Square One-How to Silence the mind.

Despite all the travails that we are being faced with, all the challenges that comes our way for better or worse we still have to trudge along and create our own course towards what we perceive as our goal tobe at the end of the day. Why was i born in the first place? Who puts me here or did I manifest myself into such a reality that i find myself in now or how i evolved into such an entity that is now crawling through this quagmire of what is called life. Do i have a choice to skip out of this game this phenomenon that i find myself in and how/
For years now even as this blogging has testified I have been grappling with the same question and the answer seems to evade my every probe and quest, leaving me with the same routine of living daily having dreams and expectations, loosing hope and surrendering to my egotistical cravings to fill up empty spaces and time. It is still like living in a limbo of not realizing that all is for not as it i all simply an illusion that i have i have manifested as i move along like a sponge absorbing all that I come across and digesting and regurgitating then repeating the process all over again like an earthworm.
However even earthworms has their function in this life and to have evolved from such a state into this human form which in terms of time would take some myriads of life times, has to mean something in the scale of existence. Here again at the expense of repeating myself, i quote the Buddha who is said to have said. "It is in this human form that you can realize 'Liberation from this circle of Life-Death -Rebirth.; don't waste time!" Over time these words soon become mere expressions, an intellectual understanding or spiritual cliche. The mind that has been in control of the whole game is still running in as many directions as it possibly can seeking ways and means to fulfill its sensual gratifications, or egotistical whims and fancies. Here does that leaves the one who truly seeks for answers as to , "Why was i born in the first place?" 
Hence the question remains a question perhaps till my dying day and i will still be groping in the dark wondering why i had been alive in the first place. Then again one of these days i might just wake up and find myself fully liberated already, just waiting to leave this shell that i call a body and move on to higher orders of the universe that is a part of who I am. Thoughts! Words! what do they amount to other than passing phases of trying to justify what i understand and what i am feeling about my own affairs in the scheme of things.Now, Silence , they say is Golden! 
So back to square one, how to silence the mind?
   . 

Challenges, opportunities, vexations, inspirations, and the rest of it will arise and disappear in the course of a lifetime, it is like riding he roller coaster or sailing the vast ocean. To face the challenges and grab the opportunities, to understand the cause of vexations and act upon the inspirations is the choices we make and act upon as we trudge along taking one step at a time. Giving up is not an option, it is in handling our daily choices that we make that eases the burden we feel that we are carrying upon our backs. Every single thing that happens to us comes from the external via our invitation knowingly or otherwise we crate our own scenario that allows for external events to intrude into our consciousness, most of the time without our knowledge or unconsciously. But holding on to the fact that we are the master of our own destiny all these intrusions can be overcome with 'right understanding' and correct actions to turn what is negative into positive; even just by acknowledging their presence.
A good example just happened even as I am writing this. A moment ago just browsing my face Book account, I lost it while watching a video of some Arab forum or whatever. I am now asked to renew my account because of some 'maleware; issue whatever that is. After years of using the same name and address wiht no problem now i have to make choices... like 'New Password', confirm my mobile number, blah blah blah.So much for Fb as far as I am concern it is history. But such is, I have been sucked into this FB crap and got addicted to it just like billions around the world. NO doubt it has its good side and like everything else in this life it has more ugly sides than good and yet it is a necessary tool if one is sucked into craving for information or so we believe.
In this day and age of instant knowledge we are bombarded with anything and everything we wish to know under the sun, 'the good,the bad and the ugly and anyone who knows how to serf the Internet, is served. It again boils down to choices on how or what is 
 being served and what is being consumed. Most young adult today has to endure the rigorous act of choice making that they are exposed to on the Internet and most have succumbed to its negative exposure and are trapped into a mindless state of absorption that has no limit to what is being taken into their mental state and how the mind reacts to it. From the most gruesome event happening on the street to the most raunchy episodes downloaded by porn groups teenager from the outermost rural areas of the countryside to the heart of the largest cities young adults are being fed daily by images that their parents have no idea whatsoever not too long ago. Choices are thrown out of the window and the mind is fully exposed to elements that even the mind is not capable of handling in some cases.
This is the scenario pretty much that is going on around the globe and it a way it is worse than the AIDS epidemic. There is little that can be done to control such massive exposure of he young human minds to such perverse images, but only through education and proper monitoring by parents; who has the time. Choices have to be made and they are not easy what with the rat race live we are living and this entry itself is like a broken record. self repeating message that is becoming redundant and in time obsolete. hence we make the choices and we live with the consequences, good or bad is a matter of the mind of the beholder.

