Thursday, July 4, 2013

Of God and Godlets

We are always in search for something, all our lives we are on the lookout for anything we thought of importance that we need to find. Sad thing is, we never seemed to find it, nor come as close to ever discovering whatever that is we are searching for. 

And the ultimate search people often does is to find God.  Almost everyone at some point would like to find God and probably to ask for a lot of things, maybe forgiveness, peace, stillness, answers to questions, some maybe for healing, happiness, bliss and warmth in God's everlasting presence. There will be many who "may" point the direction where we can find God, from heaven (wherever that is, I don't think simply by looking up, right?), to inside of a church, to the books supposedly the words of God, to someone who is "knowledgeable" about God.

I don't intend to debunk anything nor anyone, I am merely hoping to understand this search for the Truth about God.

We often limit God, we personalize the omnipotence of God's greatness, one thing is the infinite magnificence of God is way beyond anyone can comprehend, way, way beyond. We even referred to God as a He, but then how do we really know the gender? Can God be a She? We believe God is pure Love, and then we say God punishes the wicked, the bad, the immorals and the damned. But we believe otherwise. God is Love, period. God will not punish, God will not send the angels and smite every first born, nor God will make it rain with fire and brimstone. That is not God. 

“It is no coincidence that Jesus talks endlessly about love. Free love. Unconditional love.”
Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What

Whichever way we search for God, we fail to realize that our search goes outwardly, like God can be found in a place, or we expect God to appear as a burning bush or part the sea. That's not going happen, no matter how much we spend time and effort, as God is not outside, God is not out there somewhere, God is Us, God is inside Us. We fail to realize that our search for God has to be inwards, towards the center of our being. Find and believe that the kingdom of God is not that far away, it is within us, we are the kingdom, we are the Truth of God, we are the epitome of God's Love. We are Love. In our mindlessness, we fail to understand that to search within ourselves is the way in finding God. We were created in God's image, thus We are "godlets." Someone I love so dearly coined the word, "godlets" to make me understand that as human as we like us to be, we are God's spitting image. We are capable of magnificence and greatness if we only allow ourselves, and believe to be. So God is everywhere, God is ANYONE. A famous line of a song in the musical play Les Miserables, I remember the most goes, 

"To love another person, is to see the face of God."

That is absolutely true, each one of us is a reflection of God, little "godlets" that if we only understand that, the world will be the paradise we dream it to be. But, reality check, we are made to believe that God dwells somewhere else, "Seek first the kingdom of God" - Matthew 6:33, one just cannot go to somewhere in Europe to find a castle where God lives, right? What it simply meant is that we have to search within ourselves and find who we really are, knowing that we are God's "godlets" with a huge capacity to love, the power to achieve anything, that we possess both the wisdom and the knowledge of the universe. 

There is a God, yes, of course, but God is not up there, but rather inside each and every one of us, and to cause harm to another person and speak ill of a friend, we are talking to God. If we cause one to suffer, we do it to God. We do our best to be pleasing to God right? Let's do it here, right now, to someone we care about, and to anyone we may meet out there, anyone who needs to see God, in us, in you.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Best Things Are Still Free, So Live!

We are living in a world where we are being misled to believe that the purpose of our lives is mainly to earn money and that the latest innovations in technology, food industry, automotive, fashion and medicine will make us happy.

Try this experiment, observe. Observe yourself, how you live, look around your room, or your house, take notice of the things you have accumulated so far. Go to your closet, how many clothes do you really need?
How many shoes?  We are not an octopus to carry all those mobile phones having different network affiliations around always. Does one really need one too many? Do we need all those gadgets just to be "in" like everyone else?
Do we need to shop for something we don't really need? We are creatures of HABIT, collecting anything? Do you really have to? Yeah, you may say you can eventually sell these collections when the need arises, but seriously, can you part with them? We are also creatures of ATTACHMENTS, we harbor things for sentimental values.

