed by the 287 hydroelectric projects now under construction? Will they eat money and drink petrol?

I pointed out that the most powerful weapon of the organized propaganda of this out-of-control non-human machine is our own mind that we have surrendered to the TV, corporate media, and State-manufactured consent. Are we not insane to support this depraved automaton with our votes and taxes? I asked students, “Are your studies training you to become a corporate warrior, or a messenger of brotherhood? With which is the soul of India?”

A print-out of the Gandhi Swaraj Padyatra Website is attached. The entire site can be viewed at www.gandhipadyatra.com . Please review the website itself if you wish to gain insight into this writer’s words and deeds.

Additional and more primary of my writings can be viewed at the following sites:

• www.thetreeoftomorrow.org
• www.freeofstate.org
• www.lewrockwell.com

Subsequent To Sarahan Conference

Upon conclusion of the Conference on 5 Nov 2009, we walked for eleven days to convey my wish to study Ahimsa with my Buddhist Acharya, (teacher). He graciously accepted me until February, 2010.

Immediately, I then walked for two days back to the District Office and presented myself and my declaration to the District Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police on 19 Nov 2009. Four witnesses, including a journalist, were with me in front of the officials. At this point, I had walked 1,296 km from Jaipur.

The DC and SP were courteous and kind, but not sympathetic. As I had done at Darya Ganj in New Delhi, I told the SP that I was ready to be arrested on the spot, and to do with me as he willed. He declined arrest, but said that he would have to act if any government agency required.

On 26 November, 2009, my host delivered written notice to the SP that I was a temporary guest in his house. He attached a packet of information that included my Declaration and the Padyatra information attached hereto.

On 4 December, 2009 the Station House Officer along with three other police officers interviewed me at my temporary residence. In an earlier visit I had provided the local Chief with the complete data package of my situation.

I stated to the SHO that I was prepared to be arrested as I sat before him – it would further my mission of exposing the Truth. He very kindly deferred arrest, sternly demanding instead that I seek permission from the National Human Rights Commission to remain in India as a Stateless Person.

He further stated that if NHRC permission is denied, he will immediately imprison me.

My Request To The Commission

I am prepared to face arrest and imprisonment, or to lay down my life for the cause of freedom and peace, for peace is not possible without freedom.

I aspire to the standard set by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in the methods of Ahimsa and Satyagraha.

My life work is a walking meditation prayer for peace. My life is not about providing tax finance for the United State Government to blow up women and children in its economy of blood for oil.

I sold everything at great loss, left family and friends and the land of my birth, and came to India in order not to be on the one hand a material accomplice to murder, or on the other hand a slave – a mere automaton of a human being. I seek to be a refugee from the endless wars of the United States Government.

The deciding moment of expatriation is described under the heading Historical Background and Dhamma Service.

No Safety In Any Other Country

My life and liberty are at risk in any other country because all will deem me as an illegal human being who must be persecuted under their law. I would be most vulnerable to persecution in the U.S. for my acts of rebellion and sedition if forceably remanded to that country, of which I am not a citizen.

I have not a single document that portrays my identity. I can live only by the compassionate grace and generosity of humane India. See the attached letter from Sri V.K. Desai to the Darya Ganj S.O.

I deem it my right as a simple human being to be able to live as do so many tribals of India and elsewhere – without the documentation of even a birth certificate.

I deem it a core human right not to be invalidated and reduced to the condition of a dead piece of State property, branded and tracked like a farm animal.

Only a culture of some kind of subhuman consciousness brands and tracks its members and takes by force their earnings to be used to make bombs and desecrate our earth. Where blind rule supersedes reason and love, humanity is nullified by machine, and no man is safe.

My request to the humane traditions of India is for you to intervene with the Ministries of Home and External Affairs that I may be granted the right to live in India as a Stateless Person – a Refugee if you will.

It is your moral choice. It is on you whether I be granted to live as a dignified human being dedicated to the cause of peace and brotherhood, or else to die as a hunted slave or in jail, because I don’t have a piece of paper.

If my brother humans wish to treat this man of peace as a threat who must be jailed, then so be it. I wonder what the Bodhisattvas and the Deities would say about this level of human consciousness.

You need not be concerned that I may become a burden on Indian society. I am self-supporting. Far from burden, I have proactively supported Indian society since my first visit in 1989. I have attempted to follow Gandhiji’s precept of a Constructive Program as essential to Satyagraha. My activities in this regard are presented in the Bio Data attachment.