Crappy day Blues.

It has been a scorcher for the past few months in Malaysia and the dams are running too low for comfort. Scattered rain showers but not enough to make a dent in the need for water that will soon be running out even for drinking. More and more cold blooded creatures like snakes and crocodiles are found in places that they would normally avoid like apartment complex and parking lots; perhaps looking for water or a cool spot. Tempers are flaring up left and right on the highways and barbershops and its is all accredited to the El Nino factor; whatever that is. All I can say is the globe is warming and it is getting hotter by the day. 
I have a very hard time getting my temper in check too as every attempt i have made towards getting something done is being hampered by walls beyond my perception and control. I am falling asleep, slowly drifting into the never never land of the walking dead where everyone moves around like Zombies and i find myself swimming up river with every attempt i make at getting something creative or positive done. Trying too hard to manufacture stuff out of the blue? or maybe still trying hard to justify my existence. Whatever it is it is not good. Maybe it is the weather, maybe it is just a passing phase or maybe it is just me, I'm just passing through some dark tunnels where there seem to be no light at the end. But i have been through this crap time and again and there is always something there to be dealt with. And this is called life and my mother told me that there'd be days like this.
So what do i opt to do? i write it all down as it is till there is no more to write about and this too will pass. Boredom is an illness that affects the rusty mind and a rusty mind will start to wander and create itself a nuisance getting attached to crap off the internet. or it will become a part of the ongoing nonsensical conversation happening around it. Worse still it will get all uptight and get involved in a fight over who came first into the barber shop. This is how the day has been and it is really not worth reading about but if you too have the same crappy day, hey, why not? The least i could d is to make an entry into my Blog for the day. After all this too is a past of knowing who I am; especially this! 

The End.- of Death.

Am I obsessed with the thought of 'Death' now that i am included among those that will be facing the experience in the not too distant future. Yes and no. Yes i am and should be as it is the one time one shot experience of all experiences and no, I am not obsessed as it is a very crucial part of my investigation in life of; my self- discovery. Simplistic as it may be this, this life long journey has opened my eyes if not my consciousness into many eventful experiences relatively connected to the issue of 'Death and Dying. Over the years i have witnessed and have been apart of the process in burying my family and friends who had passed away, young and old, due to various causes. There were those who died painfully for a long period of time, like my Brother, Gina, who died of Kidney failure and my brother-in-law Syed who died of throat cancer. Then there were my two nephews who died of motorcycle accidents and one who died of rat-piss poisoning in a matter of three days and the last one i was at the funeral was my nephew who was a drug addict for most of his life. In all I tried to understand whatever there was to understand when death occurs. The psycho emotional effects upon those left behind and the process of burial itself.
Perhaps there is nothing to learn as it is all a part and parcel of being alive as everything the lives will soon die one way or another and sooner or later. As it is, I still maintain that for me to understand death I have have to live life to the very best of my knowledge and ability. I have to taste every ups and downs and wade through the quagmire that lay before me and I have to feel most of all the heartbeat that pervades throughout every living thing in this Universe; I have to feel the Eternal within me. The deathless resides within me and it is this that is making the observations and the conclusions, it is this that is seeking to find the Truth about the Nature of Death without Fear; "Inallilahi Wa'innallilahi Rajiun." From Him I came, to Him I am returned..   

The deathless.

John 4:24 

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Giving God a form even as an idea that 'God is spirit', is misleading as God has no form whatsoever at least not as in the image that the human mind is capable of conjuring at least it is best no to place Him in any form whatsoever; spirit or otherwise. God Is and there is none but He. All the rest of i is merely Illusions, Maya, self created or mind created phantasms to support is very own existence. The 'Self' in its downward spiral from its original Divine nature or Buddha nature devolves into its egotistic nature, as in Islam it is called nafs. This lower nature as it is sometimes identified as is what must die before the actual death of the spirit can take place.