We spend hours watching television where these media moguls and rich companies spend millions just to convince everyone that WE NEED what they sell, what they offer, what they show...and they are convincing. We see giant billboards all around the city, we read them in papers and magazine, we are being "hypnotized" to understand that these things will make us happy, will make our lives better, but there's a catch, we have to BUY them, and in order to do that, we have to WORK our ass off. WE need to slave ourselves to our deskjobs, stations, market places, for that convincing advertisement. From an early age we are "programmed" with colorful and catchy information on TV, Magazines, Newspapers, Movies, Internet, and grew up believing all of them.

Observe, look at other people, your co-workers, watch them how they parade themselves with whatever NEW thing they have, everyone is guilty with pride, we want attention, we want to be the center of notice by everyone, it boost our EGOS masquerading as self confidence. But is it that important? DO WE REALLY HAVE TO?

Believe it or not we can live without all these things, we can be learn to be content with what we ALREADY HAVE, we don't need much to be enjoy our life, and the BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE STILL FREE. I don't need to elaborate much on that, because I am sure we still know what are these best things, we are just made into ZOMBIES to think that our life cycles should go around like this: SCHOOL - WORK - EARN MONEY - BUY THINGS - SHOWED WHAT'S NEW - EARN MORE MONEY- BUY WHAT'S NEW - SHOWED WHAT'S NEW AGAIN - SLAVE TO WORK - and it goes on and on...

I was blinded before, and guilty as charged too. BUT now, I know better, because I was told to look at myself, OBSERVED myself, to go out of my self and look at my habits, my attachments, and what I think are my "needs." Slowly, I started to see the picture, I begin to evaluate myself and asked the question, "DO I REALLY NEED TO?" "DO I HAVE TO?" I used to love the feeling of having admired or even envied for what I have, and when I saw myself like that, I felt a bit ashamed, sad and humiliated, and  I looked at my closet, I have enough clothes to dress up 50 men, twice! I have 30 pairs of shoes, excluding those I've already given away. I have a variety of gadgets that I don't even know all of their functions! All these, before I was reminded to look beyond myself. I realized too that I am better than this, that these things cannot be the source of my happiness.

We have to awaken from a deep sleep, we have to understand the importance of contentment, we have to realize that our happiness cannot be found in material accumulations but from knowing that, and we hear it over and over again, but seemed not to take heed of it, happiness can be found on simple things.WE don't NEED to WORK HARD for our happiness, we don't have to.

BUT, of course we have to have something to catch up with the times, right? We only need to have enough to not to compromise our freedom and enjoyment of life. Live guys! Live!



Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Path I Want To Take

Life begins at 40, at this stage most people probably are stable, living their lives according to what they believe in, and I am still feeling lost. Lost in everything, am I having an early midlife crisis? I don't think so.
I am in the midst of having a major setback in my life, no job, no offers, no money, and a future that seemed to be bleak.
I often ask myself why.
The answer came unexpectedly, and I realized that it's been there all along. For the last three years of my life I had been preparing for this set back, sounds a bit weird, but I knew it coming and for a great reason. I need to go through this in order to understand and open myself to a lot of bigger things. Bigger than I can ever comprehend.
I need to go through this in order to appreciate the lessons in wants, losses, simplicity and letting go. There is so much to understand about a lot of things going on, and my mind had been filled with a lot of questions hat needs answers. I am learning to let go of my wants. Accumulation of things I really don't have a need for, things that I can live without. Tangible and intangible things, I am releasing myself from the chain of envy, the binds of commercialism and social standards.
The path to greater freedom and understanding of the world and how life should be lived is a road not everyone travel through. Many will not understand at a glance the subtle changes I may undergo, they may say I am going out of my mind even.
I am not satisfied with what is already given, the obvious, the norm, what everyone else should be doing. I am not happy, I cannot be myself. I had to conform to what people expect of me, I had to follow what everyone else is doing. That I should be scared of going out of the safety of a collective thinking that it is not ok to change, to break the rules, to ask the question, to shake the bottle and crate confusion and chaos.
I will seek the answers to many of my questions, and open myself to all possibilities.
It will be a dangerous choice, but a choice nonetheless that I am free to take. I am ready to go to the other side and I am not scared. I am ready to take the journey and start a life meant for me to live. To understand my purpose and to act on this divine gift using all the skills and talents that I acquire through the years. Its been laid our for me, and I can see it clearly.
It will require greater patience and perseverance, a clear mind and an awakened spirit. Slowly, I am going out of my comfort zone, I am observing myself, being conscious of myself, my every word and action. This awareness of oneself is the start of my journey, for it is by getting to know myself, who I am as creation of pure love and light, will serve as my vehicle to travel through an ocean of knowledge and discoveries.
It will not be easy, but the reward is immeasurable.
The journey will be an adventure.
A dream within a dream, where every character is of my own creation, my own life.
I have to die, consciously in order to resurrect into the person I am meant to be. To follow a guide that is presented to me by the universe itself. To know the truth about God, the universe, the hidden truths and evolve to a higher conscious being and take people who are willing to travel the same path with me as many as I can.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Be Unbusy