By whose ethical standards will I be judged? The blind laws of institutionalized structural violence on a scale so vast that can only show humanity as depraved and pathologically insane? Or, as chosen by Socrates, Jesus Christ, and Mahatma Gandhi, the Law of God as heard by the human conscience – the small still voice within?

The Law of God is Love and not war. Every human being has the right to strive for Self-Realization – for achieving the deathless. No man can realize Ultimate Reality while financing the murder of his brothers.

Why should any human being have to beg from others his permission to exist?

Historical Background, Deciding Moment and Dhamma Service

As can be seen in the attached CV, as I studied more and more of Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Buddha, my consciousness slowly changed to the point I could no longer remain as manager of the several enterprises that I had successfully created and operated. I disengaged from business and devoted my life to humanitarian service through Hospice patient care and the defense of human rights of Native Americans – the Indian equivalent approximately of Adivasis – tribal peoples.

The deciding moment of my expatriation came when I was flying missions in Mexico for Lighthawk – the Wings of Conservation. An Elder of the Tarahumara Tribe spoke to an international conference about the destruction of tribal forest lands envisioned for a World Bank and American financed pulp paper mill.

Holding aloft in his left hand a trashy paper magazine, he addressed this conference of suited industrialists, financiers and government officials at the University of Chihuahua. He said, “You people are cutting our trees in order to make this – pointing to the magazine. The forest is the life of my people. When you have cut the last of our trees, we will die, and you people will read this.” My heart trembled with this Truth.

I have been telling Village India – We Are All Tarahumara Now.

That same day in Chihuahua City the TV was carrying images of proud American bombs raining death from the sky upon Iraqi women and children and kittens and chickens and goats.

These two juxtaposed events pierced my heart. These were American operations. Both brought death to others. I was an American citizen. My tax money built the bombs and missiles and aircraft carriers. My flying an expensive aircraft – even if in resistance – made me a part of the blood for oil economy.

It was all too clear now: I was living a lie. My government – with my earnings – was destroying our earth and all her living creatures.

That very day I made my decision. I would sell out and move to India. I would seek wisdom and peace in the land of Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Buddha. I would seek the India of Mahatma Gandhi’s dreams – the India that is repository of the ancient Dharma of all mankind.

Several years were required to unload my businesses – even at great loss. I moved permanently to India in 1995.

My apologies that this is not more professional in appearance. It is my best effort by candle light with numb-cold fingers and limited time.

January 20, 2010

Jeff Knaebel [send him mail] is an expatriate American domiciled in India since 1995. He formerly practiced as a registered professional engineer, having been trained at Cornell Univ. and the Colorado School of Mines. Visit his website.

Copyright © 2010 Jeff Knaebel

“Who Is My Family? My Blood, Or Those Who Walk With Me?”
Journal to Kilometer 1181 (With 429 to go with phase 1), by Jeff Knaebel.

Early in the morning we passed by Apple and walnut orchards, and came upon a women with her cow.  The lady carried a large basket of local fruit, called Dak.  “Take all you want”  she said, tilting the basket towards us.

Further on, it happened by chance that Jeff was in the lead to negotiate a somewhat marginal move.  A thin veneer of landslide rubble clinging to a ledge the width of a shoe , with a terminator sheer drop below.  A protruding overhang of cliff face forced turning a sharp conner while bent low for the backpack to clear.  Jeff managed it solo and the porters following with heavy high loads took the hand of a local chap in order to negotiate the crier.

Barely on the other side, our leadsman Pathram meets a young fellow coming the other direction and carrying by head strap a 20 gallon can of diesel.  As the two men attempt to squeeze passed each other on the narrow ledge, the young man slips and begins to be pulled over the edge by his heavy load.  Only the quick grasp and pull of our Brave Pathram saved his life.

Then came a tough , steep pitch down to a river crossing ahead of our night halt.  Our Cameraman fell on this pitch and hurt a previously injured knee.  Stove up and in pain he carried on cheerfully without complaint.

We meet an old man aged 78, his son, and little grandson of about 7 years, moving up a steep pitch in single file, loads of wood rope-strap on their backs.  The elder said to Jeff, “It was better in the old days before the roads came.  Life was peaceful.  The times were good.”

At our tent camp supper this night, Our American cameraman said, “This is the happiest moment of my life.  Away from all the craziness.  Peaceful.  And it’s the people.  As sore as I am, I feel so good.”

Then he spoke about the Christ.  “You know, Jesus asked a man who had been sent by his mother to call him to her while he was addressing his Disciples,  ‘Who is my family?  My Blood, or those who walk with me”"

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