The death of the ego is the long process of what i call the journey of 'self discovery', the way towards finding out the truth about who I am and who I am in relation to the Whole to God. How do I give up my ego or my nafs without creating more delusions as i plummet down towards the depth of ignorance and forever trapped in the web of this cycle of life death and rebirth. How do i escape from the grasping of Maya and falsehood of mental formations. As in Islam, I would ask, how do i tear myself through these veils that has been shrouding me from seeing the truth of what this life is all about. 

"The Bible compares death to sleep more than fifty times. After death we are asleep, we are unconscious; we are not aware of the passing of time or of what is going on around us. That is what death is like as well. The Bible says, “for the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing… their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished” (Ecclesiastes 9:5, NKJV, see also Psalm 146:4; 115:17). 

When we have been able to say, I, am no more, we have detached ourselves from all our attachments to our preconceived ideas and conditioned living as an entity called man. We are able to shed our veils and free our spirit from the shackles of ignorance and slothfulness by being awakened through developing our conscious awareness of our true nature, that which was before our parents even conceived us to be so. It is said in the Holy Scriptures of the People of the Book that, every soul prior to being conceived had made a covenant with the Creator in acknowledging that there is only God and none but He, in Truth. In understanding the significance of this itself is the answers to what 'a free spirit' means and who we truly are. A free spirit is unbounded by self propagated ideas and beliefs and it is free from egocentric delusions that has infested those who has slipped far from their original (Buddha) Nature, their Atman, their Ruh ul Kudus; that which is imperishable, deathless. 

No- Dual Thinking Mind

The closest i can come to as an answer when trying to deal with death is to live life to the fullest and understand every aspect of living within and without, one's self. This what it means to know who you are, to be fully cognizant of your origin and what you are inherently made up of. Scientifically, spiritually, mentally physically; who Am I? Who is asking? Who is making all these observations? Who is making al these errors? The journey towards self realization is not merely a philosophical idea, or a religious doctrine, it is your own personal investigation towards finding your higher and true self; that which is 'Deathless.'
Not because it is written or or prophesied, nor because some great friend or Guru told you so, not because an Imam shouted it out from the pulpit, nor because your mind has come to its own conclusion; it must be from your heart of hearts that felt it so. The one facing death will ultimately be only you and only you can overcome the fear of death itself. When you have come to a complete self realization of who or what you are in relation to the 'Whole' or the 'One', you will know that you are nothing but the source itself, that you belong to the source; that which you originate from. "I, Am No More!" I never was and will never be I am merely a manifestation of the 'Whole', the Universe, God, or call it what you may- even 'The Force.' But when your time is up or when your journey ends as this human form, when your physical self is separated from your 'consciousness', as a being, you are empty of your own self, you are perhaps 'absolute consciousness' itself'. You become One with or merged into the Absolute.
Hence the cessation  'Dual thinking Mind', the conditioned mind that sees itself as an entity of its own that is separated from the rest of existence itself; the Whole.

• Advaya, the nonduality of conventional and ultimate truth in Madhyamaka Buddhism, or nonduality of relative and Absolute reality in Chinese Buddhism. In Buddhist Madhyamaka it means that there is no absolute, transcendent reality beyond our everyday reality, and while things exist, they are ultimately "empty" of any existence on their own.^[5][6] In Chinese Mahayana it means that there is no absolute difference between the relative world and "absolute" reality. In Yogacara, it refers to the idea of nondualism of cognition and that which is cognited.- Wikipedia.

  
  " There is an ayat in Quran that says words to the effect that a mirage is seen in the desert, and you see a water and are thirsty, you go toward it and then you find nothing, and then it says There you find Allah. If we understand that Being is like a mirage of Maya, Mara, Dukkha, and Dunya, then what we find is where there is nothing, i.e. the Mirage is empty. Then it is precisely where we recognize the emptiness of Illusion that we find Allah." 'QUORA -Kent Palmer.

In short and simplistic way of saying it, I cannot worship God, that would make two of us, the me and God, this is shirik in Islam, when there are two. I have to seize to be and there is only God in existence. The i have become non=existent, "I, Am no more!"  Not only is my physical body dead but so is my soul and all that is - being me. It is said that if one dies as a Muslim with the profess that 'There is no God. only Allah as one's final words,' one is assured of heaven in the afterlife. This is what Muslims in general hold on to as their faith in Allah but the Sufis in Islam have a different view and theirs are more in the non-dualistic way approaching the religion worth understing.

to be cont. 

The right Way to Die?