"I am busy!"
How often do we hear this phrase whenever be ask a love one, a friend or someone when we needed their attention?

“Those who are wise won’t be busy, and those who are too busy can’t be wise.” ― Lin Yutang

"Busy" has become the new word for "Fine." Like we used to say we are "fine" when asked  how we are doing, but more often people reply "Busy" instead. It has become our default situation everytime.
But being busy has made our life better? Are we improving because we get too busy? I bet you, we are not.
Have you noticed that we are often too busy at almost anything. Parents (and it is true) are always too busy to assist their children with their homework or even read them a book. Day cares and after-school activities had replaced parents instead. We often too, find it hard to include a chance to travel or vacation these days. We are living with extreme stress everyday and lie awake at night because of this. It has become a problem. We have become too busy.
It does not have to be this way, becoming busy is not expected.
We can choose to be unbusy.
For one, it is always our choice, a decision and never we are pushed or directed to busyness. We need to understand that schedules are planned by us. We have a choice.
Have you noticed too that we associate busyness with being great, exemplary and honorable? We need to stop glorifying busyness. It is alright not to be busy. Appreciate rests. Schedule rest days, one of the reasons we keep ourselves busy is because we do not understand the importance of rest. It is important that our body, mind and spirit gets to rest every now and then, we need to rejuvenate.
Understand our priorities and goals in life. Determine what are important after all busyness is all about misplaced priorities.
Try to own fewer things, we like to accumulate a lot of knick knacks and it takes much of our time and energy just giving each and every item an attention, cleaning, organizing, rearranging and maintaining. The more we own, the more time is needed. Give away stuff that is not useful anymore and own less. Then we'll find the extra time to rest.
Make it a habit to provide space in your daily routine. Take the time to eat, take the time to meditate in the morning, put some effort in being alone with yourself. Do have breaks when at work or in between assignments.
We can always say "no." We need to learn how to say "no" and stand by it. No to less important commitments, because it then opens to a much more worthy options. Busyness does not need to define who we are. It is possible to be unbusy, to enjoy a peaceful life, to be happy.

Monday, June 10, 2013

A Better Life, It Is Possible

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov 

For every hundred men, starting from age 25, upon reaching the age of 65, only 1 rich, 4 are financially independent, five are still working and the rest will be broke. Which tells us that only 5 out of 100 people are successful in life. Now why is that? Why only 5 end up living their dreams? Why do we need to struggle in life? Why are there so few who actually lived their lives?
The answer is simply, 5 out of 100 knows why they exist in this world and the remaining 95 spend their lives without knowing what their purpose in life is. To make it clear, our life purpose is the reason we are here in this world, it is our assignment! It is the what we are meant to contribute and make a difference in the world and make it at least a better place to live in. It is what we are created for by God to share to the world. A problem to solve for humanity. Usually, this goes beyond ourselves and is far great than us.  
“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”
Robert F. Kennedy

More often our thoughts are all about us, ourselves and you only, and probably not working in life with our life's purpose. In making ourselves the center of our thoughts is self-centeredness, which limits our abilities to succeed in life.
Are we in this world just to earn a living and provide for our family? I don't think so, because that is too small to be the purpose of our life. If where the purpose of anything is not known, often it is being abused; if we fail to identify our life purpose, we often end up being used, abused and support others to achieve their life purpose. Sad to say the reality is most of us are employed today, we start our morning everyday performing a routine helping our employers to realize their vision and serve their purpose. I don't mean to say that it is not right to work for an employer, it could be an instrument to get some skills and resources which can help in serving our life purpose. But, we need to know what our life purpose and have a plan to serve it. Would you like to be just an employee for the rest of  your life?
To know what our life purpose, we need to search for our own answer to these questions: Why am I in this world? How can I make my life count? These clues can probably help figure it out:
  1. Know that one thing you can do and very good at.
  2. Discover what you love and enjoy doing.
  3. Is there anything you are so passionate about?
  4. Is  there anything you can do and be your best regardless not receiving any monetary reward from it?
Any one of these might give us something to better understand why we are in this world. Then we can develop and hone our skills in that particular talent or skill to become our best. More importantly, shifting our attention from ourselves to others. Think of how to use our skills to benefit the human race and to the glory of the God.
Each one of us is born to contribute something to the world. That is our life purpose, and once we discovered that, the lessons of what you sow you reap applies. The 5 people who succeeded in life knows this perfectly well, and what exactly did they do? While most of us focus on reaping, these people focus on sowing. They understand that what they sow eventually they will reap in the end. They planted their time and their resources towards giving and serving their purpose to benefit humanity; donating into the world by solving the problem and meeting others needs, employing us. This tactic eventually create more than enough harvest to take care of their personal needs.
However, most of us have the mindset of meeting only our personal needs, an employee mindset. It is a mystery when I see people getting a job for the sole purpose of getting a high salary. Getting the money to take care of personal needs. That is our main focus, the harvest than the sowing. We work tirelessly night and day for the money.  It is a universal truth that our needs need to be met, but we need to meet the needs of others too. If our major purpose to specifically to only meet our needs, then we must understand that this kind of thinking only leads to a life of constantly struggling to succeed. But there is a better way to live and that is to identify our life purpose and serve that purpose for the humanity. When we do this, we will be reaping an abundance of harvest that is more than enough for our needs.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Simplicity And The Pursuit of Happiness

A young man is lazily lying on the beach, his fishing rod propped on the sand, lounging in the warmth of the afternoon sun and enjoying the crisp salty sea breeze while dreaming of a prospect of a hearty catch of fish.
Along came an elder businessman, who happen to pass by the beach to relieve himself of the days stress and found the young man enjoying himself lazily.
He approached the young man to find out why he is wasting his time there instead of working hard for a living.
"You cannot catch a fish that way! You should be working very hard for a living than just lying there young man!"
The young man just looked up the older man and smiling, "Then what would my reward be?"
"Well, you can get bigger nets and then you can catch more fish." The old man said.
"And what will my reward be?"
Starting to get irritated, the old man answered, "You can earn a lot of money to buy a boat so you can catch more fish!"
"My reward would then be what?"
The old man is starting to feel his blood coming up to his face, "So you can buy bigger boats and hire people to wok for you in catching more fish then!"
The young man, still smiling answered, "So therefore my reward would be?"
Angrily, the old man said, "Don't you understand you can be so rich that you don't have to work anymore, you will have a fleet of boats and lots of people working for you, then you can have all the time in the world to lie on the beach and enjoy yourself."
And the young man happily replied, "What do you think I am doing now?"

A life of simplicity can be beautiful, and it calls to those who are willing to listen. An invitation to live our life we are meant to live, not the life maybe our next door neighbor is trying hard to achieve.To simplify our life is to pursue the things we value the most, not the worth of the giant billboards, glossy magazines and enticing TV advertisements. It beckons us to remove distractions the keeps us from living and enjoying our life to the fullest.
Because the moment we stop living our lives pursuing the world's definition of happiness, we start to be aware of the choice to feel happiness that has been right in front of us all along.