To continue my train of thoughts from my previous entry about being able to die fully conscious and in control of one's faculties would be a miracle and defies all logic. Fear is the key factor and to be able to overcome alone does not mean that one is there or one has attained liberation from the cycles of life, death and rebirth. There numerous other factors to take into consideration, like what if you die in the hospital with all kinds of tubes sticking into you pumping all kinds of different drugs to keep you from howling in pain? Your mind has been drugged and being under sedation there is little of you left to even think of what death means or what lies beyond. What if you die being shot in the street or run over by a speeding truck? No time to think there either, so you just are gone, separated from your physical self and where you end up as a result is still a question no one has the full answer to except what is written in the scriptures, the Quran or the Bible or the various other Holy scriptures like the Vedas and the Tibetan Book of he Dead. Your choice of read. 
Or you have faith in what you are told or taught by your elders, those who hold knowledge of the spiritual nature in your culture, like the Shaman and the Medicine man. In societies where the organized religions have found its way into, death is a great mystery governed by fear and out of this fear is the respect for life; we call it superstitions. Those who live in the forest or far off places not touched by the so called modern civilization including its religious schools and psychological and analytical thoughts are very close to the death experience as their lives are a constant challenge of trying to stay one step ahead from it, day and night, from moment to moment; death comes with no explanation. 
Among my Chinese friends I find death as a taboo subject to chat about, just simply don't think about it, (too much). Among my Muslim friends and relatives, the older one gets ad as death approaches one's doorsteps, the more pious one becomes.
There is no way of Figuring out what is the right approach when it comes to the subject of death. 

    

Only He knows The truth.

"A day of no work is a day without food," an old saying too old to remember who said it but always stays fresh in my mind. Bottom line is, you do not deserve to be where you are if you have not done your share of sustaining the universe. Too far too deep perhaps for this early in the morning; 1;30 am. Outside of my gate, by the roadside a lonely man is going through the garbage bin looking for recycle-able items to earn his next meal perhaps. Offered him one Malaysian Ringgit, all the small change I have in my pocket and he ask if there is any leftover chicken that he can feed his cats, this being a restaurant. I told him none as most have been thrown away when they do the cleaning.He is a skinny old man my age but looks like time worn out and claims to be from around here, rides an old bicycle. Such Is.
Who and how is our fate decided for us? One being born the son of a minister and the other a by product of a drug addict/ One being born to become a triathlon while the other strapped to the bed with tubes sticking into every orifices in the body. Who planned the big picture that has decided for us to be who we are. This is an age old question that saints ans sages have grappled with, philosophers and thinkers have tried to untangle but none have been able to serve us with a digestible answer other than God, The Creator, Allah (SWT).I accept the fact that I was created or placed upon this earth by some higher Being beyond description Omnipotent, Omnipresent and I am nothing more than a speck of dirt on the foot of a cow in comparison. But I am a mindless speck of dirt like the cow, i am capable of discerning my state of affairs and my position as a human being even if this state in time is merely a speck on the scale of eternity. 
The question still hammers in my mind mind for and answer, who Am I and why am I here? There is not a day that passes that I had not stop to ponder this issue just like I am doing right this moment. I keep reminding myself that if i have to think, i wish to think on a grand scale, not if Russia's Putin has an account number in the Panama Leaks or if Syrians would ever find sanity in the aftermath of the what the county is going through. I wish to understand why God created me and the rest of the Universe the way it is. it is easy to take 'God works in mysterious ways' for an answer and go about pretending that life is all about Love and Compassion and that it will all come to an end when The Lord decides to close His Book on Life.
Throughout the history of mankind in my humble opinion only the Buddha came close to untangling the tangle. Gautama Buddha pursued the issue to the very end and is said to have attained liberation from this cycle of Life-Death and Rebirth. Yet I wonder if The Creator approves of His Way. Other than transmigration or Karmic evolution in the form of reincarnation, the Buddha does not talk much about death or the hereafter like the Muslims and the Christians, nor did He of God. You do good in this life, your next life will get better, you don't you keep coming back and evolve until you are fully awakened from this so called life. You self heaven or hell as you move along evolving from one state to another. Islam and the rest of the religions of the Book does not concur with this Way of looking at life, it is Heaven or Hell depending on if God is pleased or pissed with you and there is only this life for you to work with. 
According to Islam  when the last person walks three steps away from your grave the angels will ask you questions of your faith, who do you worship and so forth. It is hard to imagine the state of mind I would be in depending on how i died and buried that i can answer these questions spontaneously, but this is what having absolute faith is, that it is possible. That your faith will outweigh your fears and your clarity of mind will be present when this and questioning happens. Hence it all depends on your state of mind and your faith in your belief; not in what you think you should believe. Back to the conditioned mind, the dual thinking mind the mind that is trapped ni the worldly illusions; Maya.Religious faith does not encourage logical thinking, if it does than to die fully conscious would make better sense but fear aside can a man die and be buried fully conscious of what is happening to him?; Impossible?
Perhaps this is why Islam requires the faithful to pray five times a day among other numerous practices such as Zikr and observing the special rites during the fasting month. It is in a way to keep reminding the mind or Allah and His Infinite Mercy especially in the hour of death. The merits earned by one's devotion is the saving factor that will see you through through the journey in the afterlife. It is like training the mind to stay focus on the remembrance of The Lord no matter what happens.Not allowing the mind to take or loose control through fear and confusion of one's self in the face of death. This is total submission to the Will of Allah, not an iota of doubt must come in between you and the faith you have in Him.
Thus from Him i come to Him I return. He is Al-Hak, the One Who owns; all belongs to Him.
 Only He knows The Truth.  

Stop breathing and you are dead.

After having written so much for so long I feel like I am repeating my stories, like a broken record, like a needle stuck in a groove or a train on a railroad track; I am always regurgitating. Have i not told this already? Like the song says, "Like a circle in a spiral...like wheel within a wheel, Like a snowball on a mountain, never ending nor beginning, like an ever spinning wheel..." cannot remember the title but a song by Jose Feliciano that I used to sing when I was a teenager. But its okay, i am spinning on my own dime and not to anyone else's woven web. What else is there to do but to write my thoughts out for the evening.
The reason I have spun such a long yarn about myself over the years is not simply to puke out my feelings thoughts and imaginations but to also help me keep track of how many times i keep being this same state of mind and how long i would dwell on it and how i move on from it.,,singing, and this too will pass. Soon enough one starts to realize that life is a circle in a spiral, an ever spinning wheel... and there is little that can be done but to observe it with consciousness, not judging or attachment, no likes or dislikes, just being in the moment; from moment to moment. At this age in life had i not understood this, what is the sense in all my of my journey of so called 'self' discovery? Even if i see it for just one moment in time it is worth all the moments in my life long experience.
There is no observer or the observed, a moment ago then i had to make this entry and the moment is gone but the feeling lingers on making it possible for me to make the moment lost worthwhile at the end of the evening, I am sharing it with you. Where are you at, at this moment? Are you aware of your breathing? Are you trying to make sense of what I am saying? If you are, take a slow deep breath and feel what i am feeling, be with me for the moment in time. Touch that which you truly are and become consciousness itself, the Universe in breathing with you, within and without you. Do you feel it? This is the center that you seek, so be with it. Your breath is a circle, a circle within a circle, never ending nor beginning... stop breathing and you are dead.
So, I 'm running in a circle, a Karmic cycle of life, death and rebirth and i am doing it consciously, not all the time, but getting close to most of the time. The second greatest thing God created was woman; the first was life itself. A life that is not well lived is as good as living as a mindless zombie or the un-dead. To live life and not attain self realization is like is a waste of a life time. When you next look in a mirror, ask yourself with big smile, "Who Am I?" "How far or how near ,am I, in being in this state of being, Who I am?, or does it matter, I still got to go to work and take the kids to work and do the laundry. Such Is; Life. Like a swinging door. you breath in, it swings in, you breath out it swings, stop breathing and you are dead. 

Eat, Sleep, Shit- sit and watch the grass grow.

My body, my mind my spirit, my soul and who am I? As i get older conversations carried out around me more than often hits the health department where Diabetes and high blood pressure being the main topic of interest. i try to avoid being sucked into the details of someone else's blood or sugar counts and don't really know what mine is like but i am contented to keep an open awareness of my physical self in accordance with my mental as well as spiritual self. If I can maintain a good working balance on all this, I feel i am perfectly healthy; the minor aches and pains are just worn out parts from years of use and abuse. 
I love myself, my body, mind and spirit or whatever have you that spells, Me. I am not perfect, far from it I have made numerous errors in life that by right i should not be allowed to keep on living. There should be a law against people like me for just being who I am, or who I think i am. My mental and health clinical track records are not that impressive but i might say above average seeing that i have put myself through the grind over the years of my adult existence; been there, done that more than the average John Doe. Originally creeping out of the mud-hole in a  mangrove swamp to flying Emirates Air Business Class from Malaysia to Rome via Dubai at the cost of next to nothing, i have been places and proud to say so now. On looking back I should be proud of my long and winding road towards being who I am or should i say becoming who i am. If my son had not revoked the privilege, i could be flying First Class on Emirates Air, but that is another story.  
I told my daughter while having dinner at McDonald's yesterday that i had envisioned how my children would look like when i was a teenager and believe that the mind is powerful enough to create its own image of what it wants with proper instructions to do so. I am positive that this has happened at least in the physical sense, if not mental. never overlook the power of suggestion in the workings of the mind, I told her. If the mind is trained to think creatively, nothing can stand in its way except a negative thought. Human consciousness is the frontier that is least understood and its potential is not fully utilized by most of us. It is still considered under the topic of mumbo- jumbo where most people are concern. The power that is inherent within our consciousness is beyond our ability to comprehend unless it is being put under the microscope of intense scrutiny and allowed to manifest with patience and guidance. For anything to manifest through our consciousness will take time ad it has to run through the process of restructuring our preconditioned mental states; our conditioned belief system.
Once I have suggested to my mind an idea or a thought process consciously, i set in motion a whole gamut of restructuring of my mental state from the molecules of atoms to the brain cells, the physical body to the external environment and this process is often subjected to being side tracked or hijacked by other thought processes imposed upon me by the external circumstances. Of these , I have to apply my consciousness in making sure that i remain on track even subconsciously; falling unconscious is detrimental to the process. 
Hence we meditate, some of us, keeping our mind focus and not led astray by external circumstances or mental distractions. Others take up cycling, or jogging or cooking; whatever it may be our daily activity keeps us from being dispersed to the winds of change like helpless children. It is when we loose sight of who we truly are that we become just another nonentity like another brick in the wall. Which is perfectly fine as most of us are happy just the way we are, no questions asked and no answers needed. Eat, Sleep, Shit and sit and watch the grass grow.   

Why Worry?

It has been awhile now that I have sat to seriously reminisce my life thus far and there is no special reason for it other than the fact there is little to reminisce about. Whatever there is of life there is really little to be excited about as the global as well as local situation keeps spiraling downwards towards its own demise or so it seems. Try as I may to trump up a more cheerful image of life i still find myself sinking like in a quicksand with little to cling on to. So, for those who have been following this Blog expecting to find some pearls of wisdom, i offer my apologies and let us hope that there will be a silver lining at the end of this dark tunnel we are all going through. 
We are living in dark times and i hope that we are fully awaken to this fact and not go on living in denial and make believe that all is okay and that tomorrow the sun will rise and the rain will fall. For one thing the rain is not falling, well at least not in my neck of the woods and we are running out of water as most of the dams are dried up.It is in a way a good wake up call for all the various government departments responsible for the sources and water supplies the country depends on. There is a Malay saying,"Siap payung sebelum hujan'" or ready the umbrella before it rains. Malaysians are known for allot of sayings but we are also known for a whole lot of nothing doing. As it is there is still a great deal of foot dragging getting the country set to face the inevitable except perhaps some prayers being performed in mosques and temples to ask for rain from God. Perhaps we might even a native American rain dancer or two to help with the cause.
With the latest revelation by the Panama Leaks, corruption is ever on the rise from top to bottom in just about every corner of the planet where you find humans. Even as the prime Minister of Iceland is being made to resign his post there many others who shamelessly cling to their power despite the fact that they have been proven of similar guilt, exploiting and manipulating the masses with their money not their own but the people's. my country is in the forefront of this gamut. Malaysia is headed for a big splash and it is not going to be water but against a hard rock and when it does happen as it is bound to, heavens have mercy on us all. The Vision 2020 that has been our target of achieving economic stability and developed nation status will become a nightmare that all of us rich and poor alike are dreading deep in our hearts but too scared to admit openly. We are best when living in denial. It is not happening in my backyard, so why worry?