CHANGE

Hello, I am back, been to a long hiatus, but not anymore. Here I am and will again fill your minds with my rantings and insights about a lot of things. My mind is a wanderer, it even gone to places I myself have never been, and it always brings me back all the things it learned, seen and experienced along its journey.

It's been a while, and I've been here and there, still restless and longing for something new in my life. Since I turned 40, another life beginning, I left Saudi Arabia, went around Singapore and now back home and I am pretty sure not going to stay for that long as I need to keep moving.

Keeping in touch with my mentor/spiritual guide, we had been on an adventure together, of the mind that is. Not seeing in person, but through our long distance conversations, I was slowly evolving into someone that I am not accustomed to, yet excited to be. Let's put it this way, I am changing. I see things on a different light and perspective. I see and understand a little bit more about what is going on around me.

Still with me? I'd like to share with you guys, the journey I am about to take, the world I am about to see, and the secrets that will be revealed to me; a journey where I will be facing the greatest fear most of us wouldn't want to face. The fear of CHANGE. To change who we are, to go against the norm, to stand up against something, to not go with the flow, to not do what everyone else is doing.

CHANGE, the word itself brings a feeling of defense, shielding oneself from movement, from doing something not of the ordinary, to face oppositions and mockeries, even threats.

The world is ready for change, but I am not talking about the change in the way we live, but in the way we think. The technological revolution is so intense that we are already so much into the acquisition of the latest gadgets that makes our life a little bit easier. It used to be a touch of a button, but now it is but a swipe of our hand. I learned that there are two worlds existing at the moment in the world right now, the TECHNOSPHERE and the BIOSPHERE, and guess which world is bigger? Which world has more population? Which world has more problems?  We are so dependent to technology that we forget where it all began. We become too lazy, too insensitive and too darn busy with our modern world that we experience more needs than we can ever fill up.

With the current situation of the world today, we need more people who will care much about human, environment and spiritual connection rather than connecting through cables, signals and radiowaves.
The world need a drastic change in the way human kind thinks and acts. The world needs people that lives and not just exists.

We need a CHANGE. But who would want to? Why do we need to? Why even bother when we are so comfortable where we are now. We need to because as living creatures with souls, we need to evolve to a higher level of consciousness, the great Dec 21,2012 is not about the end of the world but a start of a wave of spiritual understanding and body/mind integration. But not all of us were aware of it, because of FEAR. Fear of "the end of the world" brought about by the fear to change, we naturally wouldn't want to be moved or rattled in our small little world that we built. That's the only place we feel safe, and as long as we keep it, we are safe. But being safe means being left behind. Right now there are great thinkers who are leveling themselves up to reach that place in their minds where they see the world in the different light, and instead of creating and inventing the latest mobile phone and fast paced computers, they are planning and talking about how to balance the world. Great thinkers going out of their way and using their knowledge and wisdom in order to create world where everyone else care as much about each other, the environment and their spirituality. To teach the world that there is an alternative way to live, far from worries and the problems, if we only stop, look and listen. They are out there, you see them in the books they write, in the projects they create that supports the environment, in the halls speaking about how to be a better and sensitive people, in a stranger who will share with you an insight that will make you think and have a deeper sense of being.

They say it is not easy to CHANGE, a chair is a chair, and a table is a table, and a chair will never be a table. But I am not talking of changing who you are, but changing the way you think. To become open to all the possibilities the universe are offering us, to accept a gift of wisdom and greater knowledge and use to to better yourself and to better your relationship with another person. To be free to express yourself to the best you can ever be. We are creatures of greatness and great power, if we only tap into that power, the world will be a better place.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

A New Beginning

Today is the beginning of a new life for me as I turned 40.
They say better and more exciting things may happen and I am sure it will. There were plans, many are fantastic and exciting and right now I am psyching myself for it. Getting ready for an adventure, to a more meaningful